Video of Lathe Accident

[Aaron Craven]

Yikes...

I'm still new enough to woodturning to have a healthy fear for what I'm doing. I try to keep pieces small and take my time (not always an easy task as I can be a little impatient). Early on I had my first "close-call" lesson. I was wearing gloves while doing some rough turning (don't scold... I know better now). After making a cut, I reached out to feel the surface (lathe running... again... I learned). The glove briefly caught between the piece and the tool rest. It only gave it a little tug, but I immediately realized how stupid I was being (and how lucky I'd been to get off with just a warning)... usually the gloves don't even go with me to the shop anymore and never at the lathe.

[Geoff Whaling]

Geoff,

You could have cut power to the machine and disassembled it too but at some point you assume an intelligent person will act in a reasonable manner. Impossible to protect people from themselves sometimes.

Hu

Hu,

I could have done many things differently! I had been working for quite some time to improve safety in the club as there were many unnecessary injuries. I don't like seeing turners being injured and not being able to enjoy their hobby because of the injury. I much prefer to see them happy in their retirement.

The scary part was that the wood turning club who owned the plant & machinery could not & would not accept that they had obligations to train & supervise members to use plant & machinery safely and to ensure that they regularly conduct risk assessments & safety audits, rectify potential hazards, and to provide a safe environment. No one wants to be a "safety nazi" but clubs who own machinery and their executives have enforceable obligations as a “duty holder” under our legislation.

I had some limited success, as a reaction to the entanglement close call, with the installation of switches with a more accessible "emergency shut off" button and “no volt” protection features, but injuries and "close calls" were not being taken seriously. The attitude was pretty much well "sh*t happens" toughen up. One involved the near amputation of three fingers on a band saw. A few years earlier a young student took off a finger and there were many "minor injuries" & near misses on the same band saw. I resigned from the executive and from the club because of the refusal to upgrade safety & other matters.

A couple of years later a gymnast died here as a result of a tumbling routine that went wrong in an unstructured adult class. The coroners findings & recommendations, the prosecution of the gymnastics club’s committee, and the imposed $70k fine on the committee are well worth reading as they clearly outline the obligations of “clubs” to provide a “safe environment.” That unfortunate event reinforced what I had been talking about and vindicated my decision to leave the club. I know of other very good turners who would make great instructors who will not get involved in clubs because of the cowboy attitude to safety in many of the clubs. http://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__data/...m-20130412.pdf

Probably the most significant recommendation from the coroner was "I am satisfied that Gymnastics Queensland and Gymnastics Australia appreciate the cultural change required to implement a formal safety risk management approach and its implications for the training of coaches and club management committees."

[hu lowery]

Hu,

I could have done many things differently! I had been working for quite some time to improve safety in the club as there were many unnecessary injuries. I don't like seeing turners being injured and not being able to enjoy their hobby because of the injury. I much prefer to see them happy in their retirement.

Geoff,

There are always dozens of other things we could have done. Hindsight is always 20-20. The question is, should a reasonable person have acted differently?

Was it unreasonable to expect a mature adult to behave responsibly and as you had just discussed? Did you and she have a calm discussion or heated exchange? If you had reason to not trust her to behave while you made the short journey to your vehicle and back you should have slapped the old bracelets on her and forced her to accompany you to your vehicle. Perhaps you could have just cuffed her to some plumbing well away from the lathe. I guess you will need to add a pair of handcuffs to your teaching kit.

I have sat in too many fact finding meetings where people come down from their ivory towers and tell us they would have anticipated the one in millions possibility and prevented it. The CEO would have anticipated the blue ice and stood three feet to the left!

Hu

[Jeff Grantham]

Thanks for the reminder, Kent. I've only been turning for about a year and am self-taught, outside of the books and videos that I've watched. I try to always respect the machine and the dangers involved, and follow the safety guidelines as I understand them, but I have to admit that I have caught myself cutting corners on safety out of sheer impatience sometimes... adjusting the rest with the wood spinning, sticking my hand inside a bowl while it's turning to remove shavings, etc. It doesn't help to see 'experts' doing the same thing in their videos sometimes . But I'm definitely going to be more acutely aware now of loose clothing, and of not using rags! That's just scary.

I consider myself lucky to have had a couple of close calls early on, in the form of pieces flying off the lathe on me, with no physical harm done... but seeing the velocity at which a piece can fly certainly put some fear in me. I deem that to be a healthy kind of fear.

[Chris Cartier]

Brice, once again thank you very much for sharing that picture. I've had a roughing gouge get too close to the end of a toolrest once, and the resulting bang scared the daylights out of me. I'm sorry you weren't as lucky as I was when it happened to you. I try to have even more respect for the lathe now, I still can't believe I see turners move the banjo or toolrest with the lathe running, that is something I vow to never do for any reason.

[Rick Gibson]

thanks for sharing Brice, that is definitely one of those "a picture is worth a thousand words" posts. I've had a couple close calls, one when a platter I was finishing the bottom of came out of my home made cole jaws. I couldn't find the rubber grips anywhere and I had read somewhere that rubber wine corks will work well. They do if you cut a slope in the side I didn't and so with nothing to keep the platter from sliding up the side of the cork it did. The second time was rough turning a bowl blank from a log piece. First error was I was using a scraper, didn't know any better and it seemed to work ok so I did. The toolrest was likely a little to far out and the next thing I knew the scraper was veritical and the lathe stalled. Instead of hitting the off switch I grabbed the scraper with both hands and pulled it up. As I quickly found out a stalled 3hp. motor will get the log spinning faster than my hand will move. It came around and caught the knuckles of my left hand. Other than a little skin lost and a painful reminder every time I moved my fingers for the next while I was ok.
For turners like myself posts like this are invaluable. For me the nearest turning club is a little over an hour away, they don't hold meetings in the summer and with winter weather from November till March I can't really plan ahead for a meeting because of winter weather. No turners that I know of in the area so I depend on sites like this for inspiration and safety tips