Safety is an attitude

[speakerme]

Hello

A friend of mine, George Mitchko, was a machinist and was wearing safety glasses while sharpening a tool at the grinder. He told me that he felt a tremendous whomp in the gut, and then woke up at the hospital. After about two hours of surgery, all of the grinding wheel fragments larger than a 1/16 of an inch were removed from his abdomen. George was in a way a mentor to me stirring my interest in machining. Later after I had graduated from medical school I cant tell you how many times I sewed up mangled fingers, removed foreign bodies from eyes, or help prepare patient for extensive tendon repair or amputations - - all related to machine tool accidents.

We need to keep our body parts working and in good function!

Think Safety, This discussion has helped remind me of my own shortcomings in the garage.

Best Wishes

Chuck M

 

[peteski]

Just something I seen at a shop sometime ago.

" You can walk with a wooden leg"
" You can eat with false teeth"
" But you can't see with a glass eye"

Fill out the order form now while you can still see the color choices. Please "ALWAYS WEAR SAFETY GLASSES".

So many young people both machinist's and office people don't have any idea how it feels to have a piece of steel or metal in their eye so they don't wear safety glasses all of the time wear I work. Peteski

 

[steamer]

Exploding wheels are nasty....the AlOX under your skin results in all kinds of health problems ..sometimes for life. To say nothing of the schrapnel.

I saw some pretty amazing wheel explosions....luckily from a distance.

Dave

 

[steamer]

My beloved 6 year old twins love to come watch me in the shop. Their safety goggles ( they make them kid sized!) are on the hook at the door. One does not come in with out the other! My stubborn son ( can't imagine where he gets that from....hym) sometimes argues with me about it but nothing doin...My daughter who actually comes out more often just puts them on. No questions asked.

 

[wareagle]

steamer, glad to hear that you have your little 'uns in the habit. :bow: Mini-Me is the same. When he comes in the shop, he automatically puts them on without having to be told. He'll also remind you if you aren't wearing yours and that the shop requires glasses to be worn at all times.

 

[steamer]

Had the kids in the shop last weekend.

One on right and one on the left while using the lathe

My daughter reached out and grabbed a long stringy chip........NOT good

No harm done, but I stopped the lathe immediately.

I ..gently...admonished her to not do that and decided that an example was required

I took a piece of 1" bar and blew a 1/4" plus hole through the side.

I chucked it up and put in a big boring bar.

I then took a piece of 1/4" round brass 18" long and handed it to my son.

Bend that ! I said......he tried but couldn't

I then handed it to my daughter with the same instructions.

again...nothing, still straight as an arrow....

I then stuck about 1" of the rod into the cross drilled hole and rested the rest on the boring bar.

With the late set to about 1000 RPM, I moved the kids to the far side of the shop, stepped aside my self and made sure they were watching with their goggles on.

I turned the lathe on and as you could probably imagine with a lathe this size, the brass rod disappeared in a blink with much noise and commotion.

No harm to the lathe of coarse.....

I then took the conglomeration out of the chuck and handed to my kids one at a time and said...straighten it.

as you might imagine, nothing doing......made our selves a fine looking coil spring we did!

I then said, " If you can't straighten it out, what makes you think you can keep yourself from getting sucked in?

That hit home.......they don't touch things moving anymore

Dave

 

[rake60]

We had a man at work get wrapped up with a stringer from a lathe once.
It whipped out and wrapped around his torso. The machine caught the stringer
again and pulled it back cutting right into this guys ribs.
If it had wrapped a few inches below his ribs things could have been uglier
than they were.

Rick

 

[ChooChooMike]

Read a line somewhere that said something to the effect of :

Many safety rules, regulations, procedures are often written in BLOOD.

Meaning that somebody died or was hurt doing something which there is now a rule about. Think that was from a railroad worker safety comment. Yes, there are MANY of what may be stupid rules, but often there's a reason that we may have never considered.

Mike