Workshop safety

I finally invested in safety-caps for the outlet-strip running across the front of my workbench. I'd been warned by a CEF member years ago.. of the hazards involved with having electrical receptacles in close proximity to where "music-wire" is often handled. I recently posted a photo that shows the strip.. and it was again mentioned.. to which I am thankful for the reminder. I wrote on my shopping-list to get them.. and I did.





I didn't need a 30-pack.. but I'll give some away as gifts. The "gift of safety"... maybe I'll include a condom..

crankbndr wrote:Never wear anything that can get caught by the blade!!


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That belongs in the Redneck Zone -Admin

Right after that photo was taken, she turned quickly to her right.. and knocked the saw off the bench...

I put those outlet plugs everywhere when son was young, have tile floors also. GFCI upstream of outlet circuit.
When I was five our house had the old two prong outlets and terrazzo floors and I had to stick a wire in there.
Got hammered and still remember to this day.

Have a good ABC dry chemical fire extinguisher in a easily accessible location.

I know its fun to be the tough guy, but wear ANSI approved safety glasses when using power tools, or working with anything that could spring apart. Have sufficient ventilation when using solvents, mixing fuels, painting, and sanding. Wear a dust mask or respirator (depending on conditions) if conditions are dusty or there are fumes. Same goes for wearing gloves.

Can someone please clarify, it seems to me (at least on TV) that in America your power outlets are not switched and you just plug in the appliance in to a "live" socket.  That would certainly be a no-no here in Aus.

I recall as a young boy being taught by my dad that you never plug an appliance in while holding it.  He would place the drill etc. on the bench or floor, plug it in, switch on the outlet and then brush the appliance with the back of his hand.  This was back in the day when power drills were die-cast alloy.  He figured that if you got a 'boot" your hand would be thrown away ftom the source after a bit of a buzz, but if you were to grab a live appliance you would clamp on and not be able to let go. "GOOD NIGHT"

Mine are all live sockets except for one that was put in a long time ago and was intended for heck who knows what lol

Most of mainland Europe (so NOT including those wierd English and Irish) have 2 4.8 mm diameter round holes for the pins.
Proper 230V 50Hz power.
No nonsence like fuses in the wallplugs or switches; those should be on the appliance.
Look for "Schuko" and you find the design standard.

ALso any exposed metal must be connected to ground (pin) and those make contact before the power pins so if thhere is a short it will blow the fuse on the fuseboard.

Never had a issue with those.

Hi All,
I respect you all,
I was good at polyester resin.
Got allergic to the DDM hardener.
Switched to epoxy.
20 yrs later, I am allergic.
All the dust, was easy to see.
Wear a mask. No big deal.
The 'invisible' vapours did me in.
I hope,
This helps,
Dave

Any bearded dudes out there? (Or ladies )

How do you take care of not getting your beard tangled in rotating machinery/propellers, or dipped into paint, glue, whatnot? Mine is not even close to ZZ Top levels, only about 6” below my chin but I still have had a couple of close calls.

I guess I should get some prescription spectacles so that I would not need to look at things so close, but I still am sometimes hunched over something at the workbench, soldering, measuring etc and the beard gets close to whatever object I am working on.

Hi KariFS,

I ground several pounds of polyester/glass a day with a beard. Small 'pandemic' type masks.
We thought our beards would be good filters too.
Wrong.
Washing our beards in a sink, showed way more dust than collected on the masks.
Brutal. Itchy to nth degree.
I was lucky to learn gel coat repairs and wet sanding, further down the line.
Had more than a few good very talented friends, did not show up Monday.
They were dead.
If only we knew.
We were up to the elbows in the stuff.
Mixing 5min epoxy is OK.
Try it 1000 times, your body will not like it...
Take care,
Have fun,
Dave
P.S.
I like the thoughts of bearded dudes/ladies/ZZ Top. Flashback.

We have cats... and this could help to keep them (or anything else) from getting impaled on those paddle-bits.

Good for keeping your hands warm when shoveling snow.

Do NOT wear these around any rotating machinery!

My son just sent me this picture.  Today, he up on a ladder pitched on the back of a pickup truck and leveled with a concrete block cleaning the gutters on the front of my house.  I, just returning from running water from the other end flushing the remaining trash out the down end.

Big old Hickoy tree to the right fills the guttering with twigs and leaves.  Both gone for the season now and the time to do it.

Chip off the old block and usual activity for both of us.  



He will be 60 next month and I'm 86 and still around despite juggling chainsaws while standing up on the seat of an ATV while trimming trees.  If I didn't take some educated risks I'd still be back in the 1990's situationally.   Not bragging.  Stupid really and not for everybody.  I do wear safety glasses and hearing protection now.  And....my workshop(s) is always left clean and organized.

Edit:

Just to clarifly, the chainsaw (usually) was a battery powered B&D. I may be stupid but I'm not crazy. And.......not to risky if you hold onto the branches interior end while cutting the exterior end off. Easy...........

Bob, you could get some of these on your gutters to keep the large debris out. You'd need to cut notches in them for your gutter brackets. I have a bunch of trees and know all about cleaning the gutters.

crankbndr wrote:I put those outlet plugs everywhere when son was young, have tile floors also. GFCI upstream of outlet circuit.
When I was five our house had the old two prong outlets and terrazzo floors and I had to stick a wire in there.
Got hammered and still remember to this day.

When I was about four or five, I found a piece of lead pipe in the lot next to our house.  I looked at it carefully, and being the bright boy that I was I realized I'd seen something with those swirls on the end before.  So I went into the house and screwed the pipe into the empty socket in the living room floor lamp...  I don't remember anything after that, but my mom said I wouldn't let go of her leg the rest of the day.

Must be why I became an Electrician's Mate in the Navy. And Why I'm losing my hair.

The Associative Mark

Oldenginerod wrote:Can someone please clarify, it seems to me (at least on TV) that in America your power outlets are not switched and you just plug in the appliance in to a "live" socket.  That would certainly be a no-no here in Aus.

Yes and no.  Most outlets in our homes are always live.  But sometimes in the bedrooms there are switched outlets, sometimes both sockets in an outlet and sometimes just one socket in an outlet.  Usually to control a standing room lamp with the light switch as you enter the room.  But, with circuit breaker protected outlets, then GFCI protected outlets, and now the P.I.T.A AFCI protected outlets, we get by.

Oldenginerod wrote:
I recall as a young boy being taught by my dad that you never plug an appliance in while holding it.  He would place the drill etc. on the bench or floor, plug it in, switch on the outlet and then brush the appliance with the back of his hand.  This was back in the day when power drills were die-cast alloy.  He figured that if you got a 'boot" your hand would be thrown away from the source after a bit of a buzz, but if you were to grab a live appliance you would clamp on and not be able to let go.  "GOOD NIGHT"

Another Navy story.  One day me and two other guys were servicing a 400Hz power panel on the sub.  Naturally, underway you couldn't just power down critical power panels, so you serviced them live while wearing rubber gloves and rubber sleeves.  Me and Bobby Dolan were on one side of the panel, and Hoover was on the other side of the panel.  A few minutes in, Bobby and I hear, "UNGH!" from behind the panel.  I look at Bobby, and he looks at me.  "Hey Hoov, what happened?"  "Nuthin!"  We smile at each other and I say, "Okay Beav, whatdja do?" (His nickname was Beaver for some reason.)  "NUTHIN!!!"  We walk around the panel and there's Hoover with blood trickling down the side of his mouth.  Apparently, there was a gap between his glove and his sleeve, and he touched his elbow to one of the fuses.  The shock cause his bicep to contract and he punched himself in the mouth!

Okay.  Funny story.  But the lesson is not to just wear protective gear, but to wear it properly.  Another electrical safety tip is that if you're working on installed electrical gear, don't touch the panel you're working on with one hand and rest your other hand on another piece of grounded equipment.  If the first piece of equipment has a short of some kind and you're touching it and another panel or piece of grounded equipment, the shortest path to ground might just be from one hand, across your chest (heart) and out the other hand to ground.

Another sort of related tip.  If you have a device that has cords between it and a power source, always plug the cord into your device first, then into the power supply.  Especially if the intermediate cord or the power supply is a transformer.  Plugging into the transformer first allows the transformer secondary to build up a potential. Then when you plug in your device you get a big, sometimes damaging spark.   For example: If you have a computer, you plug the power cord into the computer first, then the power cord into the power receptacle.

I got a million (okay, a dozen) electric shock stories, and even more do's and don'ts for working around electricity.

The Frankenstein Mark