The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Most dangerous tool in your shop?

As I'm sitting here nursing my swolen tongue,I was thinking of the most dangerous tool in my shop.I use to think it was my 6' step ladder because I always seem to need a 7' step ladder.Then I use to think it was a folding chair that I tried to stand on,but the #1 tool that does the most damage to me and I always go back for more is my trusty plastic milk crate.Always there for me to stand on and always ready to kick out from under me when I least expect it.

then you'll understand just how careful I am when I use the 6' ladder and milk crates to climb around on these!

this rig , and even more, this one are prolly more dangerous tho, cuz more horsepower!

but the most damage I've done to myself is with sharp stuff - remember "always cut towards yer chum, never towards yer thumb"

Bill

Most dangerous tool in the shop? Me!

I was removing a square drive allen wrench from a socket. It had been stuck for some time, so I resorted to clamping the allen wrench in the vise and clamping the socket with a good set of Vise Grip pliers. As soon as the socket came free from the allen wrench, it flew up from the upward pressure I was applying and smacked me right in the bridge of my nose. In this case neither the allen wrench, vise or Vise Grips were dangerous, the process of separating the two was the culprit. Keep it safe.

I feel my radial arm saw is the most dangerous tool in my wood shop, but the 3-1/5" raised panel bit spinning on the end of my 3-HP router scares me as well.

Anything hydraulic. I think hydraulics are absolutely wondeful, but highly unforgiving. A few years ago a friend of mine cut 4 fingers off. He got them back, but they were about an inch shorter...

And routers scare the h*ll out of me to. One of the only tools that doesnt have a reverse thread holding it on. Saws are designed to be put on finger tight and when operated, spins the nut tighter, not routers...

Anything inappropriately used as a breaking bar (like a 4' piece of square tubing).

A lot of tools can be dangerous if not used properly. Standing in the "kick back" zone of a table saw, cutting with a knife towards yourself, trying to stop machinery with your hand, loading up a grinding wheel by grinding aluminum or other soft metal. Reminds me of the time I saw a video of a guy sharpening lawnmower blades on an 8" x 2" grinder wheel. The wheel exploded and about 5/8's of this wheel lodges into his head. He had it removed and it didn't affect him so much. The funny part was his final statement. Before the accident, he never used safety glasses or shields and swore that he still wouldn't after the accident. I guess he didn't see a need for them!!

Like GMCpanel said, the most dangerous thing in the shop is me. All the rest of the tools are there to make my job easier and safer! When properly used.

MNSmith, I never heard of grinding wheels exploading! How does the grinding of soft metals lead to this problem? I have always thought it was better to learn from other peoples mistakes! It sure is a lot less painful that way.

Pieces of soft metals lodge themselves into all the nooks and crannies of the steel grinding wheel. When they heat up from regular grinding, they expand and force the wheel apart. While the wheel is spinning at high speed, pieces will fly everywhere. Unless, of course, the wheel is desigened for grinding soft metals. Then it's okay.

Here is a blurb from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grinding_wheel: "Safety is extremely important at all times, especially when grinding wheels are involved. They are a mainstay of the engineering and construction industry and the risks involved with them may tend to be taken for granted. Safety awareness and an understanding of the materials and processes involved is essential. Appropriate safety gear must be worn and all safety procedures must be followed. Always err on the side of caution.

Contact with a spinning grinding wheel will produce a cut. Because of the heat generated in the grinding process, a burn might also be produced. Wood should never be ground on a wheel, as it can clog the wheel's pores and cause the wheel to burst, with fatal results."

Just one of many hits I got on the net. No personal mistake experience, just years of training from my employer.

My welder or cutting torch gets me about everytime. You should see me dance when one of those cherry red drops of slag ends up going down into my shoe and won't go out,
Scott

i think a clam shell spring compressor is the worst, launching springs across the shop

Gotta be my hammer, that sucker gets me quite often,, but I also use it alot, brian

Yeah, I get timid around spring compressors.

About two years back I was building a 48" door for my shop. I was glueing and air nailing hardboard to a frame. I shot a nail into my finger I had to take visegrips to pull the nail through the door. It was sticking out both sides of my finger and broke the bone. Not the smartest thing I have ever did.

Any one loose fingernails from a chain binder?

I have not lost a nail to a chain binder, but I am about to lose a nail that I smashed while removing a leafspring from my 54 GMC. I thought all the spring tension was off the spring as I was removing the last nut from the U-bolt holding the spings to the axle and once loose it shot downwards and smashed my finger between the impact gun and the floor. Ouch! I stopped and looked at my finger and was happy to see it was still there. I call this education, since when I did the other side I learned to support the spring with a jack before removing the u-bolts and everything came apart nicely with no injuries.

Nail guns are very dangerous, I almost shot my wife with one a couple of times with my framing nailer. She has since learned not to stand in the area when I am using the nailing gun. I was using my brad nailer on some 7/8" oak trim I was attaching to an entertainment center I was building and the brad followed the grain of the oak and shot out the side of the board. Luckily I did not have my hand in that area or that would have hurt. :rolleyes:

Jim

I have to agree. All the tools I have are are relatively harmless until I pick them up, plug them in or turn them on.

I have to agree with the others that say the spring compressor is the most dangerous tool.Pain is a good teacher!

I have known a lot of people injured and mostly seriously injured by "exploding" grinding wheels. safety shelds are important!

My sister in law's best friend bought a grinding wheel at a garage sale and hooked it up to an old motor he had salvaged from something. It blew up and hit his wife in the face. She lost her lower jaw and one of her eyes, and he lived a life full of horrible guilt thereafter.

My next door neighbour :rolleyes:

I'm glad I read through this one, cause I never heard of the grinding wheel exploding either. What should you do to protect from that? Replace it after so much use regardless of how it looks and whats left?

always use the guard around a grinder, and if the wheel gets dropped or banged around, scrap it and get a new one - avoid garage sale specials, you never know how they've been treated

Bill

Stonecutter49, and everyone else. Please do not stand on those plastic milk crates!
Brother-in-law was working on his house window, standing on one, when it kicked out/collasped. His arm went thru the window, and he darn near bled to death! Cut his artery and a bunch of nerves...15 years later, he still hasn't completely got all the feeling back in that arm.
All because of a "five minute job", and it was too much trouble to go get a Ladder!

My nemesis is my bench grinder. I use it a lot,especially the wire-brush,and it always manages to take SOMETHING away from me and throw it clear into the twilight zone.
My half inch drill runs a close second;it's an old,heavy right angle one with about a horse and a half motor and really low gearing. If the bit,or hole saw,or whatever,happened to catch,it'd drag me around and around until either I got it shut off or it wound up its cord and unplugged itself. I finally found a momentary switch that fits in place of the toggle switch and is convenient to hold down while drilling. IT shuts off as soon as I let go of the handle-works great.
Speed

Agreed. I've been injured several times. Finger in tablesaw, hammer chip in hand, debris in eyes, broken toes dropping tools, fallen off ladders, hands laid open with metal. Even had a finger smashed in the door latch of a 55 Chevy when I was a kid. But's it's always been something that I did wrong, violating one of the basic safety rules.

My most infamous saying happened after running my left index finger into a tablesaw blade. "But I had on my safety glasses, and they didn't help."

I have something to ad about grinding wheels. All grinding wheels have a maximum rpm rating printed on the side of the wheel. This should never be exceeded, or they will come apart.
Working in a machine shop, there are a lot of jobs that we cannot do with a proper shield in place. I was taught early on to stand off to the side of the wheel when first starting the grinder. If the wheel does explode, the pieces usually fly in line with the rotation of the wheel.
I had a shop teacher that used to show off his mis-figured finger, that he had caught between a guard and grinding wheel. He always used to say, that if you cut off your finger, they might be able to sew it back on. Then he would show his hand and say that they can't sew hamburger.

I guess I can't really say which is the most dangerous tool in my shop. But what scares the heck out of me, is when people leave flamable containers out. I cannot remember how many times that I found a full one gallon can of alcohol on the welding bench.

A lot of safety training emphasizes keeping the work area clean and orderly. I would say that the flamable containers would have to rate at the top of the list.

See the above reply from J Lucas. Also, inspect it regularly. Keep the guard adjusted. Dress the face once in a while. When it gets to a point when you can't adjust the guard up to it anymore, it might be time to replace it.

The above reply also goes for table saws. Never stand directly behind the piece you are cutting in case it wants to "kickback"!

In my old job, we used to say "Stay out of the bite!" We used to do a lot of rigging and heavy lifting. When you had a rope running through a pulley, the area inside the "V" was the bite. If that pulley was to cut loose, anything inside that "V" would be taken out, including humans. So don't get in the bite! Work off to one side of a grinding wheel or table saw. Don't stand next to or behind a tow rope. Think about what the possible out come will be if something were to break loose. Always work within the design and ratings of your tool. Always replace worn or used up tools. It may be a favorite, but stuff doesn't last forever and was never designed that way.

What I used to do:
http://www.bunchobikes.com/lineman.jpg
http://www.bunchobikes.com/lineman2.jpg
http://www.bunchobikes.com/lineman3.jpg

I have managed to stay alive all these years by being trained to think about the job, what is involved, safe work practices, possible outcomes and paying attention.

My apologies if I sound like a dry safety video!!

This doesn't apply to many garages out there,
but it does pertain to paying attention to limits and capacities of your equipment.

When I was 18 years old I was a 1st year sheet
metal apprentice. I tried to punch a whole in
a piece of 1/2" stainless bar stock using a 50 ton hydraulic iron worker. The capacity of the machine was 1/2" mild steel and the end of the punch broke off and shot like a rocket across the shop and hit the wall with great force.
It could very well hit me in the chest or stomach and caused serious damage. Luckily I learned a lesson w/o getting hurt.

MNSmith, them pictures got my acrophobia goin! I gotta go lie down!

Yeah, I don't think I could ever do that kind of work again!

Jacks and jack stands scare me the most. However a truck is a tool that has killed many more folks than anything else mentioned in this thread.

If you use the sides of the grind stone it will weaken and make the exploding thing more likely to happen. I always use a full face sheild when grinding. One thing always stuck with me from high school when in a safety class. The instructor said that if you get an eye injury, you are lucky if you pass out becasue the pain is excruciating. I already new that from an eye injury as a child.

Tools don't hurt people, people misuse tools.

People don't get rid of or replace their worn out tools. People don't have the correct tools to do the job. People are inexperienced. People don't learn lessons until it hurts real bad. I learned all of these lessons at one time or another.

Accidents do happen, but many accidents are avoidable.

Using ANY come-a-long is like using a darn self-torture device! I swore long ago that if I ever built a car hauler, it would be equipped with an electric winch. I did, and it is! I've manually "come-a-longed" too many inop POS cars and trucks over the years and been "bit" by a recalcitrant POS winching tool. Ususally it's the cheap cable fraying and biting a finger, or the little trigger that allows the release of the cable that will tear a guy up. Never again! I will never use another come-a-long, ever!

I think my most used tool is my hand (angle) grinder. I use it for everything, but it is probably my most dangerous tool. You only have to get something in your eye once before you learn to use goggles. Actually the removal of the metal sliver wasn't so bad--it was the removal of the rusty tissue around the embeddment point that really hurt!

My 20 month old daughter is the most dangerous thing in my 'shop'

I am most afraid of my angle grinder also I was wearing Milspec ballistic goggles and a face shield over a backward ballcap while I was shaving a rivet off one of my old crossmembers and it bit to deep and bounced back and clocked me in the forhead and it still cost me 8 stitches to the grape.
I think a set of safety glasses that you will wear all the time are the best investment you can have even if it's a set of Oakley sunglasses. Unless I am welding or cutting sheetmetal with shears. I never wear gloves or rings anything on my hands or arms. If you have moving parts it's better to just get cut or ground than having a glove or piece of clothing get caught by a spinning bit or grinding wheel or pully or fan. Thats just my opinion.
My dad has been a machinist for 40 years and still has all his fingers and sight. I take all his safety advice as gospel. If it doesn't make sparks don't grind it unless you have a non ferous grinding wheel and most of those use some type of liquid to float out debri. If you take grinding wheel put it on a length of string give it a small tap with a hammer you should get a nice ring to it it you just get a thud don't use it it means it's cracked. the hazard area for a grinder is everything directly directley inline with the cutting surfaceor the face of the grinder. I turn mine on and then let it come up to speed and as long as it doesn't make any new sounds I will start using.

metal cutting chop saw.I had a chop saw wheel FLY APART and pieces went EVERYWHERE

now that i have my new shop::

kids & their friends with sticky fingers !!!!!!!!!!

TooMany2count
You gonna need a transfusion if You keep that up