Anyone else have a shop teacher with missing digits?
Ish. The high school shop teacher had two missing. We got to tour around before signing up for classes and I was super interested in formal training and... no. Not just missing fingers but the shop looked generally poorly kept, they taught it like gym class meaning some projects and 10 minutes of how to do stuff, and a "test" every few weeks. So yes the shop teacher but not MY shop teacher!
I did take drafting and lettering in high school. THAT was a trade class. We had to do "projects" but they were explicitly excuses to do the one thing we'd learned that day or week. Very useful, even if all the mechanical skills (I was already into tech pens, but still) were pointless one day in late 1995. Seriously, I graduated college and hardly ever picked up a pencil or pen for work again. Digital shifted overnight.
No missing parts off my shop teacher, but he had a neck tie nailed to the block wall of the shop office. This tie had a gnarly hole in the wide part. Come to find out thats what happens when a router bit catches a tie and winds it to your Adam's apple before it stops.
Ah, another good one. College (where I was required to take and pass formal instruction before I could use stuff — unlike most business "classes" you could very much fail these, not be allowed to use a saw then have to drop the class that makes you saw stuff) I ended up after aerospace ... with printmaking. Spent a lot of time in the acid room. Room of open trays of nitric acid of various strengths. Room is full of acid vapor, such that everything rusted. Two stainless sinks: midnight black. Faucets: bright green. Stainless ducts spotted with rust where not gray. Stainless expanded mesh at the duct entrances just above the acid tubs... missing. Little stubs held on with little rusty screws and happily bright washers. Grades of stainless really become obvious, and matter, in some environments!
The mesh was there for a reason. You could barely yell at each other and be heard. Mostly had to leave the room to tell people things. Four BIG squirrel cages, switched off their own panel. Like 50 A each? So one day I am doing stuff, someone else is in the room, has a gallon can of rosin. They open it, set the lid down. Rattle whoosh. It's sucked up in to the vents. RattleRattleRattleRattleRattleRattleRattleRATTLERattleRattleRATTLERattleRattleCHONK. They are baffled, still looking where the lid was. I have been looking out the windows, open the door to outside, get the lid where it got spit out, come in the other door, get the hammer and nails, come back in the room (they are recovering from the surprise) go to take the lid from me as though it'll cover the can (!) and I climb on the counter, nail it to the wall next to other things that have been sucked up into the vents over time.
Back almost on topic, personal safety: In the acid room we were encouraged to wear eyepro. Not required. I think there was one sign in the room somewhere. As I type this decades later in retrospect:
Well I was a student of this. Special studies, etc I might be in that (off and on) over 2 hours a day. One day I am working and feel... bad. Undefined, but Not Good. Worse yet when I get up, go to the acid room for a minute. Bad enough I leave, go fully outside...better. Think not very hard, decide maybe The Acid Room is a bad place to exist. Stop all projects, write down (pre digital!) when 2 weeks is up, switch to wood blocks and stuff and do not for any reason go there, mix acid (I was certified for that) etc.
Worked. I said so, demanded they get me PPE. They did! I had to research, go get it, and they reimbursed me, but still have the half-mask with purple filters (for the relevant fumes) since they had zero accountability so the state bought it and I stole it when I left. No one else was gonna use it.
