This week is apparantly Clumsy Halfwit Week. I don't know what it is, but I've decided to do away with common sense and act stupid. Yesterday I had a seized bolt to remove on a small part that required a straight head screwdriver. So out comes the impact air driver and straight head bit. No gloves. Goodbye pea sized piece of finger flesh! Today I thought I'd take it easy and clean up some small parts using the wire wheel on the bench grinder. Been meaning to bolt that thing down for ages. Hello broken big toe!! Chaps, as comical and minor as my small injuries were, it serves as a friendly reminder to keep safety first. It only takes a second of laziness and disregard to cause bodily damage and sometimes its easy to become complacent in the garage. I'm usually good at safety and I let my guard down this time. A safety reminder from your friendly neighborhood Irishman.
Monday AM, dropped a chunk of steel on my foot. Broken big toe, also. Wed. AM, my wife hit a deer on her way to work. My DD is now her DD. Not a good week. Blue
A few years ago I was talking to a guy I know and he told me his son had just got back from the hospital a couple of hours earlier with stitches in his smashed thumb. Seems he was using an impact gun to remove something off the top of an engine and some bracket or part had spun with the bolt, tearing up his thumb. I said to the guy...IF your son is the one who got the stitches...why is YOUR thumb bandaged up too? He smiled sheepishly and explained that once he got back from the hospital with his injured son, he immediately went to the garage to finish removing the same part. Without thinking...he tried the impact gun too!!!!
when i was working Fabrication for a local specialty firm, we were building a static discharge load trailer (a stainless steel box on wheels with a stainless steel "radiator/capacitor" built onto it) and i was transfer-drilling mounting holes for the covering panels using a monstrous OLD Milwaukee power drill, that had a bad chuck..... see where i'm headed? i had to stop every now and then to tighten the chuck...... i got tired of taking the plug out of the outlet every time and sooner or later.... hit the trigger when i had the key in the chuck and both hands tight on the drill.... sonofa....i STILL got scars on two fingers from the fucker whipping my ass.... luckily i still got my FINGERS! i still catch myself not taking the plug out of the outlet and remember that.
Soon as I saw the title, I thought "At LAST a thread I can really relate to!" And I have the scars to prove it.
We ALL do it, and it all comes clear just a few short seconds after it happens. But that said, if you knew it should've been bolted/tied/clamped down, and you didn't, then the fault is all yours. Scotty
Ha Ha! Shit happens and it happens to the best of us! Thursday I went to the lumber yard to get some base molding for the upstairs of my garage. I got two 16 footers that obviously didn't fit in the bed of my Super Duty. So the guy at the yard said "no problem, we'll just attach it to the right side mirror. Okay, works for me! Well you see with one end in my box, the other end had to be flexed for the guy to duct tape it to my mirror. Well I get home, take a razor blade, cut the tape and..... SMACK! I felt like I got a left hook durring a bar fight. The first thing I did after getting sucker punched was to check if all my teeth were still in place.
i was loading sheetmetal back onboard ship after refit in '82 and the stuff came in big crates that we had to knock down... we were stacking the wood off to the side of the pier and it was getting to be a big pile of long planks to work around.... so we started walking OVER it to get back and forth. so, i stepped over a plank that my buddy stepped ON at the other end.... that gave me a good whack in the johnnies. wasn't funny at the time... shit, it still ain't funny. no permanent damage, just wounded pride!
Had a heavy box in both hands walking through an enclosed trailer. Stepped out of the trailer and fell. First thing to hit was my forehead against the side of my truck. Just like in the comics, you really do see stars.
Glad I'm smarter than you, very careful, and plan ahead so nothing wrong will happen! Except---------->Well I'll narrow it down to two! There may have been a few others. Latest was July 1st 9:10 AM 2011. Notice how I know the exact date? But I have no idea what I had for supper last nite. We'd had a small tornado a month before. I was still recovering from getting two titanium hips so wasn't thrilled about picking up tree tops and branches. Weather was finally cool enough. Picked up not more than two small twigs. But this 30' or so tree top that was leaning against the tree trunk was buggin me. The small end was in the sand. Right off I figured "this is a job for my truck, a tow strap, and common sense." What's common sense got to do with this? The end of the branch was buried in Florida sand. It needed to be pulled out! I yanked it out of the sand and it sort of jumped toward me a little then sunk back in the sand slightly. Okay, one more yank then get the truck and tow strap. That branch which now seemed 100' long slipped off the tree trunk, the end I was holding smacked me right in the right eye. It got dark but somehow I remained standing. I did say ouckie! Many surgeries, two different lenses, cornea repair, laser surgery, (that crap hurts), and now they say the retna is swelled. One more..... Son was around 10. We had a Camaro subframe set under my 1948 Chevy panel truck. Panel truck was sitting on jack stands but lifted with a jack. I had my left hand on the original frame checking to see how that sucker might fit. Had son slowly lower jack. That hand on the frame had an index finger under the frame, right above a jack stand ! Left index finger now has a chunk out of it. Got so mad we put MMII under the panel truck instead.
I couldn't begin to count the scars or number of stitches I've had to have in my hands and arm over the past 50 years of working on cars. My hand has hurt for the past month because I had a dropped trailer axle flip over and the hub fell across the palm of my hand smashing it a bit. I was quite relieved to be able to count all of my fingers and not see blood on that one. Irishman, do yourself a favor and build a good heavy stand to bolt the grinder to. It clears up your bench plus you don't get the grinding crud all over stuff laying on the bench.
Stayed home from work Thursday morning for a dentist appointment--figured I'd do a couple things in the garage beforehand. One was to clean out under a bench I have,was on my back,pulling crap from under it. My dog was out there,"watching" over me.As I pull a box out, a mouse runs out--dog sees it--goes wild. Dog happens to hit a shovel I'd left by the bench-NOT SUUPOSE TO BE THERE! It spins around at the speed of light and hits me right across the nose---no time to even blink, so I saw it hit! Blood--cracked nose--swollen eyes. Dentist in 10 minutes--they ask if i said something bad to my wife!!!
Maybe it is all perspective but the shop seems to be the only place in the last 5 1/2 years that things go right. Just wish everything else would mellow out so I could afford to finish one of these projects. Colon Cancer, Job loss and Daughters Etended Illness sure has hurt progress. Colon Cancer, I finnally passed the 5 year mark of being cancer free, daughter has recovered nicely, now to get a job again. I don't remember breaking any mirrors, but should be nearing the end of 7 years bad luck soon. Rod
Well my irish texan friend, I thought every week was clutz week. Hell at my place even the short list would take up more bandwidth that exists. Try and not loose any thing important. Benno
I got the drill out to drill a hole in the firewall of one of my '57's...for what I don't even remember...but I asked my brother to hold a small washer against the firewall as a guide...as I handed him the "guide", he said "If you drill my finger, I'm gonna yell." Yep, the drill slipped cuz the firewall was sloped where I was drilling and I drilled right thru the side of his finger. Yep, he yelled. Yep, the drill went thru the firewall, yep, there was even blood on both sides of the firewall... He's never held anything for me again while I've got a drill in my hand...!!! R-
Heres one I just thought of....We were puttin shifter boot screws in my buddies gorgeous 37 Ford Coupe and he was under it for some reason I can't even fathom at this point but he was holdin something.I calls out "I'm drillin!" He says ok.I drill thru the floor and he starts yippin like a wild Indian "YA DRILLED ME! YA DRILLED ME!!!" I says "quite whinnin and hold the damn thing!" he does and we get the boot done and he comes out from under the car and ya...I frickin drilled his knuckle a bit... bleedin like a stuck hog! The next day his hand is swollen up very badly! He went and had it x-rayed and bandaged etc and he had hole drilled halfway thru his knuckle ya coulda tapped and run a bolt into! YIKES! Thats one tough s.o.b.! Heres to ya Opie Whan Canopie sorry I drilled ya man!
When I was in college my brother rolled hid vw so he picked up another body to swap his engine into. The body he found was an earlier one so there was some grinding needed on the bellhousing to fit the later motor. Several in and out trys to see where the contact points were to grind some more we finally thought we were ready. Put the engine on an old floor jack and I crawled under to align things, his girlfriend working the jack, she turned the handle the wrong way and dropped the motor right onto my chest. Still tease her about it, they got married 10 years later and just celerated 23 years married. Always more fun to talk about other peoples errors than our own........ Jim
Drilling holes can be fun. My brother is two years younger, therefore dumber than I am. He was buildin a 49 Ford with a 350 new Chevy engine he got fresh off a car hauler that dropped the Firebird. Free! He was under his firewall drilling some holes while holding his other hand thru the open tranny tunnel and against the outside of the firewall. Drilled right through his hand! I wasn't there to help or get blamed. Those 55 Chevy side stainless trim pieces look like small spears. When polishing them they also fly like spears. Cheap wire wheels are not always the best wire wheels. They do throw pieces of wire in all directions when you least expect it. Just because you only need to use your arc welder five minutes does not mean it's okay to wear shorts and sandles. Don't use those auto darkening helmets after the battery is dead! I forgot which week was clumsy halfwit week?
I just thunk of somethin. Next time you go to a car event look at the other guy's hands and arms. No, not because they're cute! But to really see who works on their cars and who writes checks. Those dudes with Ivory smooth skin are the catalog hot rodders.
The Jalopy Journal
