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Re: Most Dangerous Tool

To: Bob labuz <yellowtr@adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: Most Dangerous Tool
Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 10:29:01 -0700
Cc: "T. S. White" <tswrace@pacbell.net>, Bob Danielson <75trsix@snet.net>, "'TR'" <triumphs@Autox.Team.Net>
References: <200412181943.iBIJhi9Q208682@pimout7-ext.prodigy.net> <41C59296.4070306@pacbell.net> <41C59EB1.8050807@adelphia.net>
Bob labuz writes: 

> It was my drill press until I finally purchaced a vice! 
> 
> Now it is my bench grinder with wire wheel. Always forget to put on gloves 
> and eye protection. At times the part is caught by the wire and flung at 
> great speeds. There is always spent wire flying around. When will I learn?

You will learn when you put something in your eye... I did, sort of. I was 
working at a foreign car shop in the `70s and was assigned to fix the front 
suspension on a rusty old Porsche 912 (this was sort of punishment, because 
all the mounting points were rusted out). The front shocks were terribly 
rusted--so badly that the upper collar was in tatters, and the pieces were 
jammed up inside the collar, restricting travel. The owner wouldn't pay for 
new shocks (it was the kind of job I would have refused, but the shop owner 
didn't see things my way), so I ended up using a pedestal grinder to cut 
away the damaged portion. 

While the grinder had a shield, I didn't have safety glasses, and a splinter 
went around the wheel, under the shield and up into my eye. Just a small 
splinter, but it stuck in the pupil of my eye, perpendicular to surface. 
Every time I blinked, it wiggled the splinter and scratched the inside of my 
eyelid. I wasn't sure what had happened, because it didn't hurt, at first. 
By the next morning, it looked as if someone had shoved an orange under my 
eyelid and felt like it, too. Hurt like the bejesus. And it's no fun getting 
something like that removed, either. 

I say "sort of," since I was always careful afterwards to use safety glasses 
or face shields with grinders, etc., but there was the time when I was 
working as a machine builder when I forgot to put glasses on when welding. 
Flipped up the helmet, forgot to put on the safety glasses and started 
chipping slag off the weld and a hot chip hit and stuck to my eye. That was 
no fun, either. 

For a good part of my life, it seemed that if I used a tool enough, I was 
destined to eventually hurt myself with it. :) I must say, though, that in 
almost every instance, it was because I trying to use the tool in a way for 
which it wasn't designed, for lack of the correct tool, or was overly tired 
and wasn't thinking. 

Cheers. 




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