Shop horror stories

[4 wheelssmoking]

I saw a classmate open a tube of crazy glue with his mouth once, nothing like having your tounge instantly glued to the roof of your mouth#ad

 

[JTEdieselram]

Has anybody seen this one???



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[JTEdieselram]

I know it does not have to do with "shop" safty, but still a good one!

 

[Forrest Nearing]

oldie but a goodie!

 

[WBusa]

When you stop to think about it, it's really a miracle that anyone who works with power tools is still alive to talk about it. Slow soft flesh vs. hard fast steel: no contest.

 

[Sled Puller]

Heres a gem, friend of mines 13 year old grandson,(whos already 6 foot+) was at his dads machine shop, when he decided to touch one of the spinny things on the mill. Only lost one finger, and part of another.



I wouldn't believe that was possible, but I remembered an exs 18 year old son touching a house fan from the 1950s, you know, the all metal ones with very little shielding, and motors the size of a Volkswagon? Took the tip off of one nicely!!

He was freak tall also, is there a pattern here? :-laf

 

[Matt400]

a house fan from the 1950s, you know, the all metal ones with very little shielding, and motors the size of a Volkswagon?

He was freak tall also, is there a pattern here? :-laf

I use to play with one of those when I was real young, still have all my digits but then I am only 5'8" :-laf

 

[Jong]

He was freak tall also, is there a pattern here? :-laf

I saw a logging/dam construction incident involving a beaver last week in the woods, and I think the beaver was only about 2 feet tall (on his hind legs). Not seeing the correlation... :-laf :-laf :-laf

 

[Sled Puller]

Finger save #99!!

http://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop-testimonials.htm



Never "saw" one of these before, lol

 

[WDixon27]

yea the hotdog demos are cool, i had forgotten about saw stop after i saw them a couple years ago

Finger save #99!!

http://www.sawstop.com/why-sawstop-testimonials.htm



Never "saw" one of these before, lol

 

[JGrefenstette]

not totally shop related, but close enough...

it was about 8-9 oclock on a summer night a few months ago, and me and two of my buddies decided to put a banks hi ram intake on my buddies 05' 2500. everything was goin smoothly untill we wipped out the torque wrench to tighten the main studs that bolt the intake to the head. we read the manual to see how man 'pounds' of torque it was goin to require. notice i didnt say foot or inch pounds. we didnt pick up on the fact the the manual was callling for inch pounds and the indicator bar/gauge on the wrench was in foot pounds. so as my buddy cranked the studds in at incredible amounts of foot pounds, we hear one stud let out a "SNAP!!!" we knew exactly what had happend. the only trouble now was, it was 10 pm on a week night. he had to drive the truck for work the next day. and there was a piece of about a 1/2 of treaded bold stuck in the castiron head, and the kit came with no extras. heres the kicker, the way the bolts were designed was the there was tread on each end, you would double nut one end and then thread the other into the head. well if i can remember wich was wich, i think the top thread was coarse and the thread that goes in to head i fine , so we go out lookint for coars cause thats the piece that broke off that we had in our hands. after searching everywhere and finding only fine, we go back empty handed and a little steemed. then we find out that fine is what we needed! we just had to laugh this one off. by now it was bout 11 pm and we decided that we would have to just take a pice of rod and thread the ends to match. and it was miracle that we were able to reach inside of the intake manifold and continue to screw the broken piece all the way out the bottom and into the intake manifold. thank the lord we didnt drop that little devil. we truly woulda been up the creek if that had slipped out and rolled deep into the head. hahaha, i tell you what, sometime there just aint nothin you can do, things just happen. at least it all turned out fine and the truck runs great.



long story short... ..... check the unit of pounds! :-laf

 

[Ponz]

Friend of mine left a nylon ty-down strap loose in the bed of his Chevy pick-up. The end of it fell between the bed and the cab. After a short trip around the driveshaft the big end crashed thru the back glass before ripping a groove between the bed and cab.

 

[BFoughty]

Make sure that the locks are applied to the two post lift if teenagers are around. My son walked up and hit the release dropping the car about 4 inches. Just enought to make me and a friend say bad words and cause a pucker factor. I knew better then to leave it off the locks... . but was in the process of lowering and raising the car quite a few times.

 

[Thump]

Once, as a teen, I decided to be nice to my girlfriend and get her bug running right which included a rebuild of her carb. Well, in a moment of stupidity or just not paying attention (I was seriously in to building custom and hot rod bugs) I put the little half-moon float stop in backwards.
One direction, it stops the float. Other direction it doesn't. It's supposed to stop it.
Well, the float went on up upon start up, and continued to do so. So much so that it overflowed the carb.
I was working on something else and trying to hear the timing before hooking up the gun and didn't notice all the fuel all over the engine.
Well, points distributor means sparks. Mix heat, fuel and air and you'd triangulated a S'mores preparation device.
By the time I could grab the fire extinguisher it had burned through any wire that existed in the engine bay, as well as blistered the paint on the deck lid.
A simple carb rebuild and tune up turned into me rewiring the egine bay and car (the harness plug was melted) and paying for a new deck lid and paint job.
Needless to say it also cost me a girlfriend... money grubbing ____ you finish the statement LOL

 

[CDyksman]

I was welding up a kickstand mount for one of our plows last night, and was sitting on a shop stool to do so. I walked outside to cool off the metal and noticed a weird smell. After continuing on with what I was doing for 10-15 more seconds, I realized my pant leg had been ignited by the spatter. I got it out quickly, but am lucky I wasn't standing next to a gas can.

 

[JGrefenstette]

on that note...

i learned to use a fire cap when welding real fast. i usually keep my hair buzzed real short or just plain slick. that spatter can really burn your scalp let me tell ya. long hair just getts a little frizzed by it, but dosent let it burn you.



once i was doin a verticle weld and a large drip/pop (whatever you wanna call it) of spatter landed between my right ear and my head. I felt my ear burn a little but wanted to finish the bead. by the time i was done i was smelling burning hair and skin. i reached behind my ear and got melted skin and hair all over my fingers. man did that sucker sting. had a little melted bald spot on my head and a patch on my ear for a while. that thin skin on your ears doesnt heal all that fast.

burnt my hands a fingers before from not wearing gloves too. i randomly find little divits and burnt places on my hands from what was supposed to be a 2 second gloveless tack, to 10 minuts of laying beads. haha, oh well. . live and learn

 

[JohnsonG]

A few from the machine shop days. .

Swept a crankshaft a little to far on a crank grinder and drove the side of rod journal into the wheel... busted a 26 inch by 2" grinding wheel. Fortunately it was winter and I had on safety glasses, insulated coveralls, a heavy coat and insulated work gloves. Pieces of the grinding wheel put holes in the metal roof of the building... got 3 cuts on the face. After that I made sure to take the extra time to put ALL the guards back on...



we had an old electric fork lift. ran on 12 car batteries the guys moved some engine cores around. When they went to re hook up the charger (metal jumper cable ends) they didn't turn off the charger . . they blew up 4 batteries... thankfully no serious injuries...



A friend’s dad was killed back in the 70's when a split rim blew off a truck tire.



I was using a floating table grinder to surface a 300 ford block. You bolt the block down to the table and the table slides back and forth under the stationary grinding wheel. Has an auto feed function... so I set it up and watched it run back and forth through a few cycles. . then answered the phone. . Murphy was alive and well that day, the block came loose and the grinder wheel slammed the block sideways and all hell broke loose... totaled the wheel and the block... .



Was young and dumb, first time I did ball joints on my old c-20, 4x2 used a cinder block to support the front end, thankfully I was to lazy to take off but one wheel. . yea it broke, had my head stuck in the fender trying to loosen the lower ball joint, no jack under it and it fell stuffed me right into the wheel well and slammed my head into the upper a arm, spindle near ripped my crotch out. Bumps and scrapes only...



Was operating a fork lift in a building while in the USAF, clipped a fire sprinkler head... was a long day of mopping...



No better school than the school of hard knocks...

 

[JWChessell]

Here's one I didn't see listed, but I know it happens because I've seen it in my own shop. Fluorescent bulbs pulse/strobe very fast. This can cause a running table saw blade to appear to stand still, if the speed of rotation matches the frequency of the pulsing light. In a noisy shop you can momentarily think that the saw isn't running. Always have at least one regular light bulb burning.

 

[Sled Puller]

Thanks for the last tip, never heard of that, but will pay closer attention from now on.

 

[CBari]

This Didn't Really Happen In The Shop But Was Because Of The Day Befores Shop Activity.



The Day Before Had Been Servicing Our Fleet Of Tractors And In The Processes Had Gotten A Used Oil And A Supstantial Amount Of Diesel On My Bib Overalls. No Biggey I Thought I Wash Them Over The Weekend.



Well The Next Morning The Boss Decided That It Was Dry Enough To Burn The Pastures Off. No Problem Get Everything Together In The Process Get Cold So I Put My Bibs On. Get To The First Field And Start Lighting The Back Fire. Have A Back Pack Sprayer With Water On My Back Work The Back Fire Get To An Area With Just A Little Grass And Think I Will Just Stamp Out The Back Fire And Move On. Well Before Stomping It Out I Go But The Sprayer On The 4-wheeler And Start Stomping Next Thing I Notice Is My Leg Is Getting Warm. I Look Down And From The Waist Down I Am A Blazing. I Hit The Ground And Start Rolling Get Things Out For The Most Part And Get And Then Pat Out The Smoldering Spots. Boy Was That The Wrong Thing To Do. The Melted Nylon Was Embedded In My Legs From The Patting Of The Smoldering Spots. My Boss Said I Looked Like A Nascar Driver On Fire Rolling In The Infield.



But On A Positive Note The Holes In The Bibs Were Low Enough To Cut Them Off And Make A Pair For My Little Brother In Law.