Safety

I know safety has created a lot of jokes in the past. But it isn't a joke. The perpetrators of dangerous/ unsafe practices are the joke.

There is an otherwise good set of YouTube videos from someones workshop but with one potentially dangerous practice repeatedly shown. He switches off his lathe and drilling machine then impatiently holds the chucks with his hands as a brake. Sooner or later he could be holding a large item in the lathe chuck, causing the outer ends of the jaws to project beyond the circumference of the chuck body. Either his fingers will get bashed or a sleeve get caught up, dragging his hand down under the chuck - broken wrist or arm?

A deceased club member used to brag about being 'Bob 9and a half" displaying the remnant of a finger caught trying to use a rigid rule to measure work in his horizontal mill. His old school mate had a ML4 with a dodgy motor that wouldn't start and he used to switch it on and give the drive belt a tug. A senior club member who should know better, used a length of scrap wood jammed against a wheel to stop the club's bench grinder. Some 'got away' with it but is it really worth the risk?

Edited By DMB on 17/08/2023 20:44:07

There is a thing called the safety triangle. This says something like for every 300 - 600 near misses (unsafe act) there will be 30 cases of damage, 3 injuries and one case of major damage. These examples you give are the base of the triangle, the 300 - 600 near misses. if someone does this sort of thing 600 times the chances are high that they will have done some damage, injured themselves a few times and are looking at a case of major damage soon.

There are plenty of variations on the safety triangle so you take your pick on the number of levels and numbers put in each level but they all follow the same pattern.

Best thing to do is keep the near misses as close to zero as you can by avoiding the unsafe acts.

Martin C

The trouble is such people carry on doing these things for so long it has become a habit and they no longer think about the possible consequences.

The "jokes" and impatience about safety usually come from work-places where any of several factors come into play:

- Boredom leading to inattention and/or complacency.

- Pressure to get the work done.

- Laziness: a combination of that and the previous two is a recipe for disaster.

- Simple thoughtlessness, and/or long-ingrained bad habits.

- Bravado. I think this has largely gone. Using PPE and other protective measures has become so widespread that it is no longer seen by most people as "for softies" as it may once have been.

- Some middle-manager having been landed with H&S responsibilities with little or no support or training for the role and sometime little understanding of the work - so tending to pick up on trivial things or misunderstand the rules and needs, patronise the staff and then wonder why the ethos has become the butt of satire.

(I have known parallels there with the organisation trying to gain ISO9001. It succeeded but only after the certifying authority took one look at the absurd bureaucracy the directors had invented and imposed, and said they had done far more than was necessary.)

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Even when we think we are being careful we can have accidents. About two years ago I was working on my model lorry on the concrete yard in front of the workshop - there is no room inside the shed for that. The day was chilly and cloudy but dry until a sudden shower arrived. In a hurry to put tools then the lorry indoors I caught my foot in a step in the path and went flying, crashing down on my side onto the hard surface. Luckily I was quite heavily dressed, and also my head did not hit the ground. I was still in pain next morning, rang 111 - the upshot was an ambulance to hospital for an X-ray that proved I had not broken my hip. Even so I needed phsyiotherapy to help the damaged thigh or groin muscle to heal over the next two or three months. Fortunately I was heading diagonally away from the wagon. Had I fallen onto that with the same force I could have sustained very nasty head or face injuries on all the sticking-up bits of metalwork.

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Finally, many of us work happily away for hours in our little workshops, using machine-tools that could rip your hand off, edge-tools that are not fussy what they cut, chemicals you'd not want in your cocoa - and alone. Not only that, but no doubt some of us have no-one indoors to wonder why we've not come in for that cocoa.....

How many of you have an emergency stop switch and brake on your lathe?

(Mine stops in 2 sec, which is 33 revolutions at 2,000 rpm.)

Mmmm....

Red buttons but no brakes.

I placed the VFD controller for the Harrison lathe above the tailstock so away from the moving parts; but it still has the original clutch-lever, horribly-placed over the headstock.

Both.

Andrew

When you say "Emergency stop switch and brake" do you mean dumping the kinetic energy to a resistor bank or physically applying a brake?

I have a brake pedal that stops it dead from 800 rpm, haven't tried faster just in case it explodes.

I want to fit a VFD to fill in the gaps between the gear selections, but what about the brake? Can you get an instant off, stop doing anything, from a VFD? Don't want it to work against the brake rather than just letting it happen

Robin

You can set a ramp down time that actively brakes the motor within some limits. One is that you may need an external resistor to take some load. Another is that some trip on overload if ramp down time is set shorter than the VFD can handle. This trip stops the control of the ramp down speed so it then coasts to a stop. More likely to happen if you have a large rotating mass starting from a high RPM. Setting a ramp down time does noticeably reduce coasting to a stop time but it will not stop within one revolution from typical speeds (not using back gear for example).

Martin C

AFAIK, my VFD can apply a brake, but what I have on my Myford 254+ is a DC injection brake. At some stage, the transformer had let go in a spectacular fashion, but all sorted now. The electrics are anything but simple. The duration of application can be adjusted, but the braking force is limited by a resistor in series with the winding. I could make it fiercer, but the kinetic energy of the spindle, chuck and workpiece has to go somewhere.

IIRC, under PUWER 98 most woodworking machines are allowed 10 sec to stop.

Edited By Chris Pearson 1 on 18/08/2023 18:28:34

After using a file on the lathe the 1st time it just felt unsafe to me, so I grind and glued another file handle on the other end(No sharp ends), so lathe file has two handles. I use it "Left Handed" not over chuck, it feels more safe to me this way.

I also added a cut out switch for the Lathe Key, toolpost spanner and a paddle with cutout switch. These has to be in right holders or lathe will not start or keep running, or switch off when running if they are removed. I quicly got used to it this way.
I also has a pipe(removeable) in front of lathe, it was added so I dont bump anything into handles going poast when not used, but soon realise it prevents me from stepping into the lathe, so the result was I never removed it when using the lathe, its my stomach's height so I slightly stand against it. A macinist of long time visted me, and said he liked it.

Edited By Chris Mate on 19/08/2023 05:48:48

What surprises me is the amount of lathes I see without chuck guards. I always use mine because it has interlocks to prevent the machine from starting if its up/open and with a slight clip-on mod is very good at keeping hot swarf chips from burning my hands. I don't use suds but if I did the chuck guard would be another bonus.

Youtube has loads of videos of overseas fitters and machinists all doing their thing in safety flip flops

The job was always a risk taker type pursuit.

My Uncle who left the yards is still fine, all his yard mates are dead, his brother who stayed in the yards is dead. All Billy Connolys yard mates are dead, legalised smoking covered up an industrial killing fields scenario in the UK

It's a tuff old world and it hasn't changed, it's only been outsourced

Edited By Ady1 on 19/08/2023 09:59:57

Ah ha, yes, all these people saying they make safety a priority, so why do they then drive through a 30mph speed limit at 50mph then?

It is noticeable that since Covid NO ONE drives through our village at 30mph, no, not one, have a radar speed gun as well. And the worst offenders are now lorry drivers, particularly of the 8 wheeler dump trucks.

Dead is dead.

After my Apprenticeship, and the safety training within it, the first power tool that I owned was a 350 watt Black and Decker pistol drill.

VERY soon it was obvious that something as low powered as that could, and would, twist out of your grip.

NO chance against a geared down 3/4 hp motor!

That taught me to respect any powered machine, and to ensure that work was securely clamped, not just hand held.

But we all break the rules from time, and fortunately get away with it, MOST of the time.

If we are lucky, we will survive, and without more than scratches. or shallow cuts.

NO excuses for taking liberties; eventually the risk will catch up with us.

But don't think that I am a H & S fanatic; far from it, but a firm believer in using common sense, and just being careful.

(Subconsciously making mental risk assessments, possibly? )

Before retiring, I contemplated buying a new Myford

"Is it for you, or for a school or college"

"What's the difference?"

"For a school or college, it HAS to have a chuck guard. You don't have to"

My larger oriental lathe has a chuckguard with safety switch, so I don't have the option, although it has to be removed when using a collet chuck (Because the rear toolpost fouls the spindle.. Just BE CAREFUL )

Howard

Edited By Howard Lewis on 19/08/2023 11:25:16

Unfortunately U Tub and what used to be called mobile phones, have allowed unsafe and stupid practice to be seen and followed by many as the 'norm'. Years ago, managed to get one foreign forum originator to add the forum would not be responsible for any injuries incurred by copying practices shown by any forum poster. When challenging one dipstick for using a milling cutter in a drill chuck (oh dear, I can hear the keyboard warriors rustling), his response was "I've been doing it like this for years"

Rock on Tommy.

Regards Ian (Complete with ALL ten digits)

Edited By Circlip on 19/08/2023 11:53:13

Edited By Circlip on 19/08/2023 11:53:54

Atitudes to safety do change. For instance the lathes when I did my training as an apprentice did not have chuck guards so I do not use one.

However it is always worth doing an occasional safety survey: Do I work alone? Do I work with the workshop door closed (or even locked)? Can anyone come to my rescue? What am I wearing? Can things fall on me? Can I get burnt? Are there tripping hazzards? Is there possibilty of a fire? Can I be electrocuted? Then you can ask yourself if your working practices are unsafey. After the survey, mitigate the risks.

Long before the advent of YouTube etc one was told some pretty strange advice. I was told never to use the big red button except in emergencies. Why? I use it now whenever I go anywhere near a chuck on a lathe or milling machine. The little lathe does not have a big red button, just a red button and off-reversing switch, so it is swiched off at the mains socket.

JA

The ones that make me grit my teeth are the old WW2 films and documentaries with an operators nose 12 inches from a lathe or milling job and nobody is wearing safety glasses

this could make a few of you wince link

https://youtu.be/CSfa90avBzI

H

That mini oxy-acetylene type furnace at 28.00 was something else

Insta steel for dropping into a mould

That was Thermite not a furnace. The gas torch was just pre heating the rails.