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The Builder
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Builder Last Online: Dec 2013
Model Scale: 1/8
Rating: 
Thanks: 1
Thanks: 1
Started: 05-15-09
Build Revisions: Never
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Last night I was at my bench fabricating front shock mounts for my Alfa. I was going back and forth between the workshop and the metal shop doing all the variety of things that needed to be done to a square bar of brass to turn it into a usable part. (And we're talking about a part that can sit on your thumbnail with plenty of room left over.)
Needing to cut notches into the brass, I mounted the piece into my Panavise, put on my saftey glasses and started cutting away. For any variety of reasons I committed the sin of not double-checking the piece in the vise before I applied the cutting tool (rotating at about 15,000RPM).
Sure enough, after a few seconds, the piece - now hotter than hell from the cutting - shot out of the vise and right towards my left eye. Before I knew what happened, the steaming hot
piece of raw metal had bounced off my shatter-proof safety glasses and fallen to the floor.
So why am I sharing this with you??? Just seconds before this happened, I was in the metal shop sanding
that very piece on the belt sander. I only needed to take off 1/32 of an inch and it was just a belt sander so [U]I didn't put on my glasses[/U]. It occurred to me that if I had taken that same stupid attitude back into the workshop, I'd be sitting here right now with a massive bandage over the left side of my face, wondering if I'd ever regain site in my eye and if I'd ever be able to build a model again.
Never in my years of building and fabricating has a piece slammed into my face with such force. And over the years, it was easy for me to get a little sloppy in my thinking and a little lazy in my safety awareness. It is only by the grace of the Almighty that I'm looking at this email with two good eyes as I type it.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T EVER THINK THAT IT ONLY HAPPENS TO THE OTHER GUY. IF YOUR CUTTING, SOLDERING, FILING... DOING ANYTHING THAT CAUSES PIECES OF THE PIECE YOU'RE WORKING ON TO BECOME SEPARATED FROM THE PIECE ITSELF [B]WEAR YOUR SAFETY GOGGLES![/B]
Last night was my reminder that we're never so good at building models that we can take shortcuts. And I'll never make that mistake again. I post this so I don't ever have to read about one of my friends here at SMC who just lost an eye (or finger or worse) because they were using a power tool and didn't take the time to prepare properly.
Sorry for the long sermon. But when I reached down to pick up that piece of metal off the floor and burned my finger because it was so hot
, I realized that instead of me picking that ember up off the floor, somebody might have been picking it out of my eye and it scared me good.
Here's to safe modeling!
Andy.
Needing to cut notches into the brass, I mounted the piece into my Panavise, put on my saftey glasses and started cutting away. For any variety of reasons I committed the sin of not double-checking the piece in the vise before I applied the cutting tool (rotating at about 15,000RPM).
Sure enough, after a few seconds, the piece - now hotter than hell from the cutting - shot out of the vise and right towards my left eye. Before I knew what happened, the steaming hot
piece of raw metal had bounced off my shatter-proof safety glasses and fallen to the floor.So why am I sharing this with you??? Just seconds before this happened, I was in the metal shop sanding
that very piece on the belt sander. I only needed to take off 1/32 of an inch and it was just a belt sander so [U]I didn't put on my glasses[/U]. It occurred to me that if I had taken that same stupid attitude back into the workshop, I'd be sitting here right now with a massive bandage over the left side of my face, wondering if I'd ever regain site in my eye and if I'd ever be able to build a model again.Never in my years of building and fabricating has a piece slammed into my face with such force. And over the years, it was easy for me to get a little sloppy in my thinking and a little lazy in my safety awareness. It is only by the grace of the Almighty that I'm looking at this email with two good eyes as I type it.
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE DON'T EVER THINK THAT IT ONLY HAPPENS TO THE OTHER GUY. IF YOUR CUTTING, SOLDERING, FILING... DOING ANYTHING THAT CAUSES PIECES OF THE PIECE YOU'RE WORKING ON TO BECOME SEPARATED FROM THE PIECE ITSELF [B]WEAR YOUR SAFETY GOGGLES![/B]
Last night was my reminder that we're never so good at building models that we can take shortcuts. And I'll never make that mistake again. I post this so I don't ever have to read about one of my friends here at SMC who just lost an eye (or finger or worse) because they were using a power tool and didn't take the time to prepare properly.
Sorry for the long sermon. But when I reached down to pick up that piece of metal off the floor and burned my finger because it was so hot
, I realized that instead of me picking that ember up off the floor, somebody might have been picking it out of my eye and it scared me good.Here's to safe modeling!
Andy.
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