Lathe Safety

[TomG]

Time for a reality check gentlemen.

I've been meaning to add a video to the safety section of my YouTube channel on the dangers of rotating machinery when I ran across this video on another forum. In my opinion, it's the best example of this type of hazard that I've seen. Why?

1) The victim survives the accident, instead of being turned into a pile of goo like so many industrial accident pics that you see. This makes it more believable, as in maybe this really could happen to me.

2) It demonstrates how violating a simple safety rule like wearing long sleeves, wrapping emery cloth around a shaft and holding it in one hand, or reaching over the shaft can get you into a world of trouble (this guy broke all three).

3) It demonstrates how quickly accidents on rotating machinery can happen and how helpless the victim becomes. How many of us, me included work alone?

So watch this, because any one of us could find ourselves in this situation in a heartbeat. It's disturbing, but not bloody and as I said, the guy did survive relatively unscathed. He was very lucky.

Tom

[awemawson]

Ouch - I bet he won't do that again !

Andrew

[DaveH]

Yep, scary stuff.

DaveH

[EdK]

Lucky man indeed. I bet their insurance rates went up after that.

Ed

[stevec]

Insurance? I somehow doubt. Pretty scary just the same, amazing how long it took to shut the lathe down and then how long it took to loosen the chuck jaws?

[TomG]

The only thing that saved him was that the chuck wasn't that tight on the shaft and was able to slip. I hate to imagine what would have happened had it not.

[sasquatch]

Good post Tom, and yes, i have watched that spinning chuck, thinking, "stay away!"

Wondering how many turns it took with the chuck wrench to loosen that rod, looked pretty odd to me, lots of turns.

[TomG]

He did bump it with his face and it looked like it may have taken a few teeth, but it could have been a lot worse. I don't know what the deal was with that chuck, unless it needed to be opened farther because of the angle of the shaft.

Tom

[f350ca]

Ouch, makes you realize how careful you have to be when your working in the shop by yourself, no one to turn the lathe off. he may have ended up as a pile of goo once the shaft gauled and started turning again.

[ScrapMetal]

My wife thinks that my motorcycles are the "most dangerous toys" that I have. I will never, never show her this video or any pictures of carnage due to machining equipment that can be found.

It's a good reminder for me though.

-Ron