Lathe whipping accident - video and image

[Frank S]

Work place accidents are always bad even minor ones can be costly. I've seen this all too often when it comes to CNC equipment though. Individuals are often hired based more on their computer programming or G code expertise. Hiring decisions place often do not place enough emphasis on the prospective employee's work safety knowledge.
A 3 or 4 hour course in some class room with limited lab time does not cut it in my book. see " Machinist Dies After Being Struck by Rotating Steel Bar Stock in Lathe in Washington State."
In my shop his person would have been hired as an apprentice's helper with no more actual time on machines than he had, been assigned to my wife for at least a few months . Any time you have bar stock protruding from the back of the spindle you never operate it any where near full speed even with supports it is only when there is a tubular support mounted on the lathe with depending on length of stock multiple support doughnut biscuit supports spaced along the inside of the tube supporting the stock. Even then lower RPMs should be used.
I set up one of my lathes for threading some cylinder rods back when my wife and I had our machine/ fab shop, she was single point threading several 1.5" by 150" rods for me while I was on another lathe one of our few at the time employees returned from what I later found out was a fluid lunch, jumped on the forklift and backed into one of the supports knocking the 400 lb base out of alignment. Instead of simply switching off the lathe my wife hit the "E" stop button and stood on the brake at the same time. She needn't have bothered with the brake as that lathe was equipped with a magnetic brake on the motor when the "E" stop was pushed The spindle speed was slow due to the threading set up but still this was a safety procedure I had drilled into her head for several years. She never considered herself more than an apprentice but her quick reflexes prevented what could have been a very costly incident because even at a slow RPM a rod such as that once bent can do a lot of damage