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Folks Of Interest Near misses that could have ended in a wooden coat, but were just skid marks in your drawers

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by VANDENPLAS, Jul 9, 2018.

  1. Talking to a customer today at a scrap aluminum foundry I work at and they had a load of “ new defective aerosol cans “ brought in new, never filled.
    Well, they loaded the sweat furnace with a skid steer bucket load ( it’s an open top vat of molten aluminum ) and like 4th of July fire works these cans exploded!!
    Molten aluminum everyware .... except on any human being .... no one was hurt, not even a bloody twisted ankle.... lucky just doesn’t describe what happened.

    Anyways we went outside to calmn down and started talking About “ near misses”

    And two that came to mind for me were ;

    In one shop I worked at we had an early 70’s ford colony park station wagon in for a tranny job, I yanked the trans cleaned up and started lowering the car, well, the tranny jack caught a bumper bolt and started lifting the front of the car off the hoist!! Old air over hydraulic style by the time I realized and let off the handle the front of the car was about 2 feet off the hoist!!! Carefully raised the hoist “ caught “ the car in mid air ..... moved the tranny jack and lowered the car. No harm no foul, not even a fucking scratch on the bumper!!!!!

    Second was at the same shop. We had a winch bolted to the shop floor to “ tow” cars into the shop. The old guy was steering an old Toyota manual car in from outside the drivers door, well, the car was in gear key on the car bump started and drive through the office plate glass window!
    Manager came in late that morining, no customer waiting around nothing except a smashed front office and a crapped out Toyota but again not even a hair outta place on rons head.

    I have more, from over the years but those two I think take the cake .
     
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  2. catdad49
    Joined: Sep 25, 2005
    Posts: 6,401

    catdad49
    Member

    Ah, the foundry. Someone ( nobody owned up to it) tossed an aerosol can into the slag bucket. All was well until we were skimming the furnace ( removing slag from top of the molten iron) and putting it in the bucket, hot slag, aerosol can, Pow! We all about shit our skivvies ....who's the mfer that Did that?! Thanks for memory, Carp.
     
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  3. DDDenny
    Joined: Feb 6, 2015
    Posts: 19,144

    DDDenny
    Member
    from oregon

    Survived a magnesium fire in the chip bin of my lathe at work years ago, it was ugly there for a few minutes, learned water is not your friend in a magnesium fire.
     
  4. 0NE BAD 51 MERC
    Joined: Nov 12, 2010
    Posts: 1,783

    0NE BAD 51 MERC
    Member

    Plenty of close calls in cars and on cycles for sure. Most memorable was at my day job late 70s . We where building a 2 story house plus an exposed basement on the back side. Three stories up on a 2x4 wall catching and setting 28 foot long roof trusses. Wind suddenly picked up and truss got away from the guy with the guide rope. I had no place to go but backwards off the wall. This was way before the days of safety harness. Luck and the good Lord where with me and there was a large pile of fresh sand that had not been back filled in yet. I put a three foot deep dent into the sand but walk away with out a scratch. Happen so fast I did not have time to say shit let alone fill my shorts with it! At 62 I do finish work now ,leave that high climbing stuff to the youngsters. lol Larry
     

  5. gearheadbill
    Joined: Oct 11, 2002
    Posts: 1,318

    gearheadbill
    Member

    I've been there. We were always required to have had a pail of talcum by the machine whenever we were running magnesium parts. The talc came with the castings when they hit the shop floor. It worked really well to smother the fire. First mag fire I saw convinced me. Amazingly flammable material.
     
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  6. DDDenny
    Joined: Feb 6, 2015
    Posts: 19,144

    DDDenny
    Member
    from oregon

    Got lucky, the only Halon fire extinguisher in the place was in the electronics department adjacent to the machine shop.
    Mag was not something we cut much of, definitely learned the art of chip breaker management, slower rpm's and heavy feed, magnesium ribbons are like a fuse.
    Guess who got the mag jobs after that, guys would put in for vacation when they heard there might be an order of mag coming.
     
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  7. Marcosmadness
    Joined: Dec 19, 2010
    Posts: 373

    Marcosmadness
    Member
    from California

    I needed to make some wheels for a radio controlled model car, back in the day, when there were no kits available. I found a piece of magnesium at my local metal supplier that was the right size so I bought it. I mean, who wants aluminum wheels when you can make magnesium wheels. We had a lathe and mill at work so during lunch I was machining on the wheels. Guys were smoking in the shop, people we coming over to see what I was doing when I should have been eating. Were any of these people smoking? I honestly don't recall. I got the wheels finished after work, cleaned up my mess and headed home. While I was fixing myself something to eat some bright magnesium chips fell out of my hair onto the counter. Hmmmm, I wonder if these chip will actually burn like the magnesium tape we had in chemistry class at school? The magnesium tape was hard to get to ignite but burned brighter than the fires of hell. I lit a match and unlike the oxidized magnesium tape we had at school, this freshly cut, non oxidized chip exploded immediately into flames leaving a burn mark on the counter. And to think I had a pile of shavings around my feet at the lathe with people smoking nearby. I was so stupid and really, really, lucky that day that I din't set fire to the shop(at work) and no one got hurt.
     
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  8. Jalopy Joker
    Joined: Sep 3, 2006
    Posts: 31,179

    Jalopy Joker
    Member

    High School, Southern Calif, Buddy and I in my '55 Chevy Hot Rod, heading home from the Beach late at Nite, on Freeway off ramp that has traffic signal with two cars in front of us, light red, some fog in the air, all of a sudden headlights in reflection in rearview mirror, it was a car right behind us coming at speed, lucky part is the light turns green and cars ahead start moving a little, all happened so fast never had time to warn my buddy, BAM - Impact from rear and in front hitting car ahead of us, female drunk driver never saw us, totaled rear of '55, we only had minor injuries, other lucky part was seat busted loose from floor and we ended up sort of in back seat
     
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  9. I burst a trans cooler line on my 60 Caddy, and it was being pulled up onto a tray-top , and I had my hand through the window steering it up, while the truck operator played the winch. The tray was at about 30 degrees tilt, when we heard a ''twang", and the car started heading down the ramp. All I could do is stand back and watch. Trouble was that this was on a side street, about 25 yards from a 3 lane main road, and the car was heading straight for it, and would have gone across this road (which was full of traffic at the time),when suddenly the car turned itself at 90 degrees and came to rest against the curb, both rear wheels hitting at the same time. After changing my undies, I had a look at the damage. 1 broken tail light assembly and a few minor scratches from a tree branch. That cable could have given us a permanent haircut, or the car could have gone straight back, & cut across the main road, probably taking a dozen cars with it.
     
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  10. Chrisbcritter
    Joined: Sep 11, 2011
    Posts: 1,970

    Chrisbcritter
    Member

    About thirty years ago I was in my '64 Imperial, headed north on Lake Avenue in Pasadena. At Walnut I had the green, doing 40, when some southbound idiot started turning left in front of me. Nailed the brakes and swerved to the right, just missing him, and thank heaven there were no cars parked at the curb. The engine stalled from the hard braking, but I was still rolling, so I punched the Neutral button, cranked it, hit Drive, pulled back in my lane and continued up Lake like nothing happened (except it took several blocks to catch my breath). Knew I couldn't do it again in a million years.
    my64imperial6.jpg
     
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  11. s55mercury66
    Joined: Jul 6, 2009
    Posts: 4,335

    s55mercury66
    Member
    from SW Wyoming

    April, 1981. I worked at a Texaco in Chauncey, Ohio. The owner picked up a '67 or '68 F 350 wrecker, and it had some exhaust issues. One of the other guys there put it on the lift, and picked it up with the door open, and said door caught on the overhead tire rack. In addition to nearly tearing the door off, it lifted the other side a foot or more off the lift. We straightened the door out (somewhat) by using one of the lift arms through the window opening, bringing it back into alignment (again, somewhat) at the same time. Going a little off topic, in the summer of 1982, whilst bumming around in the CETA program, I saw a guy walk off the roof of a two story house, while carrying a sheet of 1/2 inch plywood. The flight was amazing, somewhat like an oversized flying squirrel, probably a 7 or 8 for style and execution, but the landing was pretty harsh.
     
  12. khead47
    Joined: Mar 29, 2010
    Posts: 1,789

    khead47
    Member

    Another mag story. Had a pc of billet mag about 4" X 6" X 2 ft. on the table of a big ol Milwaukee Hor. Mill. Was drilling about a 2 1/2 hole with a drill that was worn on the flute edges. Lots of friction ! Set the chips on fire on the ways and table. I swept the fire off the machine and onto the concrete floor figuring to just let it burn itself out. Then an ornery old fuck grabbed the CO2 extinguisher and while standing exactly opposite from me on the other side of the fire, pulled the pin ! How I didn't get incinerated still amazes me. We soon had ABCD extinguishers in the toolroom !
     
  13. DDDenny
    Joined: Feb 6, 2015
    Posts: 19,144

    DDDenny
    Member
    from oregon

    In my case it was a perfect storm for disaster.
    The magnesium job was a last minute rush job to get a mill line (plywood) back running due to a machinery breakdown. I had no time to clean out the lathe chip bin which was quite full of various material and cutting oils.
    As I said earlier; I had not machined a lot of magnesium and in my haste I had not changed the carbide insert in the toolholder and in the middle of the cut the leadman came over to check on the progress, the distraction caused me to allow the tool to "dwell" at the restart, that along with the dull insert turned the ribbonlike material into a fuse trailing down into the full chipbin.
    As @Marcosmadness mentioned, that was was the brightest fire I've ever witnessed.
     
  14. goldmountain
    Joined: Jun 12, 2016
    Posts: 4,442

    goldmountain

    I learned that when you try to beat the train at the railroad crossing, when you win, you Don't win much, losing is another matter.

    Sent from my SM-T350 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
     
  15. seb fontana
    Joined: Sep 1, 2005
    Posts: 8,444

    seb fontana
    Member
    from ct

    This thread won't last long..Last one got dumped pretty quick..I'll play while I can..Back in fall of '66 [three weeks before 18th b'day] I was riding shotgun in a friend's 63 Falcon..Do to driver error he runs the car into the oncoming lane and meets a '55 chevy head on..Car had seat belts but neither of us had one on..I punched a hole in the windshield with my head which I was told is the easy part; coming back through is the hard part..105 stitches worth, left eyebrow and eyelid in many pieces, couple healthy cuts running up back and down from the area..Surgeon sowed me all back together and I resembled H. Munster for a while but in about ten years most scaring melted to a pretty faint status...No skidmark, no time to say shit..Grateful that it wasn't way worse and I didn't lose the eye, definitely rang my bell as I couldn't do much for the next three weeks with out getting a headache....Friend got 20 stitches in an eyebrow and a sprained thumb...
     
  16. Petejoe
    Joined: Nov 27, 2002
    Posts: 12,264

    Petejoe
    Member
    from Zoar, Ohio

    When I was in a Fire Dept for 10 yrs we had a house fire. Knocked most of it down. Then went inside the smoky basement with Scott air packs. As we were putting out spot fires we kept hearing popping noises thinking it was a gas line popping.
    Here to find out they had an arsenal of shells in there.
     
  17. toml24
    Joined: Sep 23, 2009
    Posts: 1,620

    toml24
    Member

    Many decades ago I was at a gas station and a car rolled in suffering from a case of overheating. The attendant was pouring water over the radiator in an effort to cool it down, so I, in all of my wisdom, wanted a closer look so I leaned over the front of the car, arms and hands and face just a few inches away from the radiator cap which the attendant loosened and suddenly a massive thrust of hot radiator water went by my left ear and completely soaked me. An inch to my left and it could have been lights out. Young and stupid. Just when you want a closer look for the education experience, remember, being in the front row doesn't always give you the best experience.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2018
  18. Well lets see. I was wallered by a '55 Ford when I was in high school. It happened sort of slow motion. I had it up on two bumper jacks and was working on the rear end, it started to list and I managed to roll off in a hole my dog had dug to lay in. I was there for a while until someone came by and got me out.

    Probably plenty of close calls, most do not really apply to the HAMB so I'll just leave this one where it lies.
     
  19. 19Fordy
    Joined: May 17, 2003
    Posts: 8,027

    19Fordy
    Member

    In 1971 I was watching a fellow working on the exhaust system of a big "country bus" in Port Antonio,Jamaica, WI.
    The bus was up in the air on an outside lift and the fellow was pulling on the exhaust system trying to loosen it up. The bus began to "teeter" back and forth on the lift. The fellow got scared and started to run out from under the lift, instead of staying put under it. The bus fell off the lift..............................Splat! :(

    Years earlier, around 1964, I a similar same incident at a Sears store.in Poughkeepsie, NY. The customer was watching as a new exhaust system was bing installed on his beautiful 1956 Buick hardtop. The Buick began to "rock' and fell off the lift, landing on it's roof. The hardtop convertible was squashed just about level with the body. The owner was not a happy customer. I suspect the (unhurt) mechanic was fired.

    Made me change my mind about having Sears install tires on my 54 Chevy.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2018
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  20. Several years ago at my old shop (at home) a buddy of mine (young, knows everything) decided to help me out and remove an old rear end out from under a '53 Chevy pickup, I told him to be sure and use plenty of Jack stands to stay safe, I was busy blocking out a chopped Plymouth, he put 2 under the rear end tubes and unfolded the "U" bolts, next thing I heard was loud a noise and saw my buddy standing about 8 feet away and white as a sheet, I almost lost a friend that day. Never trust a guy that says " I know what I'm doing"
     
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  21. Mr48chev
    Joined: Dec 28, 2007
    Posts: 33,861

    Mr48chev
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    Just around my birthday in 1965 I bought a 54 Buick "brush buggy" This was a 54 Buick that had the body removed and pieces of 4 inch pipe welded to the frame with a cross piece about where the cowl would be. Frame was shortened to the point where I could stick my left foot out and touch the left front tire and reach back and touch the left rear. Just the stock seat bolted to the frame with no floor. I decided that I was going to drive it over to my buddy's place two road miles away to show him. I got down Rocky Ford Road and was going far too fast when I slow down but not enough and when I went over the old bridge over Rocky Ford Creek I lost it, missed a cross tie cattle chute by inches so I was told and over corrected and went across the road and took out about 100 ft of barb wire fence. Came to a stop and checked things over and the wire had taken the radiator cap and neck off the radiat. or but there wasn't any more damage to the buggy. I knew I had a few scratches but fired the buggy back up drove out of the ditch and back to a guy working in the corral that belonged to my neighbor who also owned the fence I ran though. Asked if he had a hammer that I could borrow to fix the fence and he took one look at me turned pale and says forget the hammer you are bleeding all over the place. Drove the buggy back home a bit more careful got in the house and my little brother calls mom at work says she needs to come right home after work because I am bleeding a lot from the accident. Less than two minutes later she is home and sticking me in the car to go to the emergency room. 13 stitches in my neck 12 in my leg and a couple of scratches that didn't take any. I sold the buggy to the doctor who stitched me up and he and his dad who was also one of our family doctors picked it up the next eveninIg and towed it back to town. They fixed it had a roll bar put on it and took it to their mountain cabin.
    My dad and uncle came over the next day to visit and dad about flipped when he saw me all bandaged up. Missed the wood box by about 1/2 inch on my neck.
    In 1968 I walked away from 2 Helicopter crashes in Vietnam that made me a believer in that someone was looking out for me.
     
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  22. cavman
    Joined: Mar 23, 2005
    Posts: 669

    cavman
    Member

    Years ago a friend of mine was putting glasspacs on his 58 Impala. His old floor jack was bleeding down very slowly he didn't notice until one of the muffler clamps started poking him in the ear. The down pointed clamp went all the way to the drum, and trapped him there until his wife heard him yell and came to his rescue. Good thing no one jumped on the fender.. Hey and I survived a couple of them "Hard landings" myself in '68
     
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  23. 49ratfink
    Joined: Feb 8, 2004
    Posts: 18,829

    49ratfink
    Member
    from California

    when ammo explodes outside of a gun the bullet does not have any velocity.
     
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  24. deathrowdave
    Joined: May 27, 2014
    Posts: 3,519

    deathrowdave
    ALLIANCE MEMBER
    from NKy

    Mag or metal fire PURPLE K is the few words to know . Many many close calls working in energy business for 35 years . I stood on top of 8.5 million gallons of liquid propane daily , 5 650 psi gas mains ran thru the plant 350 psi air being produced at the rate of 8 ends of compression and 210 mcf an hour each end . I was 19 at the starting age , it didn’t take long to learn , very similar to working on an oil rig , if you didn’t answer or made a mistake you had a bruise or a hickey to remind you never do that again . We had a contractor welder caught lighting his torch with a 99 cent BIC lighter . He left on a rail to say the least . I can not stress safety enough , the one you hurt the most will be your family missing you . Don’t take any chances , sometimes you get the bear , sometime the bear is going to get you badly .
     
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  25. I barrel rolled my '54 Ford trying to avoid hitting a elderly woman that pulled out in front of me,I jumped the curb and ran up a guide wire attached to a telephone pole.

    I was bouncing around like a pin ball,the car ended up on the roof,the trunk was open and my tools were scattered all over the street,I was black and blue from head to toe and was lucky the only cut that needed stitches was when I reached back in the car to get my new Jimi Hendrix album.

    Our band had a gig that night and I played sitting in a chair, I was a hurting frog. HRP
     
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  26. Making a pull on a frame machine
    Hook slipped off and I caught it inches away from my forehead.
    Cat like reflexes and Divine intervention.
     
  27. While doing a driveway clutch change on my 1961 Ford Fairline, the car was jacked up, and the rear wheels blocked. When I foolishly kicked out the trans-mission cross-member, the car came forward off the jack, and rolled forward. The kick-up in the frame just cleared my head. I was trapped by the frame, until my buddy jumped into the trunk to get another jack. It was just enough to let me squeeze out from under the frame. I had a huge bruise on my chest for quite a while.
     
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  28. lonejacklarry
    Joined: Sep 11, 2013
    Posts: 1,498

    lonejacklarry
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    We called them "firm arrivals" even if the skids were spread out and the tail boom was cut off by the rotor blade.
     
  29. Working at the airport - Dallas Love Field - one day around lunch time the gas guy is delivering our gas products cylinders with a loaded truck of tanks. We all passed by him parked just outside the hanger as he was unloading the new filled tanks to put in the hanger. We got about 50 yards away towards are cars...when we heard the first of many tanks start hitting the ground - maybe you've heard one....we all kinda froze as the thought was...this is it ! Luck was with us that day as none shot off or exploded it !
     
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  30. deathrowdave
    Joined: May 27, 2014
    Posts: 3,519

    deathrowdave
    ALLIANCE MEMBER
    from NKy

    Pressure Tanks = most are 2200 PSIG . Escaping through a 3/4 inch hole from snapped off valve = equals death and damage caused by a bomb . If you escape in one piece the hearing damage can not be repaired . It was always told to me “ if you don’t have enough time to do it safely , how will you have enough time to do it after injury ? “
     
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