Close Call / Lesson Learned.

whenever you're trying to loosen a stuck bolt, always be aware of where your hands will go when it lets go. Punched through a thumbnail once, which wasn't very pleasant.

Something people often don't do when grinding stuff is use a breathing filter. Just because you can't see some of the stuff coming off your grinding or wire wheel, doesn't mean it can't find its way down to the bottom of your lungs.
 
whenever you're trying to loosen a stuck bolt, always be aware of where your hands will go when it lets go. Punched through a thumbnail once, which wasn't very pleasant....snip...

Had my fair share of bruised/cut/rust-embedded knuckles from that too.

Gave up on pushing or pulling wrenches against stuck bolts years ago! All my hand wrenches are dented where I hit 'em with a hammer to produce large amounts of torque over a very short length of time. No more trips to the first aid box after that [cussing expletive cuss] stuck nut finally let go.

Better yet: Impact wrench. Turn it down to start on smaller fasteners. Slowly increase the power, reverse direction.

Last skinned knuckle was from an angle grinder.
 
Safety glasses. I was on a pour in the late '60s. Hard had and safety glasses recommended. One of the guys picked the blue wrench to cut a piece of re-rod. I hollered at him to pull his safety glasses out of his curly hair and put them on his face. He grumbled, but put them on and attacked the re-rod. The torch started cutting then backfired. It blew molten steel into the center of his right safety glass. He took them off, looked at me and said "thanks".
 
Helping nephew replace rusted brakes on a boat trailer. He had cut off rusted bolts with a 4" angle grinder and could not get vice grips in the confined space to remove the rest of the bolts.
I used the grinder (thin cut off blade,no guard) to cut a square on the end of the bolt to drive a 12 point socket on. Square was slightly oversize so had to GRIND it a little. As he could not find the grinding disc, I used the cut off blade to lightly take off some metal. Had almost finished when the blade disintegrated, one piece taking off the tip of my thumb and another embedding itself 3/4" in my calf. If I had been using it vertically instead of horizontally it probably would have hit me in the face/torso/testicles. Lessons learnt (again), Do not use cutting disc for grinding, Do not use grinder without guard and NEVER have cutting disc spinning in line with your face.
John.
 
Had my fair share of bruised/cut/rust-embedded knuckles from that too.

Gave up on pushing or pulling wrenches against stuck bolts years ago! All my hand wrenches are dented where I hit 'em with a hammer to produce large amounts of torque over a very short length of time. No more trips to the first aid box after that [cussing expletive cuss] stuck nut finally let go.

Better yet: Impact wrench. Turn it down to start on smaller fasteners. Slowly increase the power, reverse direction.

Last skinned knuckle was from an angle grinder.

I don't hit wrenches or breaker bars, I've had too many lift and round off the bolt head. I'd rather soak with PB Blaster (or similar), walk away and then use alternating heat and freeze spray to get it off. Impact wrench would be nice though, one day :)
 
I don't hit wrenches or breaker bars, I've had too many lift and round off the bolt head. I'd rather soak with PB Blaster (or similar), walk away and then use alternating heat and freeze spray to get it off. Impact wrench would be nice though, one day :)

My dad can do the heat/cool thing. I wind up melting things. :eek:

It does take a bit of practice to strike a wrench with a hammer.
During each strike, you have to sense if the wrench moved. Is that movement from: A) the fastener breaking loose, B) the wrench slipping or C) the bolt/stud breaking?

Most likely::disspirited: B) STOP and reposition or get a better condition wrench.
Most desirable::applause 2: A) One more strike to confirm and reverse for one strike. More penetrant. Switch to cheater bar or long handled ratchet. Work it back-and-forth (More penetrant) until removed.
Aw crap::cry: C) Flail away! The left-hand drill bits and heli-coil kits are in the leftmost, bottom tool box, top drawer.

HF will sell you a good-enough-for-a-homeowner compressor and impact wrench for around US$100.00. Less, if you remember where you put the coupons. :confused 3:
 
As a young man working in a machine shop on a cold winter morning I was in the back of the shop grinding welds on a steel frame with a 9" angle grinder. I was wearing a face shield and hearing protectors and could not hear anything other that the whine of the grinding. When doing repetitive tasks I tend to zone out and get lost in the work. I was in my own world and oblivious to my surroundings.

Out of nowhere I was full on tackled and pummeled by one of my coworkers. Thinking this was a really stupid prank I pushed him off and jumped up ready to battle. Before I could move in I was blasted with a CO2 fire extinguisher. Despite the obvious safety precautions it never occurred to me my flannel shirt was flammable. The stream of sparks off the grinding wheel had caught my shirt on fire.

The front of my flannel shirt had burned away up to the pocket and my t-shirt was scorched. Fortunately I suffered no burns. I'm grateful my coworkers were around and quick to respond.

Jay
 
That reminds me of the first shop I worked in there was a young man about my age. One morning that Winter I was running a drill press when this young man ran pass everyone heading to the restroom. I noticed his back pant's pocket had a shop towel on fire. One of the older co-workers tried to stop him but was nearly bowled over. They found him trying to stuff his foot in the toilet bowl. He wasn't hurt if I remember correctly. Some of the guys were talking afterwards if he had ran out the back door he could have been burned seriously. Even with a little snow on the ground I doubt he would have thought to drop and roll. Strange how your story brought back that old memory.
 
I got a good one, I clamped a piece of alum in the kurt to be machined, cnc, it was only holding maybe .100, doing a profile cut, the first pass it made I knew I programmed to much stepover, so I tried to compensate by slowing the feed rate down a bit. it made several pass while I was taking pictures, I moved to a better position for lighting and pointed my phone at the work piece and BOOM! I snapped the pic, the part was gone, it landed after bouncing off the far wall, the picture was a little blurry from my reaction, the part didn't make the picture... it wrecked the part of course which I didn't have much time into except squaring, but it wrecked a $35 end mill on its way to flight. had I not moved for better lighting I would surely have been struck by that part. to remedy the issue, I bought some steel and machined up a set of Dove-Grip (tm) jaws, which have dovetails machined on them, which when needed I can install them and machine a smaller dovetail in the parts and it latches on to them good. That was my first bad lesson in cnc
 
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