Close Call / Lesson Learned.

Mark in Indiana

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Hello Friends,

Sometimes, even us old dogs need to learn new tricks. Or we need to be reminded by God that you can get hurt if you're not careful.

Some time back, I was cleaning the dynamic jaw section of a vise that I was restoring. I had clamped it in my vise to work on (see first picture). While I was wire brushing that jaw section, it slipped out of the vise and crashed onto the floor. Thankfully, it didn't hit me.

So I blocked and re-clamped my workpiece in the vise (see second picture). So the lesson here is to test the clamped workpiece before starting to work on it.

Any other "Close Call / Lesson Learned" stories out there?

BAD CLAMP.jpg GOOD CLAMP.jpg
 
Stuff coming loose from the vice/clams? Routinely.
Loosing my grip on a tool? Often.
Jamming a bit in the drill press? Usually.

I was taught to work on high-end cars. So when something slips, don't try and grab it. You WILL slam it into some very expensive paint!

So, I jump backwards and watch which way it bounces. Pick it up and try again.

The worst part of fumbling something while in an engine bay: Not hearing it hit the floor.
 
I doubt you will injure yourself using EvapoRust, I threw my wire wheels away.
 
Mike,
Your story reminds me of a guy that I worked with in a maintenance shop:
He was drilling a piece of steel with a large drill press. The workpiece wasn't clamped. He was holding it with his right hand. He was also bent down to examine the work. At the point where the drill bit caught the workpiece, it spun around and hit his jaw. He suffered a broken jaw and lost 6 teeth.
 
I nearly lost a nipple yesterday.
I was polishing a short length of aluminium tube when I misjudged the angle of feed into the buff, it grabbed it, flung it to the back of the shroud where it spun out at an amazing rate of knots and caught me just under the nipple.
Bugger it really hurt.:bawling:
 
I was a welder helper and pipefitter for a long while. We used the massive dewalt grinders with a twisted wire wheel to clean rust and slag off of pipe bevels and welds.
Safety glasses and a face shield were mandatory.
Even whith all that I had a wire come off and imbed itself in the end of my nose.
A few thousands to the left and it might have ended up in my eye, a few to the right and it would have went up my nostrile.
I have a nice scar to show, and I now use cup brushes.

Sent from somewhere in East Texas Jake Parker
 
I like a lot of the job safety rules and advances in PPE. When I got into the trades in the early 80s, you may to have safety glasses, that were just horn rimmed with side shields. I used to work with extruders. many times we had to burn the plastic off of the extrusion screws and wire brush them with a massive cup wheel. I pulled a lot of shrapnel out of my skin during those years. I wish they had the quality of safety glasses and face shields back then, that they have now.
 
As I mentioned before, I have never been seriously injured by my own stupidity. I've had help twice which earned me trips to the hospital for stiches. The last one was over 15 years ago. Have you ever been hit in the face with a backhoe? It's not fun. I work alone now.

In high school (maybe middle school?) shop class, there were safety oriented posters scattered about the walls. One that burned itself into my memory is a reminder to always clamp one's work. The drawing depicts a drill press with the workpiece spinning freely. The "lines of movement" occupy the same space in the drawing as the operator's body.

So, the personal safety lessons were early and stuck.

Never trusting others with heavy equipment took a bit longer.
 
New close call today:
While laying under my cargo van, squirting penetrating oil mix on rusted screw threads of fasteners to be removed, some of the mix landed on my safety glasses...instead of my eye! The penetrating oil mix that I use is a homemade mixture of ATF and acetone. So my glasses were ruined from the acetone. Thankfully not my eye.

The reason that I'm posting this is because avoiding eye injury by wearing safety glasses is cheap...eye injury isn't.
 
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