Forged in fire - safety

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Wanted to start a thread regarding the adsence of gaurds on hand held angle grinders on the forged in fire tv show. It is also a common habit in youtube videos. I know the reasons that people choose to operate a grinder without a gaurd. But after 22 yrs of industrial experience involving daily hand grinder use, it is hard for me to watch. So two part dialogue....one, why would the show choose to glorify such a disturbing practice? Two, how to encourage safety in this industry in a positive manner? Thanks Jeff
 
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Makers use many different areas of the belt to grind and finish, guards are not practical.

In 40 years of knife making, I have seen one guy get hurt on one. He lowered his contact wheel down so that it was touching the bench, when he turned it on, it drove off. He then sued the manufacturer and lost.

Hoss
 
I think maybe the OP was referring to angle grinders specifically, not so much belt grinders. Could be wrong though.
 
A lot of people ignore safety devices till they get hurt and it's too late. Having been in the Trades for over 40 years I'm certainly guilty of removing safeties and ignoring the use of them when operating hazardous equipment. Most times I was lucky, occasionally I got hurt, I can't recall ever hearing in 40 years someone say "I was injured because of the use off PPE or the use of safety equipment incorporated into equipment.

ATGATT :)
 
18 years of similar experience myself, currently responsible for enacting and enforcing safety policy, and a good part of the reason I get some satisfaction from making knives myself at home is that I don't have to follow anyone else's idea of safety, or worry about the stupid things other people do that result in stupid rules in the workplace.

Read Mike Rowe's comments in response to "Why didn't you wear safety glasses on the oil rig" for a more eloquent response.
 
J. Doyle said:
I think maybe the OP was referring to angle grinders specifically, not so much belt grinders. Could be wrong though.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you're right on this one.

I never think of those as grinders, they make noise and throw sparks, but they are not that effective for making knives.

Hoss
 
kuraki said:
18 years of similar experience myself, currently responsible for enacting and enforcing safety policy, and a good part of the reason I get some satisfaction from making knives myself at home is that I don't have to follow anyone else's idea of safety, or worry about the stupid things other people do that result in stupid rules in the workplace.

Read Mike Rowe's comments in response to "Why didn't you wear safety glasses on the oil rig" for a more eloquent response.
Click to expand...

I just read an article on Mike's comments. Holy cow you could literally see the safety personnel coming out of the wood work to justify their jobs.
I've worked construction for nearly 20 years. The workers all the time saying "safety first"(or touting union rules) are almost guaranteed to be looking for reasons not to be working as opposed to looking for ways to work safely. The safety protocols have gotten seriously out of hand. The couple times I was nearly seriously hurt on the job, were all directly related to ridiculous safety rules. Every. Single. Time.

Chris
 
I've worked in the fabrication industry going on 25 years, from hole in the wall shops to a fortune 500 company. The safety practices ranged to nothing to full on OSHA compliance. Somewhere in the middle is my comfort zone. I'm smart enough to watch what I do, and don't need a babysitter looking over my shoulder all the time. If OSHA had their way, you wouldn't be able to get anything done due to the machine guarding and procedures. I don't use guards on my hand grinders because they render them useless for anything except grinding in the flat on the edge of something. I also don't get my face down in line with the wheel, and I usually have a face shield on. Being aware of what you are doing and some common sense is 75% of your safety program. You'll never idiot proof everything, cause they just build better idiots.
 
DevinT said:
I'm sure you're right on this one.

I never think of those as grinders, they make noise and throw sparks, but they are not that effective for making knives.

Hoss
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Lots of us use them though. Betcha 90% of shops have one and use them to one extent or the other. I don't use them for "making knives" so much as for cutting, which I think it the most dangerous part. Thin cut-off wheels and all that.

And the OP has a point. angle grinders are certainly dangerous enough WITH the guards. I shudder every time I see someone grinding without them...
 
I've been using angle grinders on a regular basis for 30 years. I have a few with guards and one without. I used the one without to get in a tight spot that I couldn't get into with my guarded ones just a couple of days ago so they have their place. I have never had a mishap with a angle grinder. Rode BMX for years and skateboarded my whole life and never wore a helmet or pads. I never wear safety goggles unless shit is flying in my face. 45 years old I have both eyes all my fingers and have never broken a bone. This culture is way overkill on the safety crap in my opinion.
 
I pretty much wear safety glasses whenever I'm in the shop. They don't bother me, and I feel better being in the habit of wearing, rather than not wearing them.
 
I, like you, cringe when I see these chaps doing some stupid things with an angle grinder to get a piece of metal or pipe cut up quick on that show.
I laugh that I have been told by some contestants that the safety folks are yelling at them, "Hold that blade lower .... don't run, etc." and then say nothing about a fellow holding a bar of metal in one hand and trying to cut it with an unguarded angle grinder with the other.
There have been several close calls, too. Most were just a few stitch size cut, but sooner or later it will be bad.



However:
The shop on Forged in Fire is not a "real" shop in any way. There are dozens of things wrong merely for better photography and more "awe" effect for the audience. The grinders throw huge streams of sparks without the guard. The other thing that really gets me is the volatile fluid they float on the quench oil to make a huge flash.
 
I wouldn't say the show "glorifies" the practice. I'm not sure I've ever really noticed that they had guards or didn't. It's not as if they are taking air time to show the knife maker removing the guard and throwing it the scrap bin.

Industrial safety is all well and good, but then there's the real world. If you're relying solely on a machine guard to keep you safe, chances are high that you're going to get hurt with or without it. If you use the safety guard between your ears however, the chances of going home the way you came in, rise exponentially.

Don't get me wrong: I think good safety habits and practices should be encouraged, and guards should be used when possible, but I also thing that the typical industrial safety engineer's attitude of "if we install enough rails, guards, safety interlocks, decals, hirac forms, etc..., nobody will ever get hurt again!" is not only naive, but misses the main issue: not so common sense/thinking and paying attention to what you're doing.

At any rate, I think I bigger safety issue they need to address is keeping the contestants cool and hydrated. Those dinky little thermos bottles look like they only hold about one bottle of water, and why are all the forges facing each other? Stagger them or turn them away from each other.
 
One of the guys on moonshiners lost a finger when he was using an angle grinder without a guard and the disk blew up. I also had a friend using one cleaning up a pipe weld and the rock blew up and came thru his welding shield. He was very lucky to not lose an eye.
Doug
Jn. 3:16
 
I've got a crappy cheap walmart black and decker where the guard will pivot and re-position with no tools.
The handle is movable to either side and it's a common inch size thread that fits many brand from grinder to grinder.


I haven't thrown the guard away because it's reasonable to keep it on and use it.
I keep a handle on it because it's easy to swap from side to side.


I have another old Makita, with no guard and no handle because it's some sort of proprietary bracket that's long been lost.
It's bitten me several times, the other one not.
 
Angle grinders are no joke. When discs explode they become jagged high speed projectiles that do serious damage.... often to the face, arms, and chest. Just google "Angle grinder injury"
I used to not worry about using them until a friend sent me a picture of his co-worker with half a grinding disc imbedded in his cheek.
 
DevinT said:
Makers use many different areas of the belt to grind and finish, guards are not practical.

In 40 years of knife making, I have seen one guy get hurt on one. He lowered his contact wheel down so that it was touching the bench, when he turned it on, it drove off. He then sued the manufacturer and lost.

Hoss
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Hoss this made me laugh. I would pay to see a video of this :D

To the OP, I understand the concern. However I think FiF is the least of your worries...

By far and wide youtube is magnitudes worse in this area. One of the craziest things I've seen on youtube was an old fellow who took an abrasive disk for a chop saw and mounted it on an arbor and made a table for it. He then proceeded to profile a blank with it. No joke half the disk was above the table unguarded and if he slipped and fell into it, it would cut his skull in half and that is not even taking into account that he was cutting contours into a blank like you could on a bandsaw!

I feel the angle grinder has very limited use in the knife shop. All of those uses involve working with damascus in my book. Outside that mine doesn't get much use. There are better tools for pretty much every other job in knifemaking and those tools are almost always safer.

-Clint
 
Ive been a welder/metal worker for about 25 years. Structural,pipe with some tig and mig aluminum/stainless work in there.. Been a blacksmith for a long time ..Farmer and ret from a usp max security federal prison.. Ive seen a lot of folks hurt in a lot of bad ways, yet Ill be the first to admit that some times I ignore safety too..While I am adamant about eyes and ears where necessary Ive ran dozens of grinders with no guards. Mostly because its what I had to work with. Heck Ive hung off the edge of a 30' lift to weld 12" water pipe with a mirror on the backside,LOL.. Just bad habits, I came up working with a generation that did what it took to get the job done regardless of most safety issues. Not smart but that's just the way it was..maybe that's why I have more scar tissue than skin on my hands?
 
T. Erdelyi said:
A lot of people ignore safety devices till they get hurt and it's too late. Having been in the Trades for over 40 years I'm certainly guilty of removing safeties and ignoring the use of them when operating hazardous equipment. Most times I was lucky, occasionally I got hurt, I can't recall ever hearing in 40 years someone say "I was injured because of the use off PPE or the use of safety equipment incorporated into equipment.

ATGATT :)
Click to expand...

A worker on a site i worked at died from his ppe. It was a gernersl contractors own safety policy to be tied off on a scissoe lift at all times. I told the safety guy that it was a horribke idea. The guy who died had his lanyard wrap around the joy stick depressing the safety switch and went up when he slipped and was crushed between the rail of the scissors lift and a wilson joyce.
 
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