The manual lathe is the most dangerous piece of equipment in a shop in terms of fatalities. They cannot be made ‘safe’. You can only train people how to use them safely and not put idiots on them.
I’ve seen the chuck key of shame used and support its use. My rule was one chuck key fuckup, second offense, immediate termination.
I used to have a safety presentation on lathes. It was called, “The Happy Fun Lathe Safety Presentation.” Kittens and puppies on the title and chock full of gore.
It’s probably more effective to show the actual videos, yeah. Like, lathes will fuck you up in the most horrifically comical ways. Sort of like in cartoons when the most violent things happen and they get up (like being steamrolled), but you obviously don’t get up.
My presentation had the Russian video where the kid gets wrapped up around a bar. Also had the pictures from where the guy got wrapped around a chuck and there is an eyeball sitting on top of the pile.
I hit my finger on a spinning piece on a lathe; it sliced my finger right down to the bone, and cut through the tendon. Thankfully it cut the tendon along the length rather than across; I needed 3-4 stitches to close it up, but no surgery.
Lathes are serious machines. They require serious caution!
At my previous job, there was a very lucky apprentice; he was working on “the small lathe”; the sleeve on his overalls caught on the work piece. His arm was pulled into the machine the overall sleeve tore as it was being pulled in. He got very nasty friction burns all up the under side of his arm; if the sleeve didn’t tear, at minimum he would have lost the arm…the lathe didn’t stop spinning during the event. He panicked (understandably) and didn’t think to hit the e-stop.
Table saws and lathes…don’t fuck around with them. Powerful tools require serious caution; but they are also very useful when used correctly.
For sheer human evilness I’ve seen a beheading video, for pure gore I’ve seen some lathe accidents. I’m never going near a lathe.
The manual lathe is the most dangerous piece of equipment in a shop in terms of fatalities. They cannot be made ‘safe’. You can only train people how to use them safely and not put idiots on them.
I’ve seen the chuck key of shame used and support its use. My rule was one chuck key fuckup, second offense, immediate termination.
I used to have a safety presentation on lathes. It was called, “The Happy Fun Lathe Safety Presentation.” Kittens and puppies on the title and chock full of gore.
It’s probably more effective to show the actual videos, yeah. Like, lathes will fuck you up in the most horrifically comical ways. Sort of like in cartoons when the most violent things happen and they get up (like being steamrolled), but you obviously don’t get up.
My presentation had the Russian video where the kid gets wrapped up around a bar. Also had the pictures from where the guy got wrapped around a chuck and there is an eyeball sitting on top of the pile.
I hit my finger on a spinning piece on a lathe; it sliced my finger right down to the bone, and cut through the tendon. Thankfully it cut the tendon along the length rather than across; I needed 3-4 stitches to close it up, but no surgery.
Lathes are no joke. There’s one that really stuck with me, I think at a Russian factory. “Dismemberment” does not accurately reflect what happened.
Lathes are serious machines. They require serious caution!
At my previous job, there was a very lucky apprentice; he was working on “the small lathe”; the sleeve on his overalls caught on the work piece. His arm was pulled into the machine the overall sleeve tore as it was being pulled in. He got very nasty friction burns all up the under side of his arm; if the sleeve didn’t tear, at minimum he would have lost the arm…the lathe didn’t stop spinning during the event. He panicked (understandably) and didn’t think to hit the e-stop.
Table saws and lathes…don’t fuck around with them. Powerful tools require serious caution; but they are also very useful when used correctly.