machine shop horror stories

[nighterfighter]

Last year a mentor accidentally "punched" the chuck of our lathe while it was turned on. Bloodied up his knuckles a bit, nothing serious.

[nikeairmancurry]

Originally Posted by nitneylion452

Today, I was preparing to cut a piece of plastic for a spacer (tough plastic, can't remember the name)and I was going to use a hacksaw to do it. One of our mentors cam up to me and asked why I was using a hacksaw and I said that it was the easiest and safest way to cut the plastic. He then told me to go and use a compound miter saw, for which we only have a wood blade. I informed him of this and he still said I should use the miter saw. I went and tried. The plastic snapped and whizzed across the room, narrowly missing one of my teammates. Thankfully, nobody was hurt and we were all wearing goggles. Just goes to show you: sometimes, mentors don't always know best.

Exact thing happened to me on Friday night except it hit me in the stomach... No damage done besides a huge bruise and a bit of blood..

[Astarties]

Not really in the shop, but I was at a regional competition 3 years ago. I bent down to pick up our robot after a game and caught my arm on the end of a machine screw. Naturally, it was not a clean cut. It actually looked pretty cool, it had jagged edges on either side of it. I now have a scar on my right arm a few inches below my elbow. It's mostly faded now, but you can still faintly make out where I got cut.

[alex334]

Well, nothing serious happened to us, but during my rookie year, I was milling a circular piece of aluminum the old fashioned way and while turning the knob, I managed to scrape my thumb against the edge of aluminum. It bled quite a lot and I learned that I should start wearing gloves a lot more.

As for this season, one of our seniors was working on the lathe, cutting down a cast iron pulley and accidentally cut too much in one pass, sending a large chunk of cast iron flying by his head. He was safe, but was quite embarrassed seeing that we had to order a new one.

[Chris is me]

This thread is why I don't machine things.

[nighterfighter]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

This thread is why I don't machine things.

But do you drive a car?

I don't know the statistics, but how many people get seriously injured from machining things, vs how many people how don't?

[Koko Ed]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

This thread is why I don't machine things.

Me too. I don't even go into the shop to take photos.
Ignorance is bliss.

[KC1AJT]

no injuries on the team but I did shoot a metal shard into my eye when i was cutting some sheetmetal for my car with a grinder it was sticking in there pretty well but after a few rinses it did come out the dumb part is that i had the glasses right next to me

[flippy147852]

This didn't happen in robotics but my sophomore year in metal shop me and a buddy were using the acytelaine torch to heat up what would become a crowbar and a fire poker, respectively. I finished before he did and was cleaning up when he came up to me and asked my opinion on whether it looked evenly pounded. Me, being smart, decided that this piece of metal warranted a closer look, so i grab the piece of metal, which I found out was still hot. I had burn marks all over my hand after that.

LESSON: if something is being held with vice grips, do not grab the piece of metal with your bare hands.

[Stuart]

EDIT: for bonus points mark the point in the story where you know whats about to happen.


In the summer of 2006 we got our first (and currently only) mill. its a 10.5"^2 3 axis CNC techno Devinnci (its small its cheep but its our baby so please be kind). Well in the fall we do BEST so we used the BEST robot as a test bed for our new mill (we ended up making plywood omni wheels). So we had sent one of our mentors to training down in San Antonio and we felt OK to turn it on and start to cut. As BEST only really allows plywood and plastic, and doesn't give you much plastic, we started with plywood as our first cut. We set the mill up to how our mentor was trained and started to watch it go. Now at this time I should mention that our mentor was trained on this mill using brass and light steel, so we had the head speed turned all the way up the travel speed all the way down and were using like a 8 flute bit.

About 5 min in ( or 3 in in to the cut) the student monitoring the mill (in BEST the students have to do 100% of the work, but they do allow mentor guidance) noticed that the mill started to smell really really good like a pine forest in spring. We took a look at how the cut was going saw that there was just a pile of saw dust forming and no large chunks flinging off , it was rather unimpressive. We felt confidant enough to open the door and further "investigate" the pine fresh sent. As we opened the door a draft blew the pile of saw dust in to the air . . it was at this point as the dust mixed with the new air and aided by the very hot bit that most of the part ,as well as the aspirated saw dust, caught fire.

we have since moved to a 4 flute bit. turned the head down, increased the travel speed . . and got a vacuum attachment. We have had no further flame ups.

[R3P0]

Originally Posted by unionylibertad

anybody have any stories of people getting hurt while machining?

any flying chuck keys blinding people, fingers sucked into mills and grinders, etc etc?

Circa 1978 shop class. I was using a table router. I was using the fence the wrong way reaching over the fence holding the piece against the fence. In the last 1/4 of the groove was making was a knot. It grabbed the knot, spun the piece of wood around, taking my thumb into bit. The board shot off of the table hitting a kid in the temple, immediately knocking him out. I ran, turned off the emergency power. Checking on the dude, someone said hey r3P0 your hand is bleeding. 3 inside stitches 9 more to close it up. The dude that got hit received a free concussion from the event and a goose egg the size of golfball!

But wait there is another story from same highschool ( who has an team so I will not mention where I went to HS). We had an upper level gas welding shop. A kid was playing on the lift that takes the tanks up to that level while it was going up. No Chain connected, he slips and to catch himself he pulls a full O2 bottle off the lift from the second story with no protective cover over vavle. When it hit the concrete the "rocket" was born, the tank moved a workbench about 3 feet, ricochets off that through the garage door and screamed across the field hitting the elementary school about 100 yards way. Need less to say, I think OSHA came into the HS and we all got to watch the safety videos again. ( Old timers know the videos I'm talking about)


Always intense!
r3P0

[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.

[unionylibertad]

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.

wow...badass haha

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Henry Williams

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.

Not to single you out, but I think there's a bit of a lesson here that bears mentioning. I can appreciate that maybe you felt that there really was nothing to be done about the injury, and you'd made up your mind that you might as well not waste time obsessing over it. On the other hand, given that first aid for burns is pretty straightforward—why didn't you administer it or seek it out? Generally the first step would be to cool the affected area with water for a few minutes.

(I'm not saying that I haven't shrugged off a minor injury before—sure, of course I have—but I shrug them off after taking the standard first aid precautions.)

Originally Posted by unionylibertad

wow...badass haha

No, not exactly. If you think it is, you're unwittingly contributing to the problem.

Report the injury to someone trustworthy and level-headed, ideally the supervising teacher. Although granted, it may not have been a consideration in your case, it's surprising how easy it is to do something that triggers symptoms of shock—and when that happens, as a precaution, you want someone observing you while you go about the rest of your business. And even if shock isn't a concern, there are numerous practical reasons to report it.

In a workplace that takes safety seriously, there's no retributive action taken for getting injured and reporting it. Hopefully, your school would have been enlightened enough to be able to chalk it up as a lesson learned, without banning you from using the welder, or some other overreaction. After all, that would only encourage you not to report it the next time.