Don't leave the key in the lathe chuck

Jake2465

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Very first mistake I made when I started running a lathe for the first time. I fired up the lathe and all I heard was something smack the wall about 20 feet away. Come to find out, it was the lathe key. I thought "woah!! if that hit my face I could have been hurt bad" :eek:. Never did that again.
 
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Come to find out, it was the lathe key. I thought "woah!! if that hit my face I could have been hurt bad" :eek:.
It even hurts thinking about it. I've seen it happen once a few years ago, didn't hit anyone but you should have seen the operator's face after he realized what had just happened.
 
Yup I've made that awful mistake when I got my first south bend lathe, everyone really should do it at least once that's not a bad thing to absolutely fear doing again.
 
It even hurts thinking about it. I've seen it happen once a few years ago, didn't hit anyone but you should have seen the operator's face after he realized what had just happened.

I can only imagine. Carelessness has no place in a machine shop.

The next good lesson I learned came about 6 months later when I cut my finger joint real good over not deburing an aluminum edge. I thought that surely it cant be that sharp. After all, it's a 90 deg edge, not like it's a knife or anything... Some days that joint still reminds me of that time.
 
Yup I've made that awful mistake when I got my first south bend lathe, everyone really should do it at least once that's not a bad thing to absolutely fear doing again.

That's what I did it on, lol. Even a 1hp lathe can get scary real fast :oops:.
 
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