Dumbest armouring injury

sha-ul · Post by **sha-ul** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:59 am

Milos N. wrote:OK, not armouring, not me, but here it goes...

A carpenter that I know, managed to sit down on a bench saw (not sute about the word, it's the rotary saw mounted on a bench along lith some other lethal tools), and make a 5-6'' long cut in his but.

are you referring to a table saw, or a shopsmith

sha-ul · Post by **sha-ul** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:39 pm

Durasteel Corporation wrote:...such as the molten blob of aluminum that dripped down onto my loafers, causing third degree burns on the instep of my foot.

I once did something similar, I was using a thermite charge(cadweld) on a gas main in a narrow trench, when a bit shot out of the mold& passed through the leg of the polyester work uniform (without any resistance whatsoever) then slid down my leg into my boot. while I was trying to decide whether or not to tough it out or if urinating down my leg was an option, I finally jumped out of the trench and unlaced my boots. to inspect the damage.
but this wasn't nearly as bad as what happened to Harry. Harry was the welder at this oilfield company and had a project to fabricate a floor grate for a drain pit, all was going well till someone realized the diminsions they gave him were about 1" too wide

. So Harry fires up the torch and starts cutting the extra off of one side,so he is squatting down torching and using a hammer to knock the slag&slack off, when a piece of slag flips up onto the same type of polyester trousers right on his most precious equipment the results being Harry turned instantly into a soprano with a dime sized burn on the head of his pecker. He went to the Dr. but was too embarrassed to show the nurse.

Dierick wrote:I knocked myself out with the welder the other day.

My tig is hooked up the leads on the arc welder, and has a tendancy to give me a little shock when I rest both hands on the metal to start a spark. Nothing big. Well, my dad uses the arc welder to weld some heavy duty stuff(over an inch thick), so he had it cranked up to the max and I forgot to turn it down before I started. Shocked the shit out of me, spazzed, head met the corner of the welding trailer and I was out. Not for very long, but enough to know I was out. Thankfully I woke up, cause I was low on argon and didnt want to have it run out while I lay in a heap in the dirt.

so, Dierick should we start calling you "sparky"

Dierick · Post by **Dierick** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 12:43 pm

Oh hell.. at the shop I used to work at, the first thing you _DID_ was check to see where your ground was mounted, and what the welder was at.

A couple of the most notable (and repeated) tricks were

A) Crank the Tig way up and clip the ground to the steel chair leg.

B) Paint a piece of paper pitch black, and sandwich it in between the glasses on the flip-down welding helmets.

Best one we ever saw though.. one of the night shift guys always ALWAYS left his tools all over the welding table, and the day shift guy had to clean them up. So, one day, the day-shift guy filled up the night shift guys toolbox at the end of his shift, and welded it shut.

Then he welded it to the table, all the way around the base.

_THEN_ he drilled a small hole in the top of the box, and threaded in a grease zerk, and applied the air-powered greasegun to it, and filled it with grease.

Then he backed the zerk out, and smoothed over the hole.

Then he left for the week on vacation. Smile

That. Is. Awesome.

I had a guy in HS shop class that always wanted to borrow one of my chipping hammers(I brought my own tools to school). I would be welding, go to reach for the hammer, and it would be gone. Over and over and over again. So I brought a chain from home that was long enough to reach from my bench to his and welded my hammer to it. When I needed it, I would wait for him to take off with it and start to use it, then yank it out of his hands and back to me.

mephit · Post by **mephit** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:05 pm

A few years ago, our SCA group, Grey Niche, was doing a demo for a huge Boy Scout event here in the area called Scout Base. They even wanted us to set up a forge and such. My friend Ã†thelric is a professional metal worker and has portable coal rigs, so he and I set up to do blacksmithing all day. We've both worked lots of demo forgings (both inside and outside of the Society) so we thought we'd be fine.

A bit before lunch, we decide to mint some coins to give to the boys as a little memento. Ã†thelric's made quite a few medieval-styled coins over the years for the kingdom and for the local group, so he had some dies and blanks along to show off, but he hadn't brought the rig for holding the dies and keeping them aligned while striking. Well, we figured we were smart guys and could come up with something that would work for at least a few coins or the like, so we took a 125 Lb swage block, turned it on it's side, and mounted the bottom die in one of the square holes in the block. I took a pair of heavy tongs and held the top die. Ã†thelric put the blank in and aligned the dies, and I braced for the striking (turning to the side to protect my jewels in case of emergency-I have done metal working since I was a child). I should note that the top die was about 8 inches long by about 2 inches in diameter and made from hardened D-2 tool steel and weighed about 4 Lbs. This will be important later.

Then I saw which hammer he'd picked up and started feeling somewhat uneasy. It's amazing how a 20 Lb sledge makes one's heart flutter sometimes! This is about the point that he starts his swing and it seems to me that the hammer is coming down a little â€¦ weird â€¦

Well, the hammer hit crooked, flinging the die sideways into my knee and mangling the tongs in the process. I dropped like a stone and tried desperately not to say anything because anything I did say was going to be an obscenity. My fiancÃ©e was watching from the sidelines with a friend's infant on her hip, so she handed off the kid to someone else and came running. I limped off (and limped for a week after) and sat down for a while. Like an hour. I had a perfectly round, blood-red bruise from the face of the die on the outside of my right knee and a very coin-like mark on my hose, which thankfully washed out. I was very lucky that I didn't break that knee again, since I've split that knee-cap twice already.

(Edited for clarity)

DarkApprentice · Post by **DarkApprentice** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:34 pm

This one time, I wa like polishing this vambrace on a grinder, and I get a call on my cell phone, so I reach to pick it up because i was expecting this call from this hot groupie girl, and it was her, and I slip the vambrace under my arm to hold it as I pick up the phone, and I go like, "hello, and just as she starts to say something I am like all "Yeeeeowow!" like Tom in those Tome and Jerry cartoons, because the vambrace was super hot and my arm was sizzling against it (I heard the noise, and it was... nasty).

That was pretty stoopid of me!

DA

Dierick · Post by **Dierick** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:47 pm

DarkApprentice wrote:This one time, I wa like polishing this vambrace on a grinder, and I get a call on my cell phone, so I reach to pick it up because i was expecting this call from this hot groupie girl, and it was her, and I slip the vambrace under my arm to hold it as I pick up the phone, and I go like, "hello, and just as she starts to say something I am like all "Yeeeeowow!" like Tom in those Tome and Jerry cartoons, because the vambrace was super hot and my arm was sizzling against it (I heard the noise, and it was... nasty).

That was pretty stoopid of me!

DA

C'mon, everyone has to go through a bit of pain for a super hot chick. Otherwise there would be no fun in the hunt.

Krag · Post by **Krag** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 11:56 pm

Back when I used to armour on the patio of an apartment, I had a small bench grinder unti set up with a wire wheel on one end. I was the grill of helm with the unit sitting on the patio deck and me kneeling down in front. The wheel grabbed onto the grill work and launched the grinder up. The wire wheel basically walked up my body and didn't stop until the motor housing slammed into my face. Eyewear does wonders for eyes...but not much for the bridge of the nose when confronted by a 1/2hp motor flying through the air.

Cebo · Post by **Cebo** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:33 am

When i was weaving maille i use a needle nose and a vice grip. well i have this problem with the needle nose that it keeps on sliping when in close the ring. one time a ring was being particularly (sp?) stubborn and so i added a little EXTRA force. the needle nose sliped on and hit my beastbone dead center with enough force to knock the wind out of me. i think i manged to dislocate it because it was sore for like 2 months afterwords.

i have also had numberous cuts and a few pinched fingers from my rolling the coils. but alls fair in armouring and war

I. Stewart · Post by **I. Stewart** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 12:37 am

I was trying to hand coil 12 guage wire. When it slipped it broke my finger.

I was using a rawhide hammer to shape a breastplate. I was using a bowling ball on a vice. When I hit the plate, the hammer bounced up and into my chin. Hurt.

armourjon · Post by **armourjon** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:01 am

my worst injury was filing metal in a vice by hand the edge of the file caught just under my thumb nail and flicked it across the workshop to this day i have not found the nail

Signo · Post by **Signo** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:09 am

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

I feel pain for you crush all my bones, but don't touch my fingernails!

Halberds · Post by **Halberds** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:23 am

My dumbest was using the large cup wire brush in a right angle grinder.
I was cleaning out the inside of a helm.

The brush caught in my Tee shirt and climbed up my chest and was choking me by twisting the Tee shirt around my neck.

The more I pulled the tighter it got.
A little man ran up my arm and screamed in my ear:
TURN IT OFFâ€¦ TURN IT OFF
LET GO THE TRIGGER!!!!

Wow it worked, I let go the trigger and could breathe again.
The brush removed the skin in a nice stripe on my stomach and chest.
I do not use wire brushes for armouring anymore..

I saw the little man only once before when I got hold of a 220 volt line.
I was shaking and paralyzed and could not let go.
That time he looked like Ready Kilowatt the little lighting bolt guy.
He jumped out of the wire and ran up my arm and screamed in my right ear.
PUSH AWAYâ€¦ PUSH AWAY!!!

I guess Angels come in all sizes hu?

Hal

Ps: Armourjon the rats ate your thumb nail they need the Calcium.

Bake Nasty · Post by **Bake Nasty** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:04 am

I dropped a craft knife on my bare foot and it stuck there, vertical and quivering.

Villeman · Post by **Villeman** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:19 am

Hi,

not really an accident but more of a baaad baaaad idea. While my father was an apprentice a (long

) while ago, they constructed a massive steel cube welded shut just after filling it 3\4 or so with water. That was not really the stupid part, but throwing it into the center coal forge before lunchtime definitely was........ luckily nobody was in the shop (as planned ) and it blasted just about 800 small window segments out of their frames...... seems like they were a bit eager to make good welds. They were all in the Breakroom , terrified because the bang was a bit over the top

Icorigas · Post by **Icorigas** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:37 pm

Shade wrote:Ever tried to catch things falling down that you better should not catch?

A sharpened ballock knife for example...

Rule #1 of the Argent Company shop:

If it falls, do not try to catch it. It is probably hot, heavy, or sharp. You can make a new helm, we still haven't gotten the new hands out of beta..

Talbot · Post by **Talbot** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:52 pm

'Nuff said!

Firecloud · Post by **Firecloud** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:42 pm

Mine is in there with krnkshft and Talbot. I was in a hurry getting a last minute assembly done. I was setting a line of decorative rivets on the leather piece I was working on at the time, but instead of picking my cobblers hammer I picked up a rubber mallet ......... and got myself between the eyes on the recoil ....... unknown to me my wife had come out to the shop with her 4 year old to watch me ..... so I come to on the floor with a little girl sitting on my chest asking me if I am alright .... and my wife is standing in the doorway trying not to piss herself laughing ....

AriAnson · Post by **AriAnson** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:30 pm

A friend and I were winding coils of 1/4" steel to make rings for ringmail. It is 30 degrees outside. He lets go and the bar on the mandrel and the bar swings round to whack me in the ear.

That, and the fact that leather tools work real good on human skin.

Benjamin de Hatfield · Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:45 pm

The guy who taught me basic armoring also taught a bunch of my friends (this was his SCA recruiting method). Normally when we were working in his shop, there would be anywhere from 3-5 of us puttering around on various stages of work.

Well one day friend A was cold dishing out a helm top on a stump. Friend B was behind him working on finishing a helm and smoothing out the weld lines.

With an angle grinder. Behind him.

I was off to the side of them, and both had their backs to each other. I wouldn't have noticed but the guy who was teaching us walked in and stopped, started snickering and nodded to me in the direction of the impending calamity.

Would both stood there watching as Friend A's jeans started smoking from the spray of sparks, and simply waited for him to notice...

-Ramius

Mad Matt · Post by **Mad Matt** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 12:56 am

I knew I was forgetting something. When I was first starting out armoring I was working on splinted legs and was polishing the splints with a wire cup wheel in the drill. Well my hair got sucked into the cooling vents of the drill wrapped around the motor slamming the drill into my head and giving me a haircut.

And if that's not stupid enough for you once I got the hair out of the drill I trimmed my beard with it (by mistake).

Gabriel_D · Post by **Gabriel_D** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:10 am

well I sustained no injury up to now but here's what happened when I was working with a friend on some pommels. I grinded one and left it on the workbench, right next to it lay the previous one which had cooled down. My friend grabs the cool one with a glove and sets it aside and for some unknown reason takes his glove off and grabs the hot one bear handed

)
Seemed funny as hell at the time.

Witchfinder · Post by **Witchfinder** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 8:00 am

Cutting 1.2mm sheet with tin snips, I was holding them close to my body for maximum leverage. Unfortunately, my snips have curved ends that meet when the blades are completely closed. I cut to the edge of the piece, and as it snipped away, the ends rapidly pinched together, trapping my skin.

I had trouble explaining an injury that looked rather like a love-bite on my abdomen.

Milan · Post by **Milan** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:13 am

I knew an armorer who bent down to pick something up. His anvil was right behind him (with a fairly sharp horn) and as he bent over, the anvil gave him a nice greeting right in the center of his behind. I don't think he was injured but I personally would not want to know my anvil like that....

The dumbest thing I have ever done in the shop was inserting a red hot welding rod into my arm. It only hurt for a quarter of a second before the nerves were burnt but it did leave me with a welding rod dangling from my arm. Good times.

Kunigunde · Post by **Kunigunde** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 11:31 am

Remind me never to work with you guys, and I don't want to hear any jokes about women not being able to handle armoring. My worst incident was slicing the skin off my knuckle while dishing an ashtray in shop class in 1986. It didn't hurt but it taught me what I need to remember about shop safety. So now I'm the annoying person who reminds other people - Change out of your work clothes before you ruin them. Don't wear holey jeans, you'll get hot sparks down your pants. Don't wear slippers, at least put real shoes on. Put on goggles and gloves before you do that. Tie your hair back. Are you sure you want to hold that tool at that angle?

There, I've just cursed myself, haven't I?

That's the thing about amateurs, they continue to be more careful. Or is being careful around dangerous equipment just unmasculine? Go ahead, call me unmasculine, doesn't bother me a bit

Omar · Post by **Omar** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 2:17 pm

Most of my injuries were stupid noobie mistakes.

- Coiling wire for chain with a hand crank without gloves. Got to the very end, cut the coil, and the sharp end split my thumb open as the tension released. Now, I wear gloves.

- Cutting blue camp foam for something... on my leg.. with a new razor. I made a good deep cut and felt a slight sting. Ignored it, and started to put glue on the foam. I turned to move to pick something else up, felt the sting again. This time, I saw the nice opening that was on my leg from the razor, and the blood started to come up. Now, I use a cutting board (and keep a few white socks handy, to soak up the blood).

I refused to use any sort of power tool for coiling wire while I had long hair. I cut it all off a few years ago, so I might have to try that again.

Xavier Der Adler · Post by **Xavier Der Adler** » Wed Apr 02, 2008 7:04 pm

Alright, I didn't really get hurt, but it was still pretty stupid.

One day I was using my angle grinder and a cut-off wheel to cut a steel blank for my soon to be knife. I wasn't sure I was getting the right angle, so with the bench grinder still running, I bent my head over the knife blank to get a better look at my cut angle.

What I forgot is that I had a jacket on, you know, with the cords to tighten up the hood.

One of the cords gets trapped in the angle grinder head, winding around it like a rolled up yo-yo, and jerking my neck right towards the damn cut-off blade.

Thank god it was a crappy harborfreight angle grinder as I was able to hold my head back before it slit my throat.

Duco de Klonia · Post by **Duco de Klonia** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:18 am

- Making a Norman helmet, it was too pointy and I hung it on a stake to heat it up with the torch and hammer it out a bit more.
Once redhot, it slipped off the stake and in a reflex I put my left hand under it to prevent it from falling to the floor.
Well, as you all know, Murphy will make it fall redhot-side down....and I did not wear a glove on the left hand...

- I was dooing some precision shaping with my (adjustable speed) Metabo angle grinder, holding a small object in place on the anvil when the device grabbed my sleeve and "climbed"up to my elbow and strangled my arm...
It stopped there and unplugged itself, but by now I couldn't remove it with 1 hand, and also couldn't remove my sweater - this struggle lasted for about 15 minutes... ( no harm at all !)

- Not armour, but... related...
I was in a hurry to get to swordfight practice because I was really late and I really, really had to go to the toilet... I decided to put on my plastic shin-protectors there to save time... so to save even more time I tried to remove my pants OVER my working boots, and that didn't work. The pants got stuck halfway on my shoes, and now I pulled them so hard, I couldn't move the trousers back or forward.
I was lucky I allways have my pocketknife with me and so I had to cut the pipes to get rid of my pants.

AaronCarter · Post by **AaronCarter** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:33 am

Today I was removing some copper rivets using a sanding disk in my angle grinder. one was loose, so I put my finger tip on the back side to hold it steady while I sanded the head off.

Thanks to my guitar calases I didn't notice till I could smell the flesh burning

In a week or so I'll start working on that callas again

iomtalach · Post by **iomtalach** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 11:18 am

Couple of my favourite welding related ones (none of mine...):

First week of welding school. We're outside learning to cut with oxy-acetylene. There is one really thick guy in class. It's cold, and getting dark, so he has on his sheepskin-lined leather jacket.

He's still cold, so while cutting, he slips his hands under his jacket...the hands holding the cutting torch. Apparently he hadn't fully tightened the oxygen connector. A minute passes...

He just seemed to glow blue for a moment, I swear, from the inside out...

The second was when I was an apprentice bridgeman/welder for a piledriving company. The head machinist and I were watching a regular bridgeman apprentice torch-cutting the lugs off of a hammer (vulcan s-150 or something. Sort of a large hammer.) He's draped the gas lines over the hammer, and the spray from the cut is running right over them...

When the inevitable "Boom," fiery snake of doom, and screaming started...the head machinist just calmly walked over and turned off the taps on the tanks. ...Probably with 30 seconds to spare or so.

I hated that job, but it had its moments...

Lienhart Fischer · Post by **Lienhart Fischer** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:31 pm

I was grinding on some bar stock to make a knife blade, I noticed it was starting to blue head the edge so i wanted to flip it and work the other side for a while, anyways when i opened the vice to flip it over it fell on the floor, so i thinks, wow pick that up fast your going to melt the plastic crate it fell on, i bent down and pick it up in my bare hand...for a second it felt really cold, then the smoke came from between my fingers. that was about the dumbest thing i've done since I had a skilsaw chase me across the floor cause the guard didn't snap closed when i dropped it

Patrick Marshall · Post by **Patrick Marshall** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 1:51 pm

In metal class in high school, I was on the lathe making a cannon (back in 88' when you could make weapons in school). I had on a long flannel shirt and standing to close . Shirt gets caught up in the chuck and just like that, shirtless.
To this day my shop teacher uses me as an example of why wearing a long shirt while working on the lathe is a bad idea

Pat Marshall

Peter Baker · Post by **Peter Baker** » Fri Apr 04, 2008 2:25 pm

Ok, not quite an injury to my person, but still dumb.

I've been working at the local food bank for a little over a year, and being the only one who can lift the really heavy stuff, they like me, which was manifested when they gave me a very nice watch a couple months ago.

Well, yesterday I was working on my first breastplate and a couple knives, and forgot to take the watch off....apparently I hit my wrist at some point and didn't even notice, so I had to take it apart to bend the hands back into shape and now the crystal is mostly shattered.

RalphS · Post by **RalphS** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:28 am

iomtalach wrote:He just seemed to glow blue for a moment, I swear, from the inside out...

I bet he wasn't cold any more...

Some of my personal highlights:

While trying to heat a tricky rivet inside a helmet with a propane torch I find out that the torch leaks: a big blue fireball spews out of the helmet and heads straight for my face, but fortunately turns upwards just before singing my eyebrows off. I could feel the radiated heat on my face. And on my scalp, even after the fireball is long gone. I decide it's time to put out the fire of my burning hair. Since then I've kept my hair short.

I have this wonderful water-cooled grinding stone at low rpm, great for sharpening blades and such. I was doing some detailed grinding of small stuff, and occasionally touch my fingers against the turing stone. No problem there, it doesn't bite on skin with the fine grit of the stone, and the low rpm. After a while I get this gentle tingling in my fingertips, nothing to worry about I say. After yet another while I realise that the tingling gets more intense, and that I'm leaving tiny smears of blood on anything I touch. It turns out that I have very carefully ground off the top layer of my skin, and am slowly bleeding through the now exposed blood vessels in the lower skin layer.

The back of my left hand, between the thumb and index finger, is covered by scar upon scar. I even had an unintentional tattoo for years (it faded eventually). All from the use of needle-files which puncture the skin, sometimes laden with metal dust, while filing small stuff I hold in my left hand.

And remember: a project (especially arms or armour) demands blood. The amount of blood is symbolic, but if it doesn't get bled upon during the making, it will demand blood during use...

Maeryk · Post by **Maeryk** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 12:11 pm

that was about the dumbest thing i've done since I had a skilsaw chase me across the floor cause the guard didn't snap closed when i dropped it

That is why you don't use a really long extension cord on a belt sander.

It made it out the open garage door, down the driveway, and into the street. Where it was very nearly hit by a car.

Dan G · Post by **Dan G** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 1:46 pm

RalphS wrote: And remember: a project (especially arms or armour) demands blood. The amount of blood is symbolic, but if it doesn't get bled upon during the making, it will demand blood during use...

How true

I just managed to drill into my left hand index finger with cordless drill. I wanted to cut corners and do drilling at home, instead of workshop miles away. So, for no apparent reason other than some unsharpening of a drill bit, it went CRACK into four pieces and the part which was inside drill's holder (don't know a word for that, 'cause english is not my primary language) slams into hand that holds the piece of sheet metal i'm holding.

I have seen drill bits unsharpening before but cracking into FOUR pieces... never. It wasn't even the beginning or end of a drilling procedure, in which sometimes the drill bit can get stuck into metal.

Dumbest armouring injury

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Armour oops