Files and Lathes

[rake60]

Today I was doing a job made from solid stock that required a hole to be drilled
through it before going to my CNC machine.
We have a tired old Gishold turret lathe in the middle of the CNC shop to do that.
We chuck up the cast stock, true up the face, skin the OD so it will run concentric
to the drilled hole then drill it.

I was using a file to break the sharp corner on the OD and a coworker came over
and said:
"I can tell you didn't have George for a shop instructor in school. He would have
have rapped your knuckles with a 12" scale for using a file with your right hand.
It puts your elbow too close to the chuck."

I've thought about that comment all day.
Even on a small scale, holding a file in your left hand seems much safer.

Little thought can make a BIG difference!

Rick

 

[Powder keg]

Also it is important to have a handle on a file. A friend of mine was cleaning up some threads on a lathe and had a triangle file go through the palm of his hand. Pretty close to the middle of the palm of his hand. Very hurtful If there had been a handle on it it would have prevented it.

Wes

 

[BobWarfield]

I have handles on all my files--they're cheap and a lot more comfortable than a raw file.

RE right vs left hand, on a really small lathe (like mine), my elbow is nowhere near the chuck. You have to be mindful of where all the parts of your body are in relation to spinning parts all the time. You have to think about what's going to happen if something is sucked in. Can you reach the E-stop? Have you visualized reaching for the E-Stop and tried it a couple times so it will be automatic? Are you holding the file or sandpaper or whatever in such a way that it will be snatched out of your hand rather than dragging your hand into the whirling bits?

The scariest for me on a lathe are the big long stringers that seem to want to levitate towards your body parts. This is where I really like having variable speed because a quick twist of the knob usually knocks off the stringer and prevents another from forming. I hate to think what might happen if one of those razor sharp stringers got wrapped around a finger or wrist.

I find most of my shop injuries are (thankfully) minor cuts having to do with accidentally encountering swarf (which I'm very respectful of yet it still happens a lot) or encountering an edge on a piece of metal that is unexpectedly sharp. I have more trouble with Chinese imported tools like collet chucks having unexpected edges that cut like a razor. Once I find one I take a file to it, but somehow I seem to find them by getting cut first. Part of it is that the edges can be so sharp you don't even notice you've been cut until quite a while later.

Cheers,

BW

 

[te_gui]

I was always taught to file/burr either on top of the part with the spindle in reverse, or on the underside. This lessens the chance of a jaw smacking the file back at you. Longer files are better too in this regard, keeping the end well past the jaw zone.

Brian

 

[tmuir]

Also it is important to have a handle on a file. A friend of mine was cleaning up some threads on a lathe and had a triangle file go through the palm of his hand. Pretty close to the middle of the palm of his hand. Very hurtful If there had been a handle on it it would have prevented it.

Wes

I have handles on all my files but that would of never occurred to me and send shivers up my spine just thinking about it.
ANother good tip to remember

 

[agr]

This is one of the few situations where it is fortunate to be left handed - the "safe" approach comes naturally.

Using hand power drills where the palm of your left hand automatically locks in the trigger latch (where do you buy a left handed power drill?? ???) , or the thumb switch on the angle grinder being on the wrong side - they both lead to "interesting" situations when it all goes pear shaped .