Did something dumb today.

[Southside]

I wear Grease Monkey / mechanics gloves in the mill shed. The cotton ones with nitrile on the fingers and palm. They are tight fitting, you can feel and press buttons, and they protect your hands. At $0.50 / pair I get a few days out of them then toss em. 

[DWyatt]

I have been wearing the same type putting up insulation in the shop and it's nice that they fit tight. The ones that Old Greenhorn shows, I might as well be wearing wool mittens because I can't do anything with them.

[WV Sawmiller]

   I will re-post this one to confirm why you don't want to wear gloves or loose thigs around moving equipment. In my defense (if is any :) I had to wear gloves at the time because my hands were badly cracked from an atopic dermatitis (Dupixent is the cure but it is expensive)


Yes, my hand was in the glove at the time.


 I was running bench legs through a table saw with the blade set at a 45* making octagon shapes.

   Was June 2020 I think. 12 stitches, 2 broken fingers and it still hurts when I bump one of them but I am lucky it was not much worse.

[Old Greenhorn]

Yeah I knew I would take some kind of beating when I posted that. ;D I don't care for those tight gloves with the rubber on them. Too tight and they make my hands sweat. I never wear gloves on a TS or RAS, that is suicide, as Howard demonstrated at great cost. I wear those gloves shown for lumber and log handling as well as changing blades. They don't get near the cutting action when my hands are in them. Moving lumber and slabs is tough on gloves and hands. These last a few months and in the winter I can slide a pair of wool of cotton fallers gloves inside them for warmth and they work great. I keep 3 pairs in my tool bag and swap them out during the day when they get real wet or muddy. They dry overnight if I remember to lay them out. ;D
 Working knobs, button, and levers with gloves on is a learned skill. When I joined he fire service I had an instructor who saw me take my gloves off for any detailed work and he hammered me to learn to do everything with the gloves on, just practice a lot. He was right and I learned. Taking your gloves off in a fire to do a tank swap during a rescue can be very hazardous, so I learned.
 I buy those gloves by the bundle and am happy with them. I prefer not to blame my tools for my shortcomings.

[kantuckid]

I reluctantly join this club.
 Having never before done anything remotely dangerous or stupid to my hands or body, I submit my latest booboo:
Yesterday I had cut 10 joist pockets into two wall logs and decided I'd try my sort of new Kutzall grinder wheel to doll up the pockets after some chisel work. I use the Kutzall mostly for beveling logs or dolling up branch stubs on wall logs. To gain entry into a 6" wide pocket the handle had to come off my Milwaukee paddlle switch offset grinder to allow the wheel to face the back of the pockets. I was happy to see that Milwaukee had another threaded hole for vertical use of the handle. Of course that means the left had isn't quite as adept at holding back the wheel via the web of your left thumb. 
My bib overalls now look similar to some of the work gloves above in an area where the wheel kicked back into my belly. It tore the zipper top loose, grabbed hold of some fabric and entered my boxers enough to burn a nice 3" long red abrasion onto my tummy. A picture will show it to be just above my family hair down there. Had I not been wearing bibs but my all summer long short and a T-shirt, I might have drawn some blood. 
I've used Lancelots (circular chainsaw wheels and they are a tricky tool but I like them) this Kutzall's far more tame but given my tool setup having moved that handle, I was ripe for a bad injury. Lucky me. Glad it was my Dickies as I LOVE my Key Bibs. 

Oh, I forgot to mention my other submission for entry "into the hall of fools": 
Last Saturday I had a "special student kid" helping me. In candid reality he's got issues such as being medicated for aggressive compulsive disorder so what I'll call a bit scarily "numbed up" to say the least. At times I had to say something several times to get through the haze. We are planning 4x6's of 14' SYP and my chip suction system gets plugged up. I place an 8' step ladder on concrete where it cannot be opened behind a stack of the wood. I tell him to place both his boots against the ladders legs. Whatever he did or didn't do I was up against a 10' ceiling removing a 4" duct and it slipped across the floor against the wood pile. My left legs calf is now entirely purple and hurts like hell. It sort of slid that leg (my bad leg where I pulled hip muscles only a few days before and had a 14th shot after that by two days) against a bunch of ladder steps as my body descended to a standing position leaned against the ladder.  I can only blame myself but truth is I need better help and to not depend on anyone else to save my groceries.  ;D
My favorite gloves have become the knit plastic dots version. I hate those what I call engineer, safety cuff work gloves as too stiff & bulky! There are some neat gloves sold now but I'm too cheap to buy em. 

[Old Greenhorn]

I reluctantly join this club.
......

Good! It takes some of the heat off of me. ;D
 Lest we all forget, this thread is intended to confess our mistakes and near misses so that others might learn and not make the same mistakes.

[OlJarhead]

I get real nervous anytime I see gloves, knowing spinny things are also involved.

Glad both of you guy's hands are ok!

No spinny things involved.  The band was not moving which makes a point.  Without the gloves I would have opened up my thumb not the gloves.

[OlJarhead]

Like many things, the glove no gloves debate us like politics;  neither side listens much.  The glove side immediately jumps to spinny things and the glove side jumps to sharps.

I was a mechanic, heavy duty, in a past career, very past, and you did both.  Gloves protect your hands from many things including sharps but must not be worn around skinny things.  Skinny things require keeping your hands away at all times.  I've had friends lose fingers WITHOUT wearing gloves while running tabke saws.  That's why you should use push sticks etc. 

Changing bands or running the mill is safe and easy with gloves on.  Anyone putting hands near a spinning band should get a Darwin award.

[SawyerTed]

Every day is a series of risk/reward decisions.  Gloves for this?  No gloves for that?  Do I go to the shop and get X or do I make do with what I've got?  Guard on the table saw or not?  Where are my safety glasses?  Ear plugs or ear muffs?  Boots or tennis shoes? Chaps for just this one cut?  The list is endless if you do anything!  Even a nap in the recliner or on the sofa presents risks and rewards.  :D

[aigheadish]

@kantuckid Your first paragraph there about took my breath away, yikes! I don't remember if the angle grinder was one of the tools I claimed to be afraid of in that other thread, but it should be!

@OlJarhead Yup, I totally agree, I just get anxious when the subject is brought up. I hope to not be one of the safety police that gives people grief when doing things like that, especially when I can just about guarantee that I'm the least experienced of the bunch of us in the endeavors of this forum.  

@SawyerTed my neck hurts, pretty frequently, from my couch naps! Point well made!

[JJ]

Just had lunch, think I am going for the sofa
Wish me luck, I'll be sure to tuck in my PPE pillow to keep my neck inline.
everybody be safe out there!

       JJ

[SawyerTed]

 :D

Sofa napping accidents account for 60 percent of the falls from upholstered furniture.  You better put a side rail guard on that thing!  

The other 40 percent are from recliners getting stuck and occupants trying to climb out.   Keep your recliners in alignment and maintained to reduce getting stuck

And by all means use a coaster !   :D :D 

[Ljohnsaw]

 This might already be way up this list.  About 2 years ago I wasn't quite so lucky with my angle grinder.  Perfect storm of stupid decisions.  I was working in tight quarters such that I couldn't have the guard on the head (probably wouldn't have helped) nor the second handle.  The next bad decision was to cut with it pulling the head into the cut rather than out of the cut.  I was cutting about waist high or maybe a little higher.  I can't remember if I was holding with two hands or just one.  It grabbed and in less than a blink of the eye, it hit my knee with such force I thought I broke something.  Man, that really, really hurt.  My jeans had a 5 or 6 inch tear/cut about mid-thigh.  I peeked in side and not a scratch.  But boy did my knee hurt.

I continued cutting after I picked up my still spinning grinder (switch not paddle) and changed the blade.  Man, my knee hurt.  So I looked again and well below the jeans hole there was a gaping gash but no blood.  The disk must have cauterized it!

The ER doc didn't like my suggestions to cut the ragged edge off the wound so it would heal cleaner.  In hind sight, she wanted to have it heal from the inside out but that took almost a month.

[GAB]

And by all means use a coaster !   :D :D

YES DEAR

[SawyerTed]

And by all means use a coaster !   :D :D

YES DEAR

Hey! Hey! Hey!  Who gets the last chicken wing is the only domestic dispute that out ranks not using a coaster!  At least here in the South!  North of Winston Salem.  Half way between King and Walnut Cove.  Okay. At my house, not using a coaster leads to dumb injuries.  I'm not telling anything else!
Carry on with the the thread.   :D :D

[Old Greenhorn]

Coasters you say? I have one of these but I can't bear to use it. I like it more than my furniture. :D


 

---------------------------
With respect to Ted's remarks, I had no idea that safety nazis made it into our living rooms and are doing studies. What next?

[SawyerTed]

Safety police are everywhere!

Shortly after my wife and I were married, we were doing what newlyweds do at night in bed.  She stopped me and asked, "Should we be practicing safe sex?"  I said, "We are, we're in the middle of the bed!"

Notice I didn't mention gloves!  

All in good fun, Tom!  

[Old Greenhorn]

Gee, I never heard of anybody getting hurt watching TV or reading, but I suppose it could happen. ;D
 Hecke I even know a guy that pretty banged up just driving his ATV down a small hill. Oh wait..... Never mind.

[Crossroads]

I should have had a designated driver today, as apparently I had my head hiding in a dark southern location. First thing hooking up the mill in the dark. Don't look at the backup camera until you back into the tongue of the mill🙈 backing the mill in front of the the customers logs and hear something scraping the right rear fender (snow blower)🙈. Finished the job and was turning the mill around and clipped a pile of firewood with the left front 🙈. Ugh, at least I didn't do any damage, maybe tomorrow will be better....

[Old Greenhorn]

Some days are like that, I get 'em too. But look: Nobody got hurt and nothing was damaged, so they were minor (but embarrassing) incidents. Some of those things even happened with no witnesses, so they really didn't happen, right? ;D
 Sounds like you got at it pretty early and worked a hard day. It's understandable, just be careful that it's not your body parts that get Bumped the next time. It's very hard to recognize when we are tired and have to proceed more carefully and a little slower. 

[Crossroads]

Good point, I even scheduled an extra day of mobile milling this week somehow. Typically I save Saturday for work around the house or custom orders. Should be a good day though, it's a repeat customer that typically provides lunch 😁

[Daburner87]

Last week I was using my 6" jointer on some red oak for legs on a desk I'm making for my son.  As usual I have too many projects going at once.   So I finished the 4 legs and left them on top of the jointer.  I got covid and have been out of commission for a week, so I go downstairs today and the desk legs left a lot of surface rust on my machine.  They were down to about 12% MC when I started the project. I would usually never leave anything on my jointer, but I'm in the middle or reorganizing the entire work shop.  Now I got another project....

[doc henderson]

Oh!  is that considered a mistake?    I do that more than i should.  i touch surfaces up a few times a year.  glue or epoxy, and just like crop circles i get round rings aprox. 2 inches in diameter.  I use a scraper, then a sander (180 to 220), wipe with mineral spirits.  I am glad all the new is worn off my equipment.  yes, and before one of my "friends" says it, all of my equipment!   :D :D :D

[firefighter ontheside]

Yeah, same here  with the new on my machines.  When I got my sawstop I was really impressed with having a new table saw with a mirror finish on it.  Now it has spots all over it that have rusted.  I clean them up with some steel wool and wd40 and then wax the table.  Then I do that all over again after then next rust spot shows up.  I did a glue up on the saw one time and laid brown paper from a big roll I have and thought that would protect the top.  It did not.  Every drop of glue that landed on that paper made a little rust spot on the table top.  There are a lot of little spots.

[trapper]

No injury but i got half done changing the blade on my table saw today when I remembered to unplug it