Yup. I don't anyone at my funeral saying "He looks so natural and at peace". Nope, I want 'em to gag and say "thank god he died, he looked like shit!" Every damned time I look at the truck, I break out in bloody wounds. I swear to god, Ford didn't put a round edge on ANYTHING! Makes you wonder how assembly line workers keep all of their limbs.
You're old, clumsy and in too big a hurry. Slow down tuck your fingers in and swing the hammer with a plan. Geese, the older you get the slower you should go. Most everybody on the HAMB is in their 70's get a clue, I'm almost 80 and have slowed down and planned my plan.
In the mid 50’s, my father was working at Newport News Shipyard. He was cutting and welding galvanized grating for use as flooring in the compartments. Many a night my mother peeled and cut a raw potato to press on his eyes. Galvanized poisoning, which makes you throw up your soul was a regular treat as well. Tough Ole Bird, I guess.
Heres a trick cut some random lengths of 5/16 rubber hose and slice carefully through the wall for the for example a 6" length and then you can slip it over sharp edges to protect against scrapes and cuts while your wrenching... then remove when done...it will fit varied gauges of metal and you could even add some tape to help anchor it a couple of layers of masking tape works to...and you can reuse it till it doesn't stick anymore... Cereal box cut into strips bed over edge and add a couple of pieces of tape to anchor...also reusable... Again Nitrile gloves make great dry use situations safer by minimizing abrasions while still allowing great holding and gripping... If you tear the glove no bigs it's better than you...and remember you can wear them for the moment...
Old and clumsy, yep. 70 is still a few years away. Wear gloves. I'm a welder, I probably wear gloves more then most do. Nitrate gloves are not cheap any more, and a box of 100 doesn't last long. Welding gloves are big and clumsy, and I just can't get into those mechanics gloves. Gloves don't do much for anything other then your hands. I think most minor injuries I get are above a glove line. Slow down? I'll never get anything done if I slow down much more. There is probably a little time I could take to be more cautious though. Clean my garage?????? What a novel concept. When I get this last truck done, I'm getting rid of a lot of stuff and really clean up around here.... I work alone nearly all of the time, I really am pretty careful. I put a lot of thought into everything I do, to be sure its done the best way possible and that I go about it in the safest way possible, but stuff happens. Minor cuts and abrasions are part of the deal and go with welding and fabrication. I'm always dealing with pinching, cutting, drilling, and abrasive tools, hot surfaces, and sharp, or hot cut off, or welded metal. As I get older, the minor injuries seem to happen more often, and as stated earlier, often without my knowledge, until I see the blood spots. Gene
Here is one of my tools I have depended upon for 50 or so years to keep me supplied with thigh-high deep bone bruises.
gloves....good in nasty ass situations...... not good around rotating masses I.E ......drill presses, mills,lathes, even hand held drills, especially them big old ones where a h.p. was a h.p and the torque could rip yer shoulder outta the socket, or bust your wrist or the old chunk of pipe threaded in for a grab handle could spin and hit you in the sack, but.. I digress....anyway gloves require some common sense too.
Cut it out, you guys. I've got a very good imagination, and when I read these stories, I sort of live it. "Pulled my shoulder out of the socket." Ohhhhhhhhhh... "Pierced my eye." Ooooooooooooh... "Broke my femur with a sledgehammer." Owwwwwwww! "Almost cut off my junk." "Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!"
always keep some superglue handy for the deeper cuts bite your lip give it a scrub under the tap dry it well and glue yourself together again ..done the length of my thumb right to the black gooey looking stuff last time we took the camper out ( discarding a disposable barbecue) so deep it didnt bleed .. used some neat antiseptic and superglue . My repairs are not recomended though, they were get outs for my personal patchup pleasures
Exactly why we must fairly fluidly think before we do...for achieving the goal efficiently while thinking about doing it safely...over and over It might be just taping or lightly wedging a nut into a wrench so it doesn't fall out while installing in a tight location...doing a Houdini getting into a place only to have a nut drop away out of sight introduces moves to retrieve and many times it's these type of awkward moments that bring on a head wound...especially with frustration added for those of us that have a short fuse...which adds one more detail...Patience...when we lose that Shit Happens Gene did say tidy and uncluttering the workspace...very important but this is again one part of a bigger picture...
A few weeks ago I was putting outdoor steps together using pressure treated 2x8 scraps left over. I was using 3.5" deck screws, #25 torx, DeWalt 20v driver. The last screw (why is it always the last one?) I drilled screw through my left hand 2nd finger end, nail and all. I had to reverse drill it out. Pain was excruciating and a neighbor on her porch learned a new language and sent her husband down to check, thinking I was in the last throes of death. I quickly washed it, tons of hydrogen peroxide, triple antibiotic ointment. It actually is healed now. Sent from my SM-S320VL using Tapatalk
Tissue safe glue right?......I heard of tissue gluing...but avoid is a better option...glad it wasn't worse but it still sounds like a looloo of a slice...yipes...
X2 @Stogy I'm just a little squeamish. Ewwwww... LOL Truth is, it's good to talk about it. Helps to remind us to do what you and others are saying and what my father often told me to do... slow down... think first. And actually, I'm always interested in exactly how particular accidents happened... so that maybe we can avoid a few of 'em. Here's one you might want to avoid. Don't get going on your 20 inch Schwinn bicycle, going down the sidewalk as fast as you can... and then start heavily swerving to make the tires growl. Slid about 20 feet. Goooood sidewalk rash. Sorry, no pics.
Welding galvanized in some power plants, we had to drink a half gallon of milk every day to precipitate the lead out of our bloodstreams. Maybe that's where the term, " Get the lead out of your ass " came from
Got to be careful with superglue! Sitting at a table and very carefully gluing some stuff together for the wife while eating a donut. Sat the donut down without looking and when I picked it up and took a bite, I glued my upper lip to my tongue. Wife thought it was hilarious.
Just got over hernia surgery for the second time Probably got every modern day tool available on earth. But when you work alone a great deal you seem to have two flaws. Number one. I am strong as I ever was. Number two. I don’t need help and see number one again. Gotta love it. But my surgeon is cool. He like what I work on and he’s good with it.
Why am I thinking Guinea Pigs or sacrificial lambs here...I guess that's why they make smoke eaters now...glad you are still with us...I mean some things were unknowns...some not so...lots of this in Vintage Hotrod/Custom and of course many lived to a rightfull old age...steel belted innards I suppose...
Using a 5'' grinder while wearing shorts. The wheel grabs the lip of metal, I lose the grip on the grinder and it decides to skate across my thigh doing a triple somersault with a twist and then taking a path down my calf before I could unplug it. What made it worse was the thigh area is the donor sight for the skin graft on my calf that was damaged in an industrial accident a couple of years previous. I've got copious blood running down my leg into my boot, walk through the house past my wife and 2 kids. They've got horrified looks on their faces and I told them "This is why you don't be careless with power tools".
Glad you're still with us......I think many times we joke about that dog with 3 legs named Lucky...We the survivors of such incidents share some of that dogs legacy...some do not as they didn't make it...the rolling down the ramps post here is a proven killer along with Jack Stands and their many compromises...but an untethered Grinder on lock just as frigging dangerous... Credit to Artist, Owner
There's a whole lot of Luckys walking around here...without question many wearing that moniker Proudly...
My dad drilled a 1/8" bit thru his index finger, straight thru the nail and bone. Bone chips were growing out of his finger for a year!
Did that in '65 on decomposed granite driveway a few days before high school fall football practice started. Totally scraped off both palms to raw meat. Was trying to make the varsity team as tight end. I made the team with both hands bandaged.
Ever had a grinding disc come apart and hit you in the chest? .....I have.....peeled off my coveralls hoping not to find it sticking out of my chest, wore a real nice thin red streak for a couple months....left index finger been cut off completely and taped back on in the shop twice, mrs troll said it would turn black and fall off both times, but....HA!!!! she was wrong. Got a weird looking fingernail though, welded my finger and thumb together picking up a piece of red hot metal I knew was hot, picked it up anyway, been flashed so bad my eyes tried to poke out of my head three times, wearing progressives under my helmet, looking out the bottoms of my glasses, lifting the helmet high enough to let the light in....Oh yeah, there's more... Really glad to see I'm not the only slow learner here...
Ow...ow...ow. 1965? Same year! I was 8 years old. Summertime. Shorts only. Scraped skin off my left side calf, knee, thigh, arm and shoulder. I stood up, only knowing that I had the wind knocked out of me... gasping for air. Turned toward the kid up the street (Bobby) who I was showing off for. He exclaimed... Ricky! I was like... What? I looked down at myself. Blood. Now it started hurting. Next thing I remember, I'm on my back on the couch in the living room, looking up at my mom who's telling me to try to stop screaming. I managed. Couldn't go swimming for a while. Glad you made the team.
The Jalopy Journal
