What was your #1 dumbest mistake??

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I can think of two right away ... I know I must be a slow learner.

The first and worst ... so far, was using a table saw. I was building a desk for a teacher in a small town in Bosnia on my last tour. I had pulled about 8 - 9 hours of flight time that day and was tired, I was using a crappy little bench top saw that had seen better days. I had just finished cutting out the parts for the drawers (last part of the desk) shut the saw off and then went to get rid of the cutoffs when my hand came across the saw and the end of my right index finger hit the blade. End of tour, time to come home.

The second one had the most potential for damage. I was showing a friend how to use his very old rockwell lathe, and scroll chuck. he told me that he had tightened it up, so I made sure the tail stock was secure and was in good contact with the wood. Stupid me didn't check the chuck, I turned on the lathe and a chunk of Juniper flew out of the lathe in a heart beat. It came straight at my head, how I managed to move fast enough I will never know. The log (2 -3' in dia by about 18' long) took my faceshield off my head and left a small scratch on the top of my head. the faceshield was destroyed and there was a large dent in the wall behind me.

Bruce
 
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Just my latest mistake...
I ordered a Saw Stop, then told my wife I wanted another Lathe for buffing-----
I should get off the crutches in a couple weeks!!
Moke
 
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I had just finished turning a couple of pens and decided to turn a wine bottle stopper. The mandrel was held in a Jacobs chuck but I forgot to put in the drawbar. What had to happen well...happened....the chuck eventually came flying out and away from the headstock and caught me right in the hand (nothing broken but I had a nice bruise to show for it). That's what you get when turning in the middle of the night!!!
 
I have a new one. "A place for everything, and everything is something elses place" I have looked high and low through my workshop and my laundry room(where is store glue) and can't find a large bottle of Medium CA. I just had it yesterday, lol.
 
Not pen turning but dumb none the less. I bought a dryer and it came with the cord unattached. I thought I don't want to attach this and not have it fit, why don't I plug it in the wall to make sure it fits before I attach this 220 cord to the dryer. he he he. I had the cord draped around my arm and I plugged it in. Blew the fuse, burnt the hair off my arm, welded the bare wires of the cord together. Wife yelled wondering he turned off the power and I thought "self that was extremely stupid and you can't blame it on alcohol."
 
aggromere said:
I have a new one. "A place for everything, and everything is something elses place" I have looked high and low through my workshop and my laundry room(where is store glue) and can't find a large bottle of Medium CA. I just had it yesterday, lol.
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The house ate it. Mine does that ALL the time.
 
About 2 years ago, after dinner one night, I decided to cut up a 10 foot 16/4 board of cherry into bowl sized turning blanks. I cut the wood with my circular saw into 16" lengths, then started cutting the 16" lengths on my bandsaw. I have on my 1" rake tooth blade, so I'm all set.


Put the first 16" on the bandsaw, cut in half like butter. Rounded both sides off. I then measured the true thickness and it was 5" not 4". SOOOOOO, I said to myself, "Self, just resaw the bowl blank to 4" and you have a 1" piece for a plate to match."



Uh oh. I put the almost round blank up against my re-saw fence, put it up to the blade and ZINGO, that very heavy piece of cherry bounced off my chin/cheek/mouth/nose in about 1 nanosecond. I used to box and I never took a right as bad as this one hit.


I stood there for a second, dazed, wondering what the heck had happened. Then I felt some warm stuff on my mouth, nose and face, and I came inside. Looked in the morror. Ouch. It had put my teeth through my bottom lip on the right hand side.



It cut my upper lip inside and out and caused my nose to bleed. No loose teeth though! :) I'm bleeding like a stuck pig, so I grabbed a towel, headed out the door, and went to the ER. There I met a most gorgeous Physicians Assistant who stitched me up. She found a nice cherry splinter inside the laceration and in my mustache! :) When she went to inject the lidocaine, it squirted right through my lip from the outside to the inside. Man, that stuff tastes really bad.


Patched me up, sent me on my way, and gave me a script for antibiotics. I throbbed but it was a good reminder of how stupid I was.


Needless to say I won't be doing any re-sawing of a round bowl blank ever again.
 
Ripping some 1/4 plywood, having it kick back right at my stomach.... 5 days before the big vacation to Florida... The bruise looked a lot like a purple and green Rorschach Diagram, stunning on the beach, with my pasty white office worker skin...
 
How about grabbing a razor sharp oily drill bit stuck in a piece of tru-stone with my bare hand and attempting to rip it free. Norseman bits are extremely sharp. Oil soaked razor sharp object is not what you want to be yanking on with your bare hands. A combination of late night frustration and much too tired to be working with power tools. Almost sliced my thumb off at the knuckle. It took 10 stitches and several days in the hospital on IV antibiotics to keep my thumb. Factoring in all my costs associated with that pen... most expensive pen I ever made.

Then there was the time some thin CA splashed on my lips and glued them together.
 
I like many have said, have made almost all the mistakes above at one time or another. the worst was when I had a rather large uneven blank come out of the lathe and almost knock me completely out. My wife happened to be there and caught me on my way to the floor. Since then I try to round things off with the bandsaw first. but at that time I didn't have one.
 
aggromere said:
I have a new one. "A place for everything, and everything is something elses place" I have looked high and low through my workshop and my laundry room(where is store glue) and can't find a large bottle of Medium CA. I just had it yesterday, lol.
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Check the post Shop Visitor, the mice ate it.

I hate this thread. I just can not leave it! Way too many of these oh-ohs are mine also. I guess that I am very lucky to be still breathing and in possession of all ten fingers. Don't you just love confession?:rolleyes::eek::biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
Charles
 
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