Hot Rods Do you wear safety shoes/boots when working in your shop?

Everywhere I worked it was safety glasses and a face shield for wire wheels & zipcuts. I saw a welders face get a cut from a zipcut on a side grinder when he decide to skip the the face shield. It was close to being very serious. My brother in law was a pipefitter. One of the fitters on his job skipped the face shield and the wire wheel started to let go. They had to pull a line of wires out of the fellows face. Its good to have the added protection of the face shield. I have a nice one that I use then put it back in its box so it does not get scratched up & useless from sitting around.

 

I don't wear sneakers unless I'm going for a run...and I don't run. I live in boots.

Devin

 

The second job I ever had required steel toed work boots, I've worn them ever since.
The steel toed work boots have saved my toes many times over the years, including the time my foot got run over by a fork truck. I got one broken toe out of that one, but the steel toe saved the other 4 toes and pretty much the entire foot. It required a new pair of boots, but I thought that was a worth while trade off.

I've been retired 2 years now, I just bought a new pair of steel toed work boots to wear in the shop.
The steel toe boots go along with the welding helmet, the welding gloves, the welding sleeves, and safety glasses are all the stuff that goes with working in my shop.

 

I am a stickler for PPE (personal protective equipment) I had a very long
career in heavy construction. I saw safety go from being virtually non
existent to being utterly stringent as it is today. I saw many many serious
injuries which include horrible maiming to deaths on the job. I use the same
basic safety criteria while working in my shop or at home. The first lesson that is stressed to workers when encountering safety training is that you are ultimately responsible to ensure your own safe well being. I wear military
type composite hightop boots almost daily. They are surprisingly light and
give my old beat up ankles much needed support. That being said I enjoy
watching a variety of the network shows featuring car builders. I cringe
when I see these professional builders working with little or no PPE as
well as the really hazardous way they use tools. Also the way they place their
hands and bodies in positions that could get them injured at any given moment. Any one of these practices would get a worker fired instantly in
todays industrial workplaces. I have l seen a lot of good guys fired that thought they could circumvent a safety standard.

 

Day job requires full PPE. Since I go to the shop directly from there, it is all PPE, all the time.

 

I am pretty good with using safety equipment while welding or grinding, otherwise not so much.

 

I had a hard finding steel toe flip flops, but I finally found a set to match my steel cupped Speedo.

 

I really have no choice. My shoe “wardrobe” consists of two pairs of ANSI spec’Ed composite toe boots, a pair of slippers and somewhere a pair of dress shoes.
Ya, I don’t get out much.

 

Safety first, always -
it takes no more time to put on boots than sand shoes,
always use the appropriate protective gear for what is required.
A trip to the emergency department and any recovery takes longer than putting on a little extra protective gear !

 

I used to wear them most of the time, and I keep a pair in the car so i always have them, but i have a few slipped discs and sciatica now, so unless im moving something heavy or doing something that could be hazardous to my toes, i go for nice comfortable and supportive sneakers. Maybe not the smartest choice, but even with months of physical therapy and some cortisone shots, good sneakers made the biggest difference in not being in constant pain.

 

I always wear steel toe boots. It helps that work has a decent reimbursement program and will pay a decent portion even though my job doesn't really require it (desk jockey). Their philosophy is that if you are hurt at home it's not good for the business either. I haven't always been safety concious but having the kids work with me made me ramp up my (and their) game.

 

Seems I need to ramp up my game as I have been called out even a few times here from my kids footwear, etc. while working in the shop...

 

No I don't but I should have. I was disassembling my engine hoist and undid the bolt for the top of the piston. I undid the bolt for the top bar and was just lifting it off and the piston swung down and the end of the ram hit my big toe squarely and broke it it two places. What a freak accident. If the piston was in an inch it would have missed my toe and if it was out six inches it would have also missed.

 

IMO, the bigger issue there is a lack of a mask while sanding. Sandpaper doesn't hurt when you drop it on your toe.

 

If you worked in a vet hospital, you'd literally drop shit on your feet and know why we don't allow staff to wear open toed shoes,

 

Lol...yea, there’s that too. But, considering he was sanding fiberglass, his toes would have itched less with at least some closed-toe shoes. In my defense, he wasn’t sanding enough to be breathing much in. He probably spent less than an hour helping when I caught a quick picture.

 

I try to wear appropriate shoes but tend to stay away from steel toes. Paranoid that when I drop that big heavy thing on my foot that steel toe is going to turn into either a blade or something I can’t get my foot out of.

 

Where I work they are required so they give us a safety shoe allowance where we can get a new pair every year so I always keep the old pair and use them in the garage and for yard work. They have been making them with a plastic or fiberglass toe in the shoes for some time now which makes them a lot lighter than the old steel toes. Back when I was younger I worked in a steel mill where there were guys welding and the steel toe in the work boots would eventually tear through the front of the boot. As a joke other guys would wait while a guy was welding and tack weld a piece of steel to exposed steel toe.

 

I pretty much live in shorts and flipflops, makes welding more exciting.

 

I always wear safety shoes or boots in the shop. I've hurt myself enough times where proper footwear would have saved me that I get a tingly spidey sense feeling if I walk into my shop in the wrong shoes now.

@Stooge I can recommend some shoes that might be easier on you. My boots are Carhartt (Carhartt Force® 4 Inch Black Waterproof Slip On) composite toe and I can be in them all day. My low top shop shoes are Sketchers (Skechers for Work Men's Hartan Steel Toe Slip-On Shoe) which are lightweight with good memory foam insoles; these or another Sketchers brand work shoe may be good for you.

 

Always.. I'm an electrician and need to have well insolated souls along with shields, I use the plastic ones though lol...

 

My daily attire, work and welding shoes......rain or shine. I have old work boots from work but, yuk.

 

Hey 1OT,

Yikes, I have had my share of the local So Cal icon in sandals, too. When they started, it was an old shed in an area with a ton of junkyards and repair businesses. The shed is still there, but it is a throwback showroom for everyone. The oldest pair is an old leather one that are older than yours, but yours looks older just because of wear and tear.

My original leather Rainbow Sandals were given to me by a friend who worked there a long time ago. They had just had too many people that wanted arches in the flat soled versions. So, one of the workers inserted a different color arch insert and a new generation was born.

My flat feet have been with me through thick and thin. Good for level support, but bad for future draft notices as a teenager, or so I was told. It looked like a trail of ducks was following me out of a pool or after surf shower. My foot prints set the tone for being flat footed. My mom used to laugh because she said she had a duck footed son. They did nothing for speed of swimming, either.

Jnaki

But, wearing those brand new, at the time, arch Rainbow Sandals made the flat feet arches have some movement. When I would walk out of the pool, I began to feel like a normal guy leaving normal wet feet prints and not have a duck following me around. Now, my little toddler son could say he was following his dad and not a big duck. (although my old 1960s friends used to call me Baby Huey, but that is another story)

But, those old Rainbows are just a classic scene in all of So Cal. The old store is packed daily and on weekends, it is the busiest place in the area. The corporate offices are inland about 5 miles and in a multi-story building. The sandals set the tone for all of So Cal and in the USA for beach attire and lifestyle.

Your sandals are just a classic scene in So Cal...old, well worn and wiser... kind of like all of us oldtimers... Ha!

 

I started getting when I was a kid in the early 80s, even got my grandpa into them. Back then they were flat hunks of foam. When I walk in the sand next to the g/f it looks like a t-rex walking with a human......I always say "That just means I won't tip over easy" .

 

Just closed toe shoes, wore boots for 40+ years on the job, still have a pair though

 

I wear my safety boots all the time when I go out the door of the house , just shaved off my beard though , finally figured it was to close for comfort around grinders ,belt Sanders, drills and so on in the shop , lots of close calls where a drill would catch a few hairs and pull them out !!!
I can tell you gold is a great conductor of heat when some slag dripped on to my wedding ring , was just a quick little job , no need to take it off ,I mean what could happen?? Its alway's the quick little task that gets you !!!

 

That is all I ever wear are steal toes, even my cowboy boots I wear for going out are even steel toes.

 

Never used to until a completely stupid potential accident a couple summers ago, now if I’m doing any kind of garden work or anything heavy in the garage I put on my work boot.

Using the lawn trimmer last year in my flip flops it kicked a stone into my big toe cracking the nail and having me bleed out like a stuck pig!!
I freaked out let go of the trimmer it hit my calf on the way to the ground, causing me to fall. Somehow sucked my flip flop into the string and smacked me on the calf and foot .
I got pissed and grabbed the dang thing and tossed it in the middle of the street while my calf and foot where all bloody.

the neighbour said it took all of 5 seconds and looked like I got jumped by 5 gangbangers the way I was jumping and flaying around.

All good, no permanent injuries other then my pride.
So since then I where proper foot protection

 

Yeah, I and use these for jack stands. Works fine-until it doesn't. Good luck.