Listen to that little voice in your head...

[mreza Salav]

For a project I needed to use two pieces of 1/2" thick 10" long solid steel rods to go into a 1/2" hole (in wood) and should move freely. Given the hole was too tight I thought to sand the rods down a few thousands on the lathe. Put the long 30" piece (before cutting into lengths) into the jaw and take a 80g sand paper and go at it.
Now we all know you should never use gloves at the lathe and I know this for years. In fact, right then I was remembering a short video of a guy who was using gloves at a metal lathe how it caught and nearly killed him as it pulled his hands and then himself right into the lathe. Don't know what happened to him as the video showed him passed out.
Right then the sand paper and then my glove (in left hand) caught and the whole thing made a very painful situation in a split second. Apparently (I can't recall) I have tried to use my right hand to free my left hand in the meantime and it caught too. So eventually yanked my hands and it made the piece off the tail stock (good it wasn't held tightly) and the whole piece got bent and a bit loose in the jaws. The bad thing was I was sanding at the tail stock end and my left hand caught, so couldn't reach the emergency button with my right hand easily but eventually did it.
Fortunately nothing too serious, just a whole bunch of fingers bruised and swollen badly. I had movement in all my fingers (although very painfully) and things are improving after a couple of days.
Here is the picture of the left hand glove torn apart.

467357
Bottom line, don't do things you know you shouldn't do, even for a brief moment, and listen to that voice in your head when working with power tools.

Stay safe!

[Patrick McCarthy]

Mreza, as someone who almost always enjoys your posts, i am sad to see this one, but glad to hear you will come thru it no worse for the wear . . . eventually. Appreciate the safety reminder, but sorry it had to be at your expense.

Best, Patrick

[Kevin Jenness]

Oh, Mreza, I feel your pain. My hands are almost always cold due to neuropathy and for some years I wore full gloves in the shop despite the risk. I had near miss on the jointer, and then had a lathe mishap that turned my head around. I was hollowing a piece by hand and the tool caught, probably on the trapped chip buildup, started spinning and grabbed my right glove. Fortunately the fingers tore off the glove or I would have been seriously injured As it was I got off with a stern warning. Now I wear fingerless gloves- still a risk, but less so, I think.

I'm glad you had only bruises and a wakeup call.

I wonder if an additional e-stop station might be a good idea. I have the vfd control on my lathe near the tailstock end and a foot-operated kill switch at the base of the headstock pedestal.

[Phillip Mitchell]

So glad you’re relatively ok. Maybe a larger emergency stop switch would help at the lathe.

This reminds me of a large metal lathe accident video in a Russian shop that I regrettably watched years ago that is seared into my brain forever. The operator’s shirt was sucked in initially and it pulled him in and suffice it to say that he did not survive and was not in one piece at the end of it. Harrowing to see and wished I’d never seen it. I remember going into the shop shortly after watching it to do something and not being able to turn on the table saw until the next day when I had cleared my head a bit. Things like this can happen in an instant.

[John K Jordan]

Yikes Mreza! Good reminder, thanks. We're glad you are recovering.

On my PM lathe the guy who I bought it from added an emergency stop button with a strong magnet so it can be positioned almost anywhere. I keep it low on the front of the lathe where I can bump it with my leg if needed.

JKJ

[Dan Friedrichs]

Glad you're OK. At Patrick said, seeing a post like this from someone with your technical skills and experience make it hit a lot harder....

[Brian Holcombe]

Heal quickly!

One of the problems with experience is that we think we can get away with it, the tools remind us otherwise occasionally.

If you haven’t already, mount a first aid kit to the wall and familiarize yourself with the contents. I have one in my basement shop and another in the garage, I also have a tourniquet.

Ive been in plenty of shops where there is no first aid kit in sight. When your slumped over on the floor and someone is trying to save your life, don’t make it any harder on them to do that than is necessary, so mount it where is it obvious.

[mreza Salav]

Thanks everybody. I'm lucky it wasn't worse and I've been blaming for my stupidity and lack of judgment for doing something I knew shouldn't do, even briefly.
My shop is in the garage and we did some extra step for sound insulation to the walls to the house and at the time of incident I was home alone with my little boy (8). So if something serious had happened it could have been a while before I would get help!

John, my lathe is actually PM3520 so will look into adding a remote/moveable emergency stop button.

[Kevin Jenness]

Heal quickly!



If you haven’t already, mount a first aid kit to the wall and familiarize yourself with the contents. I have one in my basement shop and another in the garage, I also have a tourniquet.

Ive been in plenty of shops where there is no first aid kit in sight. When your slumped over on the floor and someone is trying to save your life, don’t make it any harder on them to do that than is necessary, so mount it where is it obvious.

Excellent advice. Thanks, Brian. I know where the stuff is but it is not obvious to anyone coming in. I just ordered a wall-mounted kit for the shop.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mreza, I am glad you are on the mend! That little voice is an important one to which one should listen!

[Frederick Skelly]

I'm glad you didnt get hurt any worse. I hope you heal quickly.

[Bill Dufour]

Many metal working lathes have a foot brake treadle across the front. See the red pedal in attached photo.Touching it with your foot switches off the motor and generally applies a brake to the moving parts. On my Harrison lathe it is wired wrong and the motor will restart as as soon as I remove my foot. But while my foot is down the motor is dynamically braking to a stop in 3 seconds while a brake pad is forced into the motor pulley so it stops sooner tehn the 3 second deceleration curve.. Then I have three off switches I can use by hand before lifting my foot.
Bill D

[Kevin Jenness]

Many metal working lathes have a foot brake treadle across the front. Se ered pedal in attached photo.Touching it with your foot switches off the motor and generally applies a brake to the moving parts.

Some Vicmarc lathes have a similar brake bar at knee height. It's a feature that other mfrs would do well to copy.

[brent stanley]

Hi Mo, thanks for the reminder and I'm glad you're ok. It's tough to remember how quickly things can happen.

[Mark Gibney]

Scary story, with some scarier stories in the replies.
Glad you'll be able to heal from this one Mreza.

[Mark Bolton]

Yeah, horribly scary story for sure. My gosh, I was wincing reading the whole thing. I think I have seen the video you mention of the guy being pulled into the lathe. Horrific thought. Man you were lucky. When I envisioned the bar coming out of the tailstock and bending I imagined it whipping and beating you to death after it ripped your hands/arms off... good lord. Glad your ok. Ive avoided any shop incidents but it only takes a split second and a momentary laps of judgment than anyone can have happen...

Good your on the mend and intact.

[Brian Holcombe]

It’s great to have the e-switch at knee or foot level. I just wrapped up two control boxes and placing those at knee height was something I placed pretty high importance on.

[mreza Salav]

Here is my left hand after 3 days, much much better.
The more I think about it, the more I realize what a terrible lack of judgment in the moment and how lucky I am...

467420

[Bill Dufour]

If the control switches are pushbuttons controlling a remote relay it is easy to add as many stop switches as you would like. A rope switch might work well. A light curtain might not do well with sawdust in the air?
Bill D

[Mark Bolton]

Here is my left hand after 3 days, much much better.
The more I think about it, the more I realize what a terrible lack of judgment in the moment and how lucky I am...

That looks pretty darn good for a flashback moment. Way more than a shot across the bow. Man... you are super super super lucky dude.... That could have been a catastrophically life changing moment

[Mark Bolton]

If the control switches are pushbuttons controlling a remote relay it is easy to add as many stop switches as you would like. A rope switch might work well. A light curtain might not do well with sawdust in the air?
Bill D

I dont actually know that I, or anyone other that some freak of nature, would have the where-with-all to knee, kick, hit, reach for, an e-stop in a split second catch. Light curtain or some other "dont put anything in this area" wouldnt work with people commonly reaching over and around headstocks for filing, final emery, etc..

The time from a catch to being wrapped up is likely in the millisecond range. At that point your out of sorts and getting to any e-stop is futile.

[Kris Cook]

Appreciate you for sharing this with the rest of us to learn from. It is certainly a good reminder to listen to that voice. Glad you didn't have any long-term damage.

[Kevin Jenness]

I dont actually know that I, or anyone other that some freak of nature, would have the where-with-all to knee, kick, hit, reach for, an e-stop in a split second catch. Light curtain or some other "dont put anything in this area" wouldnt work with people commonly reaching over and around headstocks for filing, final emery, etc..

The time from a catch to being wrapped up is likely in the millisecond range. At that point your out of sorts and getting to any e-stop is futile.

Yes, in the time it takes to hit the e-stop one may sustain some damage, but it may be limited by turning the machine off, and if the kill switch can be operated by foot or knee that may make the difference if both hands are tied up. One may get tangled up out of reach of the main control and stop the machine with a remote switch. There are situations where you can see a situation developing and forestall an accident- I had a piece bind on a tablesaw and avoided a kickback by kneeing the off button while holding the piece with both hands.

Mreza's original post says "the sand paper and then my glove (in left hand) caught and the whole thing made a very painful situation in a split second. Apparently (I can't recall) I have tried to use my right hand to free my left hand in the meantime and it caught too. So eventually yanked my hands and it made the piece off the tail stock (good it wasn't held tightly) and the whole piece got bent and a bit loose in the jaws. The bad thing was I was sanding at the tail stock end and my left hand caught, so couldn't reach the emergency button with my right hand easily but eventually did it." So the event wasn't over in a split second, and if he had an e-stop at the tailstock end or a foot/knee operable one he might well have been able to get free sooner.

This isn't to say alternative e-stops trump good practice at all, but they might help alleviate a disaster. I think the post title is a good one as many of the dumb mistakes I have made were when I ignored that little voice. The machines we work with will always bite if given a chance. Eternal vigilance is the price of counting to ten digitally.

[Malcolm McLeod]

In case someone is in a DIY mood, light curtains can be had in various designs and lengths: light (width) spacing can be in the finger-, hand-, or body-scale. You choose the one suitable for what you are most likely to 'insert' into some exclusion zone - - i.e. the body-scale could be used on a doorway, if the hazard is more than arms length away. For this 'body' application, the emitter/receptor pairs are on the order of 4-6cm IIRC; you might get a hand thru, but not a leg. If a punch-press is 3" from a curtain, you'd use the finger-scale curtain so nothing but an eyelash can get thru.

I suspect most SMC-ers will find the cost of light curtains to be rather high, relatively speaking - - I recall they start at $400-500 for fairly short units (8-10" length-ish). It has been a few years since I ordered any. Banner is a reputable vendor of such if you want to pursue.

Reading thru Mr. Salav's accident description, perhaps a dead-man switch would be fit-for-purpose? Simply lift your foot off the switch - - wired in series to any existing E-Stop, or other power off mechanism.

...My dad does a lot of work on the lathe, so following along intently. And, I hope the injuries heal quickly/completely.

[Mark Bolton]

This isn't to say alternative e-stops trump good practice at all, but they might help alleviate a disaster. I think the post title is a good one as many of the dumb mistakes I have made were when I ignored that little voice. The machines we work with will always bite if given a chance. Eternal vigilance is the price of counting to ten digitally.


Fully agree. Every option you can have to kill the machine/reduce the severity is well worth a shot. Ive been in the same situation as you many times where the foreshadowing of impending doom is caught with a knee to the switch and wait for wind down. I just dont think I would have ever, or will ever (now that Im in my mid 50's), have millisecond reflexes or reaction time once the event horizon has been crossed.

[Kevin Jenness]

I just dont think I would have ever, or will ever (now that Im in my mid 50's), have millisecond reflexes or reaction time once the event horizon has been crossed.

Absolutely. Bad things can happen faster than I can react. Sometimes they keep happening though. I recall a turning accident recounted in Fine Woodworking where the survivor went to turn a baseball bat after church without removing his tie, which soon got wrapped around the spindle. He repeatedly pulled away and was sucked back in until he managed to cut the tie with his gouge. He was fortunate to have the opportunity to get out of the spot bad judgment put him in.

[Mark Bolton]

Must have been a slippery silk tie lol