Found a new way to bleed

Jericoh

Jericoh

Well-Known Member
This was a first for me, and came about by me just thinking about other stuff and not paying attention.

You know when you're drilling and that nice curl of metal comes up and wraps around your drill bit? Take my word for it... don't grab it. It'll act like a bandsaw and rip right through you.
 
Oh man, I hear you on that one. I have yet to make that particular choice myself but I saw a very bad one at a steel fabrication plant where we were using a giant radial drill to make 3" holes in base plates. That size of bit puts out a curling chip that is about an inch across and serrated just like, you got it, a bandsaw blade. One of the "fantastic new guys" decided to reach in with his hand and welding glove to try to pop the curl loose instead of using a chip rake and it filleted his middle finger down to the bone through the glove. Thankfully it bit the glove too so when it drug him around the stationary table 3 times waiting for the massive chuck to come to a stop it didn't pull his finger off and there was enough room under the arbor for him to fit. That and the RPM on such a hole was slow enough he mostly was able to keep his footing but it could have been a lot worse. It's amazing how the larger the tooling the less likely for the operator to remember that he's made of meat.
 
The good thing is I chose to be dumb while my wife was out of town so I don't have to hear her freak out about how I'm gonna bleed to death.
 
I didn't do anything quite so dramatic but I sliced my finger on an xacto knife while making an F-15 and it bled for like four hours. Never bled like that before.
 
I have got into the habit of backing the bit out just a hair to break the chips off before they get long enough to cause mischief.
 
You will discover many new ways to bleed knife making!:biggrin:

You really have to train yourself to keep your "Brain" in the on position at all times in the shop!

I still end up in the emergency room about once every five years! It has to be bleeding really bad and need stitches before I will go sit there in the ER for the three to four hours it takes most times.

Stay Safe!

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com
 
i think the drill press draws more blood than any other tool in the shop..
 
Does it occur to anyone that we bleed easer with age . I tell my wife that I may bleed easer but I bleed better!
 
BossDog said:
i think the drill press draws more blood than any other tool in the shop..
Click to expand...

You got that right.. I remember I was drilling out a pin when I first started when it got hung up and spun the blade spine first into my hand. I remember looking at my hand wondering how I still had all my digits. If it was going the other way you know what the outcome would have been.
 
I watched a guy do the same thing with a large drill he reached down and grabbed it spun his hand around and he now has 4 fingers on one hand.. He now cheats you out of one when he gives you five
 
I keep a small paint brush beside my drill press to sweep the chips off between holes. I also use it to clear those occasional spiral slivers. Try pulling your bit back every once in a while to clear the debris. You might be feeding your bit a wee bit too fast and or have a dull bit. Using cutting oil will also help. Oil will also help keep your blade and bit from getting too hot.
 
my "Aw Shoot" was trying to do a curved cut on a small piece of cold rolled steel on a band saw with a worn blade. pushed a little too hard and pushed my right index finger into the blade. thank goodness it was a metal cutting blade going slow. no stitches, but the cut took 6 weeks to heal. I think I got a little too relaxed as it was the third piece of a set.
scott
 
Funny how swarf can cut you worst the the tooling that cut it!

I often have moments where I think "nah.. it won't grab/cut me, I can knock it off with my finger", but 99 times out of 100 that little voice in my head yells "don't even think about it!".

That said, I'm always surprised to hear all the stories that mention swarf cutting through a glove. My first question is why are you grabbing at a large spinning machine with your hand, and my second question is, why are you wearing gloves around that large spinning machine!?
 
Yup on the gloves. I only have a pair by the forge for when I heat treat, otherwise none in the shop. We had a very lucky guy that ended up in direct entanglement due to a welding glove. Seen a portable mag drill? There's about 3 inches between the annular cutter and the magnet block. He was wearing welding gloves on both hands to protect them, the floppy oversized finger of one hand got caught in the cutter as he was wiping the coolant off the plate looking for the center punch mark on the way down and it pulled his whole arm well past the elbow between the cutter and block before it came to a stop, dragging the glove off his hand as it went. No real injury, just a torn up shirt, sprained fingers and some bite marks all up his arm. Thankfully he was scrawny and his arm fit - I would have been in worse shape. Thankfully those Jancy mag drills we were using were pretty low horsepower and low RPM. I could write a book on fantastic new guys from my years working steel. Me, I fed my welding sleeve to a 4 1/2" grinder once cleaning out a torch-cut manway and it hit the stupid trigger-lock on against my forearm as I lost hold of it. That was interesting, the solid wheel I was using didn't eat too much meat but I couldn't get the thing shut off as it ran up my arm and across my chest. I was hoping for a better scar.
 
Gloves around spinning stuff is very bad. I would rather get cut then wrapped around a spindle. As the old saying goes "let the chips fall where they may" especially the hot and sharp ones. Hope you heal up fast
 
I'm currently working as a supervisor in a roll grinding shop, and we just got done rebuilding part of a large roll lathe. The swarf that peels off of that bad boy is cherry red as it's coming off the roll, and the curly cues are like razor wire by the time they hit the ground. If somebody is clearing chips from a stationary or locked out machine, I totally understand the gloves.

If it's running? Not so much. Then again, your hands should be no where near the tool bit when the machine is turning anyway. Not on a lathe that big.

Kind of an aside, but I'll never forget this example: I was just a kid piddling around in my dad's wood shop when I turned on his belt/disk sander without asking. He picked up a scrap piece of wood that on one end was just a little larger than a man's finger, and he rammed it into the spinning disk, vaporizing it in a matter of a couple seconds.
"Now what do you think that would do to a finger? This machine ain't smart enough to know the difference."

I have that machine in my shop right now, and I often think of that while I'm using it.
 
Well, about an hour ago I was drilling a couple of 3/16" holes in a damascus blade. i usually "dog" the blade off with a piece of wood, but today I failed to follow my regime. The bit grabbed just as it was about to cut through, then the "dreaded" helicopter took over.

Instant 1 1/2" cut through the fatty part of my left hand just under the thumb. Bled like crazy, but after applying lots of pressure for several minutes, then a quick touch-up with Super-Glue, I think I will be OK.

Machines will "Bite" you when you least expect it. Be careful out there.

Robert
 
Robert, that was what happened when I got the first installment of my stitches collection. A blade spun around and helicoptered a hole in my wrist. Funny enough, two years later I was messing with a tomahawk and the point of the beard caught me on the exact same spot and that was the third installment of my stitches collection.
 
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