Making a doo-dad for the shop. One part I needed is a crank arm out of 1/4" round stock with a 90° bend in each end.

Marked out the spot, chucked it up in the vise and got the first end glowing with the torch and bent the 90 in it.

Very carefully flipped it over, aligned things so the bends would be in the same plane, and heated it up.

And promptly grabbed it by the hot end to make the other bend...

Not bad reaction time for an old fart tho, I let go of it fast enough that all I got was a shiny spot on the pad of my pointer finger.

Done similar myself, several times. Usually involving a well and recently used drill bit.

I always heard it as "...a hot horseshoe." LOL

As my dad would say whenever we dropped a hot pan, plate, or bowl in the kitchen - “it had instructions on it, eh?”

Last winter, I was changing the oil on my Suburban in our unheated garage. I decided to do it hot, because if you don't and it's zero degrees out, it takes forever for the oil to come out, plus the warm engine and exhaust add some warmth to the garage. I say this to make it clear...this was a conscious decision, I knew everything was hot.

So we got home from church, I crawled under the truck, and proceeded to take out the plug. Everything was going well until I tried to slide myself back out from underneath. I reached up, grabbed the catalytic converter with both hands, and pulled. Needless to say, I let go very quickly, and some not very church appropriate words were uttered. I had some good burn marks and tender palms for a few weeks to remind me that I am indeed an idiot.

I'm not saying you guys are 11 year old girls, but I'm constantly reminding my daughter to slow down just a half of a second and think about what she's doing before she does it. I also believe I might have heard that myself a time or two from my grandfather.

Everyone who picks up tools and works on things has scars from cuts and burns. I call them character marks from a life well lived.


That sounds better than a 64 year old idiot that continues to relearn the same lessons.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I'm not saying you guys are 11 year old girls, but I'm constantly reminding my daughter to slow down just a half of a second and think about what she's doing before she does it. I also believe I might have heard that myself a time or two from my grandfather.

Sounds like my dad's occasional admonishments to "pay attention to your surroundings".

-Rob

When I was a wee kiddo, I used to hang out in the kitchen/dinette with my Mom and Dad after they got home from work and mom was cooking.

One day, Mom decided that all the verbal warnings to me were over and a lesson was what was needed. So, she watched me reach for the hot oven without saying a word. The lesson was painful and rapid finished with an "I told you so" from Mom. I have have often wondered if Dad was able to get fingers in his ears in anticipation of the yelp I let out.

The lesson stuck. In the ensuing years, I have given myself any number of lessons in safety resulting from "rapid and painful". LOL

quote:

Originally posted by PorterN:
As my dad would say whenever we dropped a hot pan, plate, or bowl in the kitchen - “it had instructions on it, eh?”

The old machinist who lived across the street used ask “was it heavy?”

Another old machinist I worked with used to say, "Just leave that anywhere."

quote:

Originally posted by vinnybass:
Another old machinist I worked with used to say, "Just leave that anywhere."

I like that.

Some of these quips definitely deserve to live on, lol.

My friends' dad, an old rancher, always says 'didn't take you long to look at that.'

I finally really get it, only just now. Though I have done it many times myself over the years. He was also a restorer of tractors, like show quality if there is such a thing. And I think there is.

SigForum, you learn something new almost every day.

I have a pressure washer with a 13 HP Honda engine on it.
The muffler is a big square right on top of the engine where it just falls natural to rest one hand as I reach down to hit the kill switch with the other hand. The kill switch is only about a foot off the ground. Yes, guess I'm a slow learner, roasted my palm 3 or 4 times on that thing. But terrible design... the damn kill switch should be on top of the engine so you don't have to bend way over to reach it. Maybe it is made worse because I'm left handed but I'd like to kick some design engineer square in the taint. Hard. With my steel toe boots on. Multiple times.

If I used it often I'd remember I guess but I rarely use it. I have decided I need to add an extra shield or something.

quote:

Originally posted by 83v45magna:
He was also a restorer of tractors, like show quality if there is such a thing. And I think there is.

Yes, there is. For some unfathomable reason, it's particularly popular with the John Deere crowd. There are many examples where the paint job alone cost more than I would spend on the entire project.

Sort of eludes me. For very rare models or "Serial Number 1" of a given model, maybe. But there were approximately eleven-teen bazillion John Deere Model A's built. Restoring one to the point where you don't dare sit on it, much less use it, doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Their money and time, of course...