Stupid things done in a machine shop.

I thought this might be a good forum topic. I moved this post over from another forum. Lets keep them real!

I was at a shop in L.A., California... years back, looking at a machine a guy had for sale, He was running two FADAL machines with Moly D for coolant!! He was bragging how well it cut and machined the 304 ss. Yes, I agreed it would, but that it was not a good thing to do, very dangerous...respiratory issues for operator…fire... you know. He laughed and said that he had been doing it for over a year without problems. Three months after I bought the machine from him ( not one of those machines) I read how his whole shop burned to the ground. I talked to the machinery dealer who worked with me on the buy... and he confirmed that that is what happened. One of the FADAL machines burned a drill and caught fire... Everyone got out, but just barely... that’s the story anyway.
Steve

Stories of "stupid things" depends upon your point of view. The fire in that one may have been caused by something completely unrelated to the choice of cutting fluid.

I've seen and heard many stupid things myself, such as almost every supervisor I've ever had handing a new drill, end mill, or other cutting tool and telling me as he handed it over to "Be careful and don't break this. It cost a lot of money."

My standard response (in my mind anyhow) is "Damn, there goes my plans for the day."

Years ago I was in a shop that did repair work for lumber mills. One day someone brought in some rail wheels that were badly worn and asked if they could be built up with weld; so they were built up. We didn't know at the time that this was the stupidest and most dangerous thing in the world to do with a rail wheel.

They were brought into the machine shop still hot from the welding left to cool off. After about four hours there was an almighty bang which created a stir until it was realised it was not a machine being crashed. Eventually the source of the bang was found; rail wheels have tires shrunk on very tight, the weld build up made it even tighter and it split. The gap opened up just over an inch.

It is horrifying to think what could have happened if that tire had not split in the shop and the wheel had been put back on the rail car.

PixMan said:

Stories of "stupid things" depends upon your point of view. The fire in that one may have been caused by something completely unrelated to the choice of cutting fluid.

I've seen and heard many stupid things myself, such as almost every supervisor I've ever had handing a new drill, end mill, or other cutting tool and telling me as he handed it over to "Be careful and don't break this. It cost a lot of money."

My standard response (in my mind anyhow) is "Damn, there goes my plans for the day."

Click to expand...

As some one who has to hand over new drills, endmills or other cutting tools all too often I have to tell you they do cost alot of money...

maybe not the one 30.00 endmill by itself but the 2nd and third one at 30.00, then the 5.00 drill, the 300.00 indexable mill with 4 20.00 inserts, then multiple that by the 5, 10 whatever number of machines, multiple that by however many days and those numbers add up pretty quickly.

Yes it may be a stupid thing to say "don't break it", in my case I know most people don't mean to, if they did they would be out of a job. On the flip side, sometimes you feel you need to say something and that is a whole lot nicer then what may be on your tongue at the time.

Just a different perspective.

SIM said:

As some one who has to hand over new drills, endmills or other cutting tools all too often I have to tell you they do cost alot of money...

maybe not the one 30.00 endmill by itself but the 2nd and third one at 30.00, then the 5.00 drill, the 300.00 indexable mill with 4 20.00 inserts, then multiple that by the 5, 10 whatever number of machines, multiple that by however many days and those numbers add up pretty quickly.

Yes it may be a stupid thing to say "don't break it", in my case I know most people don't mean to, if they did they would be out of a job. On the flip side, sometimes you feel you need to say something and that is a whole lot nicer then what may be on your tongue at the time.

Just a different perspective.

Click to expand...

I've been on both sides of the tooling hand-over as well, and instead of telling someone "don't break it", I simply tell them how to use it properly.

Our 'FORMER' inspector was on the shop floor one day, wandering around.
He wanders over to the belt sander, and starts sanding away on something.
Suddenly, we hear a VERY LOUD.... "BANG". Like a gunshot.
Numbnuts inspector is standing by the belt sander, white as a ghost.
Apparently, he was sanding down some bullets.
Don't ask me why ...... or where the slug went.
Luckily noone was shot.
He was "Let Go" soon after this incident.

Years ago I worked for an electronics company that produced systems enclosed in short rollaround racks. Since sliding the electronics out of the rack would unbalance it, two lead bricks were bolted to the bottom back of the rack.

One day one of the electronics techs comes into the machine shop with his lead bricks, puts a 3/8" twist drill in the drill press, starts the motor and pulls the drill into the lead brick. Immediately the drill catches and propels the brick, the drill press and the tech across the shop floor. The only serious damage was a bent spindle. Henceforth the machinist drilled all the bricks on the Bridgeport in the vise.

Although not technically a machine shop story, here is my best one for sheer dollars worth of damage...

I was working at a company that build very expensive semiconductor maskmaking equipment. We were building 5 systems at a time, each to sell for about 1.5 million in 80's dollars. The machines had a large electronics console with a very expensive minicomputer mounted inside, a huge X-Y platform that moved a stage inside a vacuum chamber with an electron gun over top. Also included was a huge electrostatic plotter. Unknown to the engineers, the facilities guy had installed a new outlet for the plotter and had reversed hot and ground. Breakers were closed and smoke poured out of both the minicomputer and the plotter. Next another engineer came in and put one hand on the console and the other on the plotter and was knocked to the floor. Virtually all of the circuit boards in both the plotter and minicomputer had to be replaced. The facilities guy had a high self preservation instinct and was able to quickly rewire the outlet during the chaos.

with the topic of this thread and the degradation of shop practice these days I got a feeling this is gonna be a LONG thread.

Another quickie:
Our resident "Genius" was trying to cut a centerdrill in half with the bandsaw.
Not only that, but he was holding the 2 inch long centerdrill with his bare hands, barely 1/4 inch away from the soon to be dull blade.
Genius.

Pazuzu71 said:

Our 'FORMER' inspector was on the shop floor one day, wandering around.
He wanders over to the belt sander, and starts sanding away on something.
Suddenly, we hear a VERY LOUD.... "BANG". Like a gunshot.
Numbnuts inspector is standing by the belt sander, white as a ghost.
Apparently, he was sanding down some bullets.
Don't ask me why ...... or where the slug went.
Luckily noone was shot.
He was "Let Go" soon after this incident.

Click to expand...

Sounds like almost one for the Darwin nomination.

i have a couple .
once i was near the sheet metal shear and the lead bada$$ was measuring a sheet with his tape measure and slammed the petal to cut and forgot his tape .cut 12" off his $20 tape, not to bad but very very funny.

and at a different shop we had another lead machinist left the wench on the drawbar and turn on the mill at 2000rpm ,"wammo" broken parts all over . this happened 3 times . nobody yelled at him thou. lol

The stupidest thing I ever do in the shop is to not concentrate 100%, it will cost you every time. JC

Had a boss a long time ago who wanted to drill a 1 inch hole in a 1 inch thick x 2 inch wide x 42 inch long bar of 1018. I suggested a Bridgeport and vise, but he insisted on the old Delta drill press. Center punched the hole location and put the bar under the 1 inch drill bit (silver and demming), put the bar against the right side of the drill press column.

Personally, I would have clamped the thing down pretty heavy, center drilled, pilot drilled and slowed the drill press down - but reality would have been put it on a Bridgeport and do it right step one. Safety says when you drill press a long item with relative stupidity, put it on the left side of the column to prevent a spin.

He started drilling. He IS my boss and called me a few choice words in the process- normal practice with this SOB, told me to leave him alone.....my impulse, get the heck out of the way and watch the show.

Started drilling at about 1200K, got about 1/2 inch in, then the show started... Part catches, spins, catches him in the privates, knocks him about three feet away, then the part whacks the column on the left about 8 inches off the table....right in time for me to hit the main shop emergency switch, ask him if he was alright, hear him gasp in sopranno "yes" and for me to walk out the back door.

Took me three days to get things all untangled and fixed, lost a drill bit, had to change a chuck, but reality - low cost - this never happened again.

My stupidity in all of this is that I should have told hiom no, hit the e-stop, locked off the power, and left him angry. But he was my supervisor and probably would have unlocked it anyway, and without me there would have probably got killed trying to turn things off....

My stupidity in all of this is that I should have told hiom no, hit the e-stop, locked off the power, and left him angry. But he was my supervisor and probably would have unlocked it anyway, and without me there would have probably got killed trying to turn things off....

Click to expand...

I disagree. That would have just postponed the inevitable lesson. This way he learned and still kept his appendages and family jewels.

While working at a electric motor repair shop. The shop foreman and i watched a mechanic put a rosebud torch to a 16" pulley so the puller could do its thing. He'd heat a little and tighten up on the puller. When he would tighten up the puller he held the torch to the left and behind him. On about his third try. He put his nose in the air and started sniffing. Removing his safety glasses he turned around and found his coat ablaze hanging on his tool box. Being a smart feller he quickly threw it to the floor and stomped it out. Sheepishly he looked around only to see the shop foreman and myself laughing our butts off, then he started laughing.
Had to let him go after he managed to flip a four wheel cart and break his own arm.

Pazuzu71 said:

Luckily noone was shot.

Click to expand...

When a round is 'fired' outside of a chamber nothing really happens (besides the powder exploding, and maybe bits of the case flying like shrapnel).

A friend of a friend used to toss a hand full of rounds into the bonfire to liven up the party. While everyone else dropped their beer and ran, he'd just turn his back to the fire while the rounds went 'pop' 'pop' like fireworks. Everyone thought he was crazy, and he was, but it wasn't a life threatening act.

QB

vettepicking said:

i have a couple .
once i was near the sheet metal shear and the lead bada$$ was measuring a sheet with his tape measure and slammed the petal to cut and forgot his tape .cut 12" off his $20 tape, not to bad but very very funny.

and at a different shop we had another lead machinist leave the wench on the drawbar and turn on the mill at 2000rpm ,"wammo" broken parts all over . this happened 3 times . nobody yelled at him thou. lol

Click to expand...

I'd never leave my wench on top of the mill, but that's just me.

Jim Shaper said:

I'd never leave my wench on top of the mill, but that's just me.

Click to expand...

ok ill relay the message to the guy if i see him. and tell him "you dont do that" , but it wont help much now since that was 8 years ago .lol

Didn't she complain after the first time? lol

Honestly guys.....
Hasn't all this been thoroughly covered by the stooges...may they rest in peace.....

LMAO on all of these!