Ed Reiss
9th October 2008, 12:31 PM
Hi All...
Here is an e-mail I received from one of my buds at our turning club today.
I am attaching a photograph of my latest masterpiece which came in the way of a lathe accident. I send this not to brag that I have more stitches than you but to warn you about the age old warning"Never wear long sleeves when woodturning"
and a few oif the other stupid thing I did which added up to a trip to the ER.
I had just finished sanding at (mistake #2)1250 RPMs when I hit the off button and immediately reached across the top of the lathe to turn off my dust collector. The jaws to the strong hold chuck were extending beyond the body and grabbed a hold of my shirt sleeve, wrapping it around the chuck along with pulling my arm into the spinning jaws which cut out a 1/4 inch pathe 2 1/2 inches long in my arm right down to the muscle. I had to wrestle the lathe with my right arm until is stopped completely in order to remove my arm.
Needless to say, it was not pretty but I do feel very fortunate to have missed my arterial artery which they tell me would have bleed out uncontrollably with a 1/4 inch wide slice like that in my arm.
I hope to have learned a few lessons from this such as don't rush to meet deadlines(I now know why they call them dead lines), don't reach across the top of the lathe, don't wear long sleeves when turning, and don't sand of turn a vase at 1250 RPMs no matter how much of a hurry I am in.
The vase was saved but I doubt it will pay my bill for the emergency room.
I cannot wait to get back to turning, more safely of course.
Robert
Here is an e-mail I received from one of my buds at our turning club today.
I am attaching a photograph of my latest masterpiece which came in the way of a lathe accident. I send this not to brag that I have more stitches than you but to warn you about the age old warning"Never wear long sleeves when woodturning"
and a few oif the other stupid thing I did which added up to a trip to the ER.
I had just finished sanding at (mistake #2)1250 RPMs when I hit the off button and immediately reached across the top of the lathe to turn off my dust collector. The jaws to the strong hold chuck were extending beyond the body and grabbed a hold of my shirt sleeve, wrapping it around the chuck along with pulling my arm into the spinning jaws which cut out a 1/4 inch pathe 2 1/2 inches long in my arm right down to the muscle. I had to wrestle the lathe with my right arm until is stopped completely in order to remove my arm.
Needless to say, it was not pretty but I do feel very fortunate to have missed my arterial artery which they tell me would have bleed out uncontrollably with a 1/4 inch wide slice like that in my arm.
I hope to have learned a few lessons from this such as don't rush to meet deadlines(I now know why they call them dead lines), don't reach across the top of the lathe, don't wear long sleeves when turning, and don't sand of turn a vase at 1250 RPMs no matter how much of a hurry I am in.
The vase was saved but I doubt it will pay my bill for the emergency room.
I cannot wait to get back to turning, more safely of course.
Robert