[NBF823]

Yea, I'm stupid afraid of presses. Particularly pressing off old bearings.

I have to say I have a healthy respect for torches and other things, but something about a press is just beyond that. I think it's because I can feel the pressure.

I just have these thoughts, that yea a hardened steel shard from this thing is gonna go right through me.

I've been hit with hardened shards a few times, causing blood and what not, but never from a 20 ton press. I imagine I'll just plop over dead when that happens cause I don't know that my fleshy outter layer is gonna stop a projectile.

[Jeff Hamlin]

I use a large dia pc of steel pipe so if the bearing grenades it is somewhat contained.

[marxjunk]

presses not so much..

but a table saw......those thing freak me out....i dont know why, but i have nightmares about them..and i can not shake the feeling..i bought one this year, and sold it before i even used it..it just gives me the weak knee..punch in the gut feeling, just looking at those things...

[Sirrotica]

On this forum the most common fear I have seen is jack stands collapsing and a car falling on them.

I've been using table saws, 20 ton and larger presses, and crawling under cars supported by jack stands for close to 50 years (mechanic was my profession) regularly as I fix and build everything I can to save money and know the work is done correctly.

Many years ago I had a fear of being in the air over say 25 feet, In 1988 I took a job working on aerial work platforms, so I had to get over that and have been up to 110 feet up in a boom lift.

Use common sense and if you rationalize the thing you have a fear of I think you can actually get over an irrational fear, it has worked for me. No one knows when or how we're going to leave this life, but we IMO have no real power over our destiny. I found out the hard way I have no control over my destiny. Accepting I really have no real choice over my destiny lets me live without fearing many things.

Years ago my X wife said something to me about being careful about something I was doing. My reply was if i get killed, I won't have to get up for work the next day........... I have said the same thing to the current wife, she doesn't see any humor in it at all..........LOL

This is my own belief, your belief may, and can differ, just offering what I have adopted that lets me live my life within reason controlling what I can, and knowing that I only have so much control over my life and events.

[72projectbird]

I'm afraid of anything pressurized. I don't like standing next to air compressors, presses, and things under tension. And you can add laying under a car held up by jack stands.

[stellar]

I often wrap a towel around the work in a press if I fear a slip or a broken shard is possible. I have never had anything go through the towel.

[Half-Inch Stud]

Cast Iron Flywheels get my heebee gee bees, like high rpm upshifts with an OHC-6 Sprint 4-Speed and that stock heavy castiron fragmenter....yikes.


Torques converters are just not like that.

[Torquewar]

All good points....my hmm moments are angle grinders and chop saws..
Had a wheel and disc fragment at speed. The grinder made me donate some blood ...

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by Half-Inch Stud

Cast Iron Flywheels get my heebee gee bees, like high rpm upshifts with an OHC-6 Sprint 4-Speed and that stock heavy castiron fragmenter....yikes.


Torques converters are just not like that.

A guy that worked for me had a 68 camaro drag car with LS6 BBC with an automatic that he drag raced. The third time he took it down the track the ring gear shattered and came through the floor, fortunately it missed his feet. You never know when something unexpectedly will happen. The flex plate was brand new when he installed the engine, not old used junk parts.

[400 4spd.]

Originally Posted by Torquewar

All good points....my hmm moments are angle grinders and chop saws..
Had a wheel and disc fragment at speed. The grinder made me donate some blood ...

I'm with you on the high R.P.M. stuff. Being used to 20,000# pulls failing on a frame machine I can handle and avoid. It's the high R.P.M. stuff in my hands that causes concern for me.

[codyyy]

Air compressors freak me out. Coil springs freak me out but I usually wrap a giant chain around them just in case. Leaf springs can actually cause some havoc when taking them apart without using a bunch of big C-clamps.
Spiders freak me out a lot. I was laying under a '68 Kaiser Wagoneer I had and a black spider that looked like a cross between a Black Widow and a Nope spider decided to drop in above my face to make sure I was torquing things right. I broke my creeper in half, slammed my head on the rocker panel and seriously debated lighting the truck on fire.

[Sirrotica]

Originally Posted by codyyy

Air compressors freak me out. Coil springs freak me out but I usually wrap a giant chain around them just in case. Leaf springs can actually cause some havoc when taking them apart without using a bunch of big C-clamps.
Spiders freak me out a lot. I was laying under a '68 Kaiser Wagoneer I had and a black spider that looked like a cross between a Black Widow and a Nope spider decided to drop in above my face to make sure I was torquing things right. I broke my creeper in half, slammed my head on the rocker panel and seriously debated lighting the truck on fire.

LMAO

[NBF823]

Agreed on the wood saws - they seem to say super unforgiving right off the bat, and I know more than a few guys with custom DIY digits.

I did get hit with the shard of metal slicer wheel from an angle grinder - yep, I needed the ER for that one. Used to say I was a surgeon with one of those, and that day I was - I don't say that surgeon thing anymore.

I do have plenty of steel tube around - good idea. Pressed apart two differentials tonight hoping to find pinion shims the correct size cause no body makes a kit, and an arbor stack isn't cheap. Stood there holding up a big section of rug with one hand, working the press with the other. I survived.

Nail guns too. I don't hold wood anywhere near that thing. Coworker got one once. Nail hit a knot and made a 90 turn right into his hand.

[marxjunk]

oh Jesus...spiders..i still freak out on spiders..a brown recluse got me, and after all the drugs and allergic reactions..i really thought it was the end for me..

jeez...i got the crawling skin..heebee jeebees right now...

if im in bed, or in the dark, or around anything, and feel anything brush my skin..i lose it..freakin lose it...like scream like a little girl tippee toe dance and all..jeez.,.,.spiders...right when i almost forgot...almost

[dataway]

A 20 ton press covered in bats with spiders on their backs is the absolute worst

Alignment is key on the presses, everything has to stay flat and aligned.

Used to have long hair, now I have no hair ..... but back in the day, the stories of people getting hair caught in a machine tool. Yes that scared me.

I once had my lathe tear the sleeve right off my shirt while I was wearing it, saying it scared me would be a gross understatement. Yes, I was wearing a long sleeve shirt while operating a lathe.

[Shiny]

R E S P E C T after fear-filled exposure to scary things with lots of energy.

Monstrous drop forge that literally shook the ground 100 yards away.

Primary crusher annihilating car-size boulders at the Climax mine like they were peanut shells.

Tensile testing 1/2 inch diameter ultra-high-strength steel dog-bones with only a token Plexiglas shield. You knew the noise was coming, but when it broke, you still jumped.

And anyone else ever had a u-joint end cap go ballistic when melting the injected nylon locking stuff? I'm lucky I didn't kill someone with that bonehead explosion.

And trains pointed at me raise my adrenalin a little. Maybe 11 ys old, I was half-way across a railroad trestle with open space between ties, 20 feet over a river, heard the train coming around the corner. Ran toward it because that was the closest way off. Just like this scene in an old movie " Stand by Me": link to youtube

And I don't like water moccasins much.

[Mr Anonymous]

Not afraid of my press or other tools, I just try to be safe. Like Eric Larson says, the goal is for everyone to be OK at the end of the day.

My problems are fear of heights, and to some extent, certain insects.

In the Top 5 Worst Days of My Life: we have the day I saw "it".

I had a car on jackstands. I put an old blanket on the floor because I really don't enjoy the feel of concrete on my skin. Didn't spread it out necessarily. Laid down on said blanket, scooted under the front of the car and proceeded to get to changing a starter. Out of the corner of my left eye, I saw The Thing. Looking like some sort of prehistoric creature, I freaked out and tried to sit up to get away. Smashed my forehead into the crossmember, knocked myself out cold! Came to, saw it again, and did it again! When I woke up this last time, the pain was unbelievable. Stars in my eyes, ears ringing, it was truly awful.

And to find out, it was already dead - and posed no problem at all.

What was it?

Rhinoceros Beetle, had no idea they were even found in ohio. These things are huge, and up next to your face, monstrous!

[Bob Rutledge]

Powerful spinning machines get my full attention. Saw a video that made me just about sick. There was a dude working in a shop and he got close to a powerful spinning thing and he got caught up in it. I won't go into detail, but I had to stop watching before his co workers got the machine stopped. I now have second thoughts about jack stands. When I was younger I pushed and pulle on the car pretty good and still do today, but back then I didn't give it a second thought after the pushing and pulling. Now it stays in my head. I am not afraid of heights, but I aint jumping out of a perfectly good airplane either.

[george kujanski]

Working a part time job at perforating company when I was in college. I was operating a punch press, it had dies about 4 feet wide, sheet steel was fed in from a roll. The final product was perforated sheet metal used for vent grills and such.

Anyway, one day i took off due to other matters, next day I came in to work and the guy next to me was not at work. I questioned one of the other workers and was told he had his arm caught in the press..........gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

george

[SRR]

Just last week had an airhose disconnect on me and wack me in the forehead, lucky I was wearing a ballcap, still hurt like hell but no blood or scar! Tires slipping onto the bead while inflating freaks me out, I always used lots of lube to avoid that very loud POP but still made me jump. Black Widows and large web builders freak me out, been bit by both not fun at all.