Machinists chime in, acquired a lathe

[Keith]

This ^^^^ and of course, I am BIG on safety, no shirt tails hanging out, no grabbing at the chips as there being made while turning down metal, I know it sounds so basic, but after seeing fingers slices open and ripped off. safety is number in my Book... YouTube is such an awesome deal now, in the late 80's it was hands on and learn from someone that new, but you tube will give you so much info

You're taking all of the fun out of it! I have never tucked my shirts in. When one of them hot chips goes down, you can get it out of there fast!


I wish it wasn't so far. I'd come down and show you a few things. Good luck to ya. Ain't no better feeling than to take a blank chunk of metal and make a useful part out of it.

Absolutely wear safety glasses ALL THE TIME, and never wear gloves or rings. My uncle owned a machine shop and always wore gloves. He told me he knew what he was doing. About 10 years later his glove got caught and it pulled him into the machine. It almost killed him, in fact he never worked again after that. Also cut or tuck any long hair, it will scalp you.

As for tucked in shirts, one of my best friends in high school machine shop class was running the lathe behind me. He has it running as fast as it would go and was polishing his State Competition part using super fine sand paper and oil. All of the sudden I hear the lathe bog down so I whirled around to see him standing there white as a ghost with just shirt sleeves but the rest of the shirt was missing. He always wore an old flannel shirt with the shirt tails un-tucked. He didn't disengage the lead screw and the shirt tail wrapped up in it, ripping his shirt off and wrapping it up. The only thing left was the sleeves on his arms. Thank God that nasty old shirt was rotten, or it could have been real bad.

[Daddypants]

I used to have a nasty pic of a guy that got pulled into a lathe chuck. It was gnarly. He was wearing a jacket and it looked to me like he was turning between centers with a lathe dog. I’m sure a few of you old hands have seen that same pic.

[Goldeneagle]

Several months ago we had a guy get his whole shirt torn off by a NC jig bore machine. If he had been wearing a T-shirt it wouldn't have turned out as good as it did.