When drilling deep on the lathe, I bet a lot of you take the same shortcut I do. You advance the chuck with the handwheel, then hold on to the chuck, flip up the tailstock retaining lever, and withdraw the whole thing. I've done that countless times. It seems safe, but maybe with the MT it's not as safe as I think.
Last weekend I wasn't gripping the chuck as securely as I should have been, the bit hung up in the workpiece, and the chuck pulled out of the tailstock. Wanna guess what happened? :biggrin:
The bit bent, and the chuck made several increasingly large orbits around the centerline. The chuck met my thumb on one of those orbits, and finally launched itself across the shop, ricocheted off the drill press, and impaled itself in my dust collector piping. This was the most serious accident I've had in the shop, and it shook me up.
After changing my shorts, I patched myself up, but after a week of pain and lack of healing, I had a little surgery today to clean up the mess. The nerve block wore off a couple hours ago, and it already feels better than it did this morning.
Keep asking yourself "how can this hurt me", and pay attention to the answer! I lost focus for one moment at the wrong time and I got bit. Other than a few bucks and a few lost evenings in the shop, I'm none the worse for it. 18 inches to the left of where I ended up ducking and I might be dead.
There are many dangers in the shop and the only defense is YOU! Be careful my friends.
Last weekend I wasn't gripping the chuck as securely as I should have been, the bit hung up in the workpiece, and the chuck pulled out of the tailstock. Wanna guess what happened? :biggrin:
The bit bent, and the chuck made several increasingly large orbits around the centerline. The chuck met my thumb on one of those orbits, and finally launched itself across the shop, ricocheted off the drill press, and impaled itself in my dust collector piping. This was the most serious accident I've had in the shop, and it shook me up.
After changing my shorts, I patched myself up, but after a week of pain and lack of healing, I had a little surgery today to clean up the mess. The nerve block wore off a couple hours ago, and it already feels better than it did this morning.
Keep asking yourself "how can this hurt me", and pay attention to the answer! I lost focus for one moment at the wrong time and I got bit. Other than a few bucks and a few lost evenings in the shop, I'm none the worse for it. 18 inches to the left of where I ended up ducking and I might be dead.
There are many dangers in the shop and the only defense is YOU! Be careful my friends.