What's the stupidest thing you're ever done in your shop?

Bawahaha...it only takes one time! HRP

 

"What's the stupidest thing you're ever done in your shop?"

Go to the shop and try to go to work the day after the annual company picnic.

 

Ha ha ha......danged hippy...

Just wish I HAD enough hair to get tangled..

 

Not sure if I previously posted this particular event, but in the late '70s I worked as a heavy equipment mechanic. For those of you who have never worked on an 18 wheeler type truck, in order to remove the drive axle from the housing you have to remove all the nuts and whack the end of the full floating axle with a big hammer in order for it to pop out. For some reason that escapes me, when I bent down, with hammer in hand, I introduced said hammer handle to my "boys" in a most unpleasant way, leaving me breathless and barely able to move for nearly an hour.
My boss finally had me transported to the local hospital. It was bad enough that I had to describe my affliction to the cute young lady behind the admissions desk, who, after asking me the nature of the injury, turned beet red when I said "I hit myself in the nuts with a hammer". After being sent to the examination room the female doctor came in, looked at the report, and said " I bet that took your breath away." No shit Sherlockette. lol

 

Yup! Had a similar experience in the late '70s and always had my hair in a ponytail at work after that. 'Course nowadays I can't find a rubber band small enough to hold 12 strands of hair. lol

 

wow...I may have to post more than once. but the one that comes to mind is when I put new brake pads on a car and forgot to pump the pedal to push the calipers back out. I had the wife pull the car out of the shop;, it was very cold out & I wanted to keep as much heat in as possible. so I had her start the car while I stood in front of the car to open the door. she started it, put it in gear and kept coming. of course, she put on the brakes, but the pedal went to the floor. she pushed me into the garage door and onto the hood of the car. had to completely dismantle the door and bang it back into shape after I worked all the kinks out of my back muscles. lesson learned, I hope!

 

Got so many. But this one sticks out the most. I used to do a lot of work on farm equipment. New holland hay balers have a bad habit of bolts freezing up especially in the main pto box. As usual when one goes bad you almost always have to heat the bolts to get them to turn loose. I heated the shit out of them backed them out and then turned and picked the damn thing up. Removing any previous finger prints ever recorded as a child. It didn't take long to look at the damn thing. Got to spread another 1800$ because I cracked the case and there was nothing left to rebuild. Lesson learned. Charge 4 times the regular rate when working on hay balers and bush hoggs.

 

I guess all the stupid things have already been done. No additions lately.

 

i had just brought my 69 Z body shell home from the body shop in Kansas City. i had new quarters floor pans etc installed and was going to put it up on a rack i had built to prep the inside and underneath. The back end was on stands and I was holding the front end off the ground so my wife could slide the braces underneath. She was having trouble understanding what I needed her to do I was holding the body shell up in the air that I had just paid my body man 8,000 to repair. I yelled at her for not getting it set right she got mad and stomped into the home leaving me standing holding the car up in the air and not able to set it down in fear it would slip off the stands in the back.

It was a very long 5 minutes in my shop until she stuck her head out and asked if I was ready to apoligize.

 

Hair in the creeper wheel, check...Weld splatter in hair, check...Weld splatter neatly burning holes in socks and then ankles [not knowing how on earth they got through my shoes], check..Let jack down with head in a position to get beanned by something because released too fast, check...Looking at something I done years ago and wondering how the hell I did it, check...Tools growing legs and wandering off, check..Manuvering self into akward position, remembering to bring flash light but forgetting there isn't room for the two of us, check...Turned some shelving into cabinates by making doors but I'm pretty sure I forgot why, check...

 

My latest is wearing a ball cap in the forward, traditional position whilst working under the car on the lift. I am 6' 2" and have a shaved head, so all damage and bruises are immediately evident. TWO weekends in a row, I bumped hell out of my head because I couldn't see upwards with the damned ball cap on. One time I hit right on the button on the top of the cap. That left a nasty little shitter on my scalp.

From now on, it's either ball cap wit hbutton pulled out and turned around backwards or a welders cap turned around backwards. I'm going to have CTE if I keep bumping my head on the bottom of my car!

 

Used an angle grinder to cut through a very large sheet of steel for roughing in a custom fiberglass dash frame. Probably was cutting for a solid two minutes. Turned off the grinder and marveled at how hot the grinder had gotten. Looked down and realized my shirt was on fire.

 

The stupidest thing. Letting a little 30 Model A Coupe (Chev V8, auto, running nice) go out the door to someone else's house in New York.

 

Too many things to remember.

I remember straightening a steel item on the shop floor, with a sledge hammer. I hit it slightly off center and it jumped 8 feet in the air & took out a fluorescent light fixture.

Fixing a leaky fuel line I squirted gas in my armpit. That'll make ya yell.

I dropped an 800lb motorcycle half off a lift. just stuck there.
Didn't know whether to go up or down. I went down & found myself supporting half the motorcycle by myself until the lift touched down all the way.

 

Drilling a hole in a knife i was making. It spun around and cut my fingers pretty bad. Luckily I had sharpened very well so it made a clean cut

 

I was soldering a new ring on my starter cable. Hosed it off with some brake clean. Lit the propane torch. Put some flux on the cable. Solder in the ring heated it up. Flux caught on fire and dripped on the floor and poof. The flames followed the vapors over to my steel pile in the corner of the garage. The whole comer was on fire. Flames to the ceiling. Ran in the house grabbed the fire extinguisher from under the and got it out. I now have 3 fire extinguishers in the garage.


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I hate baseball caps for these reasons.... except when I get them I cut the "visor" bit off. Keeps the crud and sparks outa your hair.

 

Well I got my arm stuck in a convertible top and crushed the radial nerve in my arm. My right hand and wrist were limp for about four months.....

 

Just finished putting a trans pan & skidplate back under a truck, cleaned tools & put away....then see the trans filter laying on the bench.

 

I ate a bug once.................

 

Not to mention that burning brake cleaner can be deadly....

 

Yeah. I don't use that crap anywhere near heat anymore after all the nasty thing that have happened to people.


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getting lazy on a bench grinder bumped my hand on the grinding wheel, I found out what my hand tendon looks like.

 

LOL ...been there...."what the hell's burning ?? "

When I was much younger (like 40+ years ago) I was using a HD 7 1/2" "suicide" grinder on something...can't recall just what, mighta been a cast iron hub. 'Course, back then there weren't any safety shields.

All of a sudden the grinder catches, spins off to the right and down and proceeds to gobble up my shirt.
Climbed right up to my neck and beings so much cloth was wound up, it stalled the grinder.

I really had to concentrate to open my one eye and reach for the cord to unplug it.

Learned why they called it that.........still got the scar, too.

 

Finishing my '41 suburban, before it even went out in public, leaned in the passenger side to bump the starter for some stupid reason - the thing was in gear and the key on.
Started right up and drove into the wall in front of it. The wife was on the other side of the wall planting flowers. The wall moved a foot and it scared her shitless!
Had to fix the grill AGAIN!

 

I was working in the garage last Tuesday night drilling holes in some tube for a guy. The tube was dirty and I was wearing some Kevlar gloves to try and stay clean for some reason. Got my hand to close to the drill bit in my drill press and it pulled my glove and thus my hand in. luckily I stalled out the drill press. I didn't think to shut it off instead I reached over and turned my phase converter off. the girlfriend was in shock and standing there like a statue. I pulled my pocked knife out and tried to cut the glove off. even with a brand new razor blade it wouldn't cut Kevlar. so I turned the chuck by hand got my glove untangled then went inside to try to cut my glove off with kitchen scissors. That didn't work so I pulled the glove off by hand. all said and done I got lucky nothing broke nothing internal tore. just ripped some skin off my hand. A week later it still is sore and swollen. I knew better but was tying to stay clean, how stupid was I that night.

 

Working on a 40 convert with an elec fan. Had it up on jackstands and was underneath checking why there was noise with fan running (wasn't on at the time). The fan closed by ground via a relay so I totally unhooked the ground for safety (home alone).While feeling around, my shoulder hit the ground to the frame. I thought that it hurt a bit when the fan engaged but not that bad. Took my hand out and a lot of damage to several fingers. Wrapped towel around it and went in house to the sink to wash out and look at--oh shit, not good and blood all over floors,sink and garage floor, etc. Neighbor came over and saw the mess (he is a paramedic) I told him just help me clean up the blood before my wife gets home so we did. Then drove to ER- wife and son had to go back and get finger pieces from the fan to reinstall. After 5 surgeries a skin graft and 6 months later my hand/fingers worked again but look a little funny. Have done plenty of other things as well that didn't end well. Now at 71 a little more careful.

 

Was in the shop ready to change the steering wheel on my '58 Chevy 1/2 ton. Didn't have a puller. Unbolted everything and started pulling on it. Wouldn't budge. Started hitting it and pulling with the heal of my hands. All of a sudden it came off hitting me square in the forehead and knocking me senseless. Come too in a pool of blood and a bad headache. Always use a puller now, i have learned my lesson.

 

Oh geez, that is pretty sketchy! Yeah, I think out of everything in the shop, the two things that terrify me the most is the angle grinder and bench grinder. Those accidents are usually pretty gnarly.