This is how the old school fab/machine shops did it

[big_tiger]

No safety glasses on anyone...

Do you see how big those "metal shavings" are??? If you some how get that in your eye, safety glasses wouldn't help you.

[turbostang]

On the subject of safety glasses - Back when I worked in a machine shop, I ran a BIG horizontal boring mill. This machine was big enough to put a small car on. There were several of these machines in our building, lined up side by side. (Kinda like the picture at the top of the thread)

I was boring a hole in a BIG block of steel, the hole was about 5" in diameter. The chips normally dropped straight down into the chip pan of the machine... not this ONE.. it curled up around the arbor and got to be about a foot in lenght. No big deal, right? Wrong. It was the only time in my 12 years in that shop that I could think of that a chip flew off to my RIGHT side. It flew over the curtain and towards the operator of the adjacent machine (~15' away)

The chip landed ON the top edge of his safety glasses (keep in mind it's so hot it's grey in color). Part of it curled down in between his glasses and his eye. It nearly burned completely through his eye lid. His eye was swolen shut for nearly 2 weeks and peeled over and over.

Safety glasses don't always "help" - but it helps to be "aware" of your surroundings..

[Chvyblzr1972]

Good old track torch cutter. I used one when I was in my Oxy-Acet Welding Class. Fun. Never cut anything that big though.

[03trubluGT]

That is when things were made to last ,now everything is throwaway !

You realize they were building ships, right?


This is going to be one hell of a bicycle chain!

[ceyko]

Safety glasses don't always "help" - but it helps to be "aware" of your surroundings..

Dunno, sounds like it help absorb some of the energy of that shaving.

Like you say though, a lot of things to consider when trying to be safe.

Really nice post you made here. I've never gotten to use/see these machines. I was only in auto mechanics and even those machines were a lot more simple then modern machines. I notice the thickness on a lot of those parts and such. Now a days, we get charged same price (with inflation) for a thinner, lighter weight and less durable part. We have to have things made out of special materials if we want them to last.

200 years from now they'll be finding parts from the 1800 early 1900s and just finding rusted junk from my era and then titanium...etc parts from the newer era.

[sdun]

One hell of a crankshaft!

You realize they were building ships, right?


This is going to be one hell of a bicycle chain!