Gloves in the shop

Agreed: NO GLOVES! Had to "remind" a student who transferred into the machine tool program from the automative side. He kept on wanting to wear the mechanix brand gloves in the shop. Stop the machine and use a chip rake or similar to remove swarf.0952009-23.jpg
 
I do use nitrile gloves to keep my hands relatively clean when degreasing or oily messy cleaning jobs. But that is only for non-machining type situations.
 
Having seen a farm hand jump from a stake bed truck and leave his wedding ring behind, (including finger) I stopped wearing mine. Don't know where it is now. Still have the wife, though. And all 10 fingers. Two got broken when a 165# part fell from a faceplate on a lathe and a thumb got a screw driver slot in the end from a band saw, but that's all after 55 years of active work.
 
I work at the Lansing Grand River Assembly plant in Lansing, MI. Our leadership required team members on the floor to wear gloves when working on the car to prevent mutilations from rings, etc. on the painted car. Then we had a team member use a gloved hand to hold a socket/bolt on center when driving the bolt. A gloved finger got snagged in the Atlas-Copco motor and he lost his finger. One the plus side, plant leadership changed the gloved team member rule figuring it's easier to fix a scratch on a car than it is to replace a missing finger.
 
Hands, finger and loose clothing don't belong anywhere near rotating bits or anything that cuts while its in motion. Gloves or no gloves.

I also make sure I am not in line or in front of the cutting surface.

These two simple rules have gotten me through my 50 years of life with all my digits and no injuries to speak of over a career of working on, around and in machinery.

And yup, I wear gloves pretty much everywhere. Mechanix gloves all around the shop and a rubber/latex coated fabric glove (pretty much like a layer of skin) around the lathe.

It's not about the gloves, its about keeping your mind on the task at hand. Reaching in to a work area with your hand to grab a chip or curl is bad practice no matter how you slice it. Slice it is the key word here.

I'm almost always wearing ear defenders around anything that makes more than conversation type noise (a lifetime around jet engines and bad tinitus as a result will do that to you) and eye glasses go on (and come off) at the shop door. Rings, watches, etc are things I don't wear, just something I picked up when I started in aerospace soo long ago. Not even my wedding band.

Lots will disagree wih the way i look at it. So be it.

SA is king as far as I'm concerned. If you stay aware, you stay alive. That's the way it is at my work and my shop at least.

:)
 
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I worked with machinery and electronics(much if it was hi-voltage tube) so I don't wear any jewelry of any kind. One time a woman at a restaurant noticed that I did not wear a wedding ring. I explained to her that my wife knows that I love her so that was not an issue. Also she loves me enough that she does not want me to lose any body parts or worse.
 
I have used some gloves occasionally. What I found is that it gives me a false sense of security and I become reckless then do stupid things. So far no finger loss, "knock on wood." I remember hearing or reading "no gloves in the metal machine shop" because of safety and because you loose that tactile sense of cleanliness, when mounting tooling and work on the machine. I.E. are there any chips/swarf that are going to foul my set up?
Tim
 
Many shops do not allow watches or rings to be worn. Long hair and neck chains are also forbidden.

Did I ever mention the time I got my long hair caught in the lead screw , errrrrr

Stuart
 
It's not just the metal work shop... We had a lawyer who got his tie caught in the office paper shredder. It pulled his head almost to the machine before someone managed to help him.

I guess some people are just accident prone.

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