The big Hendey lathe at technical school tried to eat my friend, his pants got drawn up in the lead screw and he couldn't reach the off switch. The lathe was actually bogging down, thankfully the guy running the lathe next to him stopped it and then slowly reversed it so he could free himself. Luckily he was just bruised where the pants had wound up tight around his leg but that could have ended poorly had no one been close by to act quickly. At my first machine shop job we always wore sweat pants....I heard some commotion, looked over to see our other lathe guys pants just disappear like magic, leaving him standing in his boxers with his sweats wrapped around the lead screw.
I agree, I think I've probably hurt myself the most on the drill press with spinning parts cutting my hands when I was younger.
John Hasler wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:39 am
BClemens writes:
So when you get in a 'jam' and the job is whirling around...
...you failed to secure it.
That's a common mistake many people make - as the OP writes (great story BTW!). So the foot switch is not just for the 'expert' on the drill press....
BC
I'm not opposed to the footswitch. I just wanted to make the point that the job should *always* be secured. If it isn't big enough to hurt you (a 1" square piece of sheet metal can slice your hand open) it's small enough to get away from you and wreck itself.
John Hasler wrote: ↑Mon Aug 27, 2018 10:39 am
BClemens writes:
So when you get in a 'jam' and the job is whirling around...
...you failed to secure it.
That's a common mistake many people make - as the OP writes (great story BTW!). So the foot switch is not just for the 'expert' on the drill press....
BC
I'm not opposed to the footswitch. I just wanted to make the point that the job should *always* be secured. If it isn't big enough to hurt you (a 1" square piece of sheet metal can slice your hand open) it's small enough to get away from you and wreck itself.
The small parts are the worst, you don't have the advantage of leverage to hold onto one like a larger part. I still do a lot of free hand drilling, but make sure I have a bolt sticking up through the table to stop anything from spinning. If it's smaller part, I'll add a piece of scrap wood, wedge it against the bolt, and then the part rests against the wood so it can't turn. Foot switch is a great idea, would love for power tapping.
Great story of the lathe build not long before I became aware of Greg Lewis and his lathe project. No others at the school had bothered to mention the drill press mishap.
One morning in class, the Sand Crab instructor, introduced Professor Lewis to our class and explained that he was in the process of building his own lathe. This got my attention as I had read some of the Gingery books a few years before and realized that this professor was digging in deep for his project. Next was a query if any of us students present had any lathe experience as Professor Lewis needed threads cut on the spindle of the lathe in progress. There was even a threaded chuck provided so the threads could be turned to the correct pitch diameter. With no other students stepping to the plate, I offered my services at threading the piece of steel that was going to be the lathe spindle. I had always used bigger industrial strength lathes previous to that time and had to sort out the details of the Logan lathe provided in the shop that day. I soon had the machine set up to cut the correct thread pitch and began the operation. Not once did I make any calculations on a sheet of paper, just worked from past experience. Soon the thread was a nice fit to the lathe chuck and the task was completed. Professor Lewis thanked me for my efforts and headed off to his other responsibilities at the educational institution.
The instructor had never seen one of his students cut such a nice thread on a machine he had never used before. Even more, the instructor was impressed that I did all of the thread math in my head and made no notes to work from. Yet the thread fit as needed. To me it was just business as usual for I had been cutting threads on lathes for almost 20 years at that point in time. The instructor was more of a foundry and sheet metal guy with little machine tool background I later discovered. From that point on, each machine tool job that came into the shop that semester, was directed to my attention.
It was only a few years later that I would discover Professor Lewis was interested in live steam locomotives and our friendship began.
Great story and well written. Would be a good submission to Machinist's Workshop magazine, along with a picture of the lathe.
I don't own a drill press any more as I found that I never used it and my space is limited. I have always preferred to use the mill for drilling operations. If a very tall part comes up that needs some holes in the ends, I can take it to my friend's house, where the 1940's Buffalo Forge drill press I sold him is still in use...
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