machine shop horror stories

[JDL]

I have some good ones from my real world job (electrician).

Now on our team no, even though I'm accused of being to lax with team safety (I really don't see why people feel the need to tell the guy how works on live switchgear and around industrial equipment all the time how to handle safety but whatever). No flying chuck keys, no eye injuries, no entanglements, just the occasional splinter and minor cut.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

JDL,
Someday I would like to hear some of those stories in person.

[JDL]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

JDL,
Someday I would like to hear some of those stories in person.

Quite a few are just funny with no serious injury involved (although one or two are pretty nasty).

Here's a funny one; the other day I was using a grinder up on an a frame ladder and it caught something and flew out of my hands and went flying around on the floor (it was locked on) for a little bit till it shut off when the lock on disengaged. I only got a little scrape from a chunk of wheel that hit me, I had gloves on and had my hard hat w/ shield on, that stopped me from taking a hit to the face so safety does pay off.

[JamesCH95]

A professional machinist at a local shop left a chuck key in a high speed lathe and when it flew out it killed the guy it hit

When my team worked in this shop we never had any accidents save one: a friend of mine was turning down an aluminum sprocket when the lathe chuck fell off. At 1000+RPM. Turning towards him. Thank god the part shield was down, no doubt it saved serious injury. One of the mentors who worked in the shop said "I've never seen so much damage done to a lathe" and fortunately the incident was deemed not his fault.