machine shop horror stories

[Henry Williams]

I just remembered one that happened to me in the off-season in our team's shop during school. It was first hour and I had a study hall, in the previous year all our welders graduated and I was the only student left with a basic understanding of welding, so naturally I had to practice for build season. As I finished a weld and pulled up the mask I dropped the welding stick (I was TIG welding) and tried to catch it. If you have ever TIG welded before you know this in itself is not a bad thing but on my way down I managed to plant my hand on the aluminum part that had been basically a liquid only seconds before. I had some cool 2nd degree burns but being a boyscout I was used to getting these without any kind of way to treat them so I just went on my way to my next class.