Let's Be Careful Out There

 

I saw this at Meet to Match by way of Handverker. Taking care of the fingers is always a good idea. I've known and/or worked with several people who have missing digits or parts there of. When I first started teaching, the machine shop instructor lost his thumb at the first knuckle in my shop while showing a student how to safely perform a task, ironically enough. I found the thumb under one of the welding machines and they sent the piece and the instructor to the hospital together. I had to perform similar body part retrieval with bits of fingers lost in a band saw, a shear and a log splitter over the years.

When I was in high school I worked part time for a farmer doing various chores around his place. Mostly fun stuff like cleaning the bull pen in the Spring, digging post holes or baling hay. He was a great guy to work for. His wife would bring us drinks and a snack out to the field for a break in the morning and then have a big dinner for us at the noon meal. This was always like a Sunday dinner meal. Pot roast and all the trimmings, including dessert or maybe fried chicken would be on the menu that day. No sandwiches while working for Floyd. After dinner, you'd rest up for a bit and then it was back to work. He was never in a hurry unless it was trying to get the hay in before the rain or something similar. Like most teenagers, I was pretty "rammy" and he was always telling me to slow it down a little, watch my hands, watch my feet, etc.

I was very fortunate to have the chance to work for him. I learned a lot about working safely, whether that was being around large animals or machinery. If you worked around farms back then, you personally knew someone who had had a run in with a corn picker, a PTO shaft or something that had sucked them in and spit them out. In the weld shops it's probably the hand grinder that causes most of the day to day grief. I've done a little hand to hand combat with those over the years myself and they'll give you a good scrubbing. You pinch a 9" grinding disk and business will definitely pick up.

Over the years I've found there are two kinds of people who get hurt in the shop. Those that are new to the trade and don't fully understand the dangers and those that have been around long enough to forget the dangers and get a little careless. Pretty much covers everyone.

Let's be extra careful this holiday season!