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Rotating machinery will kill you

Old one but boy sucks to be his co-workers and the janitor
 
Same/same goes for 'hobbyists' who have entry-level 'industrial' machines at their home....

Lathes are rather unique in their ability to turn a really bad day into someone's last day; most other machines of similar power will simply amputate digits, but lathes don't necessarily stop at that point :oops: Definitely something to consider each and every time one is used.

And speaking of this topic, I gotta drill some baffles.
 
I can only pray the family of that man requested or approved the videos release.
 
Had a machinist get half of his hand torn off by a VTL. All he had left was his pointer, thumb and middle finger. I cleaned up the mess as he was going to the hospital. Lots of ex-military there and the associated humor that comes from that.
Afterwards he was known as Captain Hook.
 
Do you know any old farmers with all their fingers?

I don't

I do?

Not everyone sticks their hands where they ought not be. My Grandpa was 74 when he passed. Had all his fingers and toes -- worked heavy equipment his whole life.

Quite a few family members, actually, lived to a ripe old age with all their digits (and worked farms). Guess my Grandpa was just the most surprising because he was... known for being a little more bold/brave when he was running some of that equipment.

If the sentiment you are conveying, though, is that things used to be crazy dangerous and serious bodily injury was a very regular part of life -- I'd certainly agree. In thinking of it, it is a little weird that there weren't more major injuries in the last generation. The only thing that I can even think of was my uncle got stomped by a bull -- put a hove straight through the left side of his chest and made pudding out of his lung.

But he did have all his fingers!
 
Lathe and surface grinders can be about the most dangerous in the shop.

I really want to replace my manual lathe with a turning center, yeah there are some new hazards with the turning center they are overall safer though.
 
I do?

Not everyone sticks their hands where they ought not be. My Grandpa was 74 when he passed. Had all his fingers and toes -- worked heavy equipment his whole life.

Quite a few family members, actually, lived to a ripe old age with all their digits (and worked farms). Guess my Grandpa was just the most surprising because he was... known for being a little more bold/brave when he was running some of that equipment.

If the sentiment you are conveying, though, is that things used to be crazy dangerous and serious bodily injury was a very regular part of life -- I'd certainly agree. In thinking of it, it is a little weird that there weren't more major injuries in the last generation. The only thing that I can even think of was my uncle got stomped by a bull -- put a hove straight through the left side of his chest and made pudding out of his lung.

But he did have all his fingers!
The bolded part--the old farmers I was talking about were the ones who taught me in the 70s and 80s (Dammit I'd almost be an old farmer now!). It was a very real part of life that things could go south in a hurry and to NOT get in in a hurry and just 'Fix it yourself'. A good friend in High School--dad crushed by machine. Wife's best childhood friend--her husband--killed by a machine. Definitly has improved. My cousin retired uninjured and his son is g2g appraching 60.

Life used to suck on the plains. It got better.
 
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The bolded part--the old farmers I was talking about were the ones who taught me in the 70s and 80s (Dammit I'd almost be an old farmer now!). It was a very real part of life that things could go south in a hurry and to NOT get in in a hurry and just 'Fix it yourself'. A good friend in High School--dad crushed by machine. Wife's best childhood friend--her husband--killed by a machine. Definitly has improved. My cousin retired uninjured and his son is g2g appraching 60.

Life used to suck on the plains. It got better.

Yaup, completely agree. Heard all my life how much better things are now.
 
As they say down at the 'Body Shop' (pun intended), "That aint gonna buff out."
 
And when I read all of these posts I think of people riding motorcycles with a tank top, shorts, & flip flops with the helmet either unbuckled or only half on. The only topper to this is the girlfriend on the back with a tank top, short shorts, & flip flops. My skin crawls with just the thought.

Maxwell
 
In ag class in high school, we got to see the farm safety film (pre VHS days) right before lunch. Fella’s stepping over spinning PTO shafts with loose fitting britches on (it’ll skin you like a rabbit), and clearing corn picker heads (pre combine days) were most common. One of the few times I didn’t have much of an appetite as a teenager.
 
That other guy shutting down the machine...." FUCK, FUCK, ....another Safety Briefing to sit thru!!! My life sucks!!!"
 
I do?

Not everyone sticks their hands where they ought not be. My Grandpa was 74 when he passed. Had all his fingers and toes -- worked heavy equipment his whole life.

Quite a few family members, actually, lived to a ripe old age with all their digits (and worked farms). Guess my Grandpa was just the most surprising because he was... known for being a little more bold/brave when he was running some of that equipment.

If the sentiment you are conveying, though, is that things used to be crazy dangerous and serious bodily injury was a very regular part of life -- I'd certainly agree. In thinking of it, it is a little weird that there weren't more major injuries in the last generation. The only thing that I can even think of was my uncle got stomped by a bull -- put a hove straight through the left side of his chest and made pudding out of his lung.

But he did have all his fingers!
I sent an old ford 8n through the back of my tractor bay. Thank God I had a bush hog attached or it might have climbed the wall, flipped and killed me. It had diamond plate floor rests and a checkered steel clutch that had been painted who knows how many times over the last 70 years. It started pouring and I went to pull it in when my foot slipped off the clutch.

Old farm equipment is downright scary sometimes. No ROPS, everything is heavy cast steel and virtually no safety features to be found.
 
Remember that video from college.... it was nasty then and nasty now.

It is still amazing that while working maintenance in many shops, that you see the "machinist" doing some down right stupid things. These guys are working on multi axis HAAS machines and removing the keys on the doors so they can run the machine and see what is going on. I no shit caught a guy laying on the vice in a machine while it was running. His long hair was bristling due to the spinning tool. He couldn't understand why I had hit the E-Stop on the machine and called over the supervisor. And this operator had been running machines for 20 years or more!

Most of it comes down to compliancy and getting lazy on the job. The "oh I have been doing this for so long and nothing bad has happened" attitude will either get you seriously injured or killed.
 
There's hundreds of hours of insane Chinese industrial accidents on the internet.

Quite a few involving rotation... The ones that always get me are the cheap construction related accidents.

Just out of nowhere, for no reason at all, the roof or a power line takes out a handful of China's finest.
Theres one of a guy who gets cut n half by a truck and lives. They interviewed him later.

  1. Man Crushed In Half By Truck Still Talking And Moving!! OMG ...

    www.street-certified.com › 2020 › 05
    Man Crushed In Half By Truck Still Talking And Moving!! OMG!! [VIDEO] Street Certified News 7:14 AM STREET CERTIFIED Tweet Share Share ...
 
I worked around all manner of industrial machine's but refused training on the lathes.

Told my bosses i was dyslexic and would probably crash it hard. They knew I ment it.

Working on active fighter jets was no place to daydream iether.
 
Only remotely extensive official shop-like training I had was for the wood shop. One I always remembered was their "what's the most dangerous machine in the shop?" section. Everyone answered wrong, stuff like table saws, skillsaws, as they have pointy bits and scream. But no, it's the band saw. Why? Because it's as willing to cut you as anything, but seems very calm. Relatively quiet, nothing obviously spinning or flailing or so on (the blade in motion looks at a glance like the blade still), so everyone gets complacent, just ziipppppp cuts off a thumb. I have a bandsaw in the shop, love it, use it constantly, and remember that lesson every. single. time. I. turn. it. on.

I presume rotational equipment is the same issue. Our brains aren't wired to understand the danger of the inertia behind it. A smooth thing just sittting there and twinkling can't be dangerous, can it? Complacency, then... death.
 
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While a different kind of rotational energy, pumping units are equally dangerous. Especially to the drunk, naive kids and adults alike, as they will kill you with zero disregard and keep trucking along until your buddy or the lease operator shows up to shut the unit down whenever that may be.


I work around them every day and while our company mandates that there are guards out around the unit where the crank arms swing, plenty of company’s Dont, and livestock typically ends up decapitated and mangled beyond belief. Or as mention above, teens and adults who wanted to ride the walking beam. Below are two Lufkin 912 Reverse MKII units that generate 912k inlbs of torque (why it’s not ftlbs I don’t know). They are driven by 75hp VFDs and will not stop if something is caught up in them. Wouldn’t phase em at all.

9FFBFF90-ED32-4446-9EBF-D366817CF864.jpeg
 
Only remotely extensive official shop-like training I had was for the wood shop. One I always remembered was their "what's the most dangerous machine in the shop?" section. Everyone answered wrong, stuff like table saws, skillsaws, as they have pointy bits and scream. But no, it's the band saw. Why? Because it's as willing to cut you as anything, but seems very calm. Relatively quiet, nothing obviously spinning or flailing or so on (the blade in motion looks at a glance like the blade still), so everyone gets complacent, just ziipppppp cuts off a thumb. I have a bandsaw in the shop, love it, use it constantly, and remember that lesson every. single. time. I. turn. it. on.

I presume rotational equipment is the same issue. Our brains aren't wired to understand the danger of the inertia behind it. A smooth thing just sittting there and twinkling can't be dangerous, can it? Complacency, then... death.

You must not have a buffer in the shop.
It is always the most dangerous tool. You can literally touch the spinning wheel....cant cut yourself......
 
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Only remotely extensive official shop-like training I had was for the wood shop. One I always remembered was their "what's the most dangerous machine in the shop?" section. Everyone answered wrong, stuff like table saws, skillsaws, as they have pointy bits and scream. But no, it's the band saw. Why? Because it's as willing to cut you as anything, but seems very calm. Relatively quiet, nothing obviously spinning or flailing or so on (the blade in motion looks at a glance like the blade still), so everyone gets complacent, just ziipppppp cuts off a thumb. I have a bandsaw in the shop, love it, use it constantly, and remember that lesson every. single. time. I. turn. it. on.

I presume rotational equipment is the same issue. Our brains aren't wired to understand the danger of the inertia behind it. A smooth thing just sittting there and twinkling can't be dangerous, can it? Complacency, then... death.

When I was in occupational therapy after a minor table saw accident ("minor" meaning that I can still count to 10 without removing my socks), there was a dude getting treated for a band saw injury. He was cutting some foam, it jammed, he kept pushing as the foam compressed, and then suddenly it wasn't jammed any longer. The saw went down the side of his middle finger until just past the proximal (middle) joint, then swerved into the ring finger, and then the blade kept going until stopping at some point in the wrist. There are a lot of things that get messed up along that path, and his recovery was going to take a while.

When we do Pinewood Derby with the Cub Scouts each year, there is plenty of band saw work, and we take a lot of time explaining to each boy the potential danger of that quiet machine.

Chain saws are another entry on the non-intuitive risk list. Oh, yeah, sure, that bar full of teeth will send you to the hospital for stitches and so everyone focuses on it, and promptly ignores the risk presented by dropping objects out of the sky that weigh several tons and tend to take unpredictable paths.
 
^^^chainsaws are Darwin reincarnated

everything is moving
You
The tool
The work piece

the whole process is waiting for you to get lazy

add to it you are usually alone and far from enough from home base that it’s over