What's a common occurrence in your hobby that you think shouldn't be?
What's a common occurrence in your hobby that you think shouldn't be?
For me it's driving while under the influence. If you couldn't tell, I like me some ganja. However I have long since held the belief that it is utterly insane to drive while under the influence of most substances, with maybe nicotine and caffeine being the exception. All too often I see other stoners smoking and driving, which I simply can't fathom. I've only operated a vehicle once under the influence and it was just to move a U-Haul around the block to a different parking spot, which was such a scary experience while high that I refuse to even consider getting behind the wheel again while high.
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The "macho" attitude to safety. From soldering to woodworking. In soldering, there are fumes created when burning a substance called flux. There are commercial fumes extractors to purify and remove these fumes, but many refuse to use them, even if they're cheap. Saying stuff like "What's a little tree sap gonna do to me?. Chances are, none of them could run a mile due to the irritation of their lungs.
Another one is woodworking, especially around power tools. Table saws can shred your fingers before you can blink. It can pull extremities towards itself, and can launch wood fast enough to perforate organs. Yet there are still people who insist "I don't need no push stick", "don't bother with a crosscut sled, just free hand it".
For woodworking: Add the "old machines were soooo much safer,you need to use this 1968 Asshole-Wankerville saw if you realllllyyy want to have safety"(not true, especially when using planers) and the "if you don't do it this way you should not be let close to a pencil!"(does it in an antiquated, overly complicated way that is safe but if you do one little thing wrong it isn't anymore)-Gatekeepers.
Especially the whole story around saw-stop and how it was perceived by amateurs (even when they were unaffected by the manufacturers propaganda) is a shame.
Old machines can be good. Old machines can be a deathtrap. And things decay over time and something rotating with 30.000 RPM for 50 years close to someones groin/stomach maybe isn't a risk someones should take lightly.
And most people who talk like this are old idiots who learned/teached themselves how to do things somewhere in the 70ies/80ies and then never developed after that. But they are so fucking sure about themselves.
I have an emergency medicine background, including some accident research. And even then people try to argue with me. "No,that kind of injury can never happen with this brand". Idiot, I have seen it myself,talked to the person who nearly killed themselves, etc.
I was watching a woodworking video the other day. It was a dude in some third world country, using a tablesaw that looked like it was from the 60’s. No blade guards, no kickback fin, etc… Not even PPE like safety glasses or a push stick. And the dude was making cuts with only an inch or so between the fence and the blade, using his thumb to push the material through. I ran to the comments to see how many others had mentioned the fact that this dude needed to make himself a push stick.
The top comment was a dude complaining about “all these comments mentioning the lack of a push stick need to grow up. This dude obviously doesn’t need a push stick cuz he’s been doing this for years and knows how to stay safe without it.”
The dude in the video was missing two fingertips, clearly from previous accidents. He very obviously did need a push stick
I feel this way about angle grinders and seeing people using them without a guard or any safety equipment with their face inches away from a cutoff wheel they bought from harbor freight as they plunge it into a piece of steel.
Oh god,angle grinders,yeah... I have one, but I don't use it in my workshop for obvious reasons.
The wife recently thought I had a stroke as I was screaming at the TV, because a show had invited an "expert" who was cutting some metal in front of the audience.
.... Without ANY safety equipment on himself or the machine. .... Heavily BENDING the disk.
.... Someone is going to do this like on TV...and die...I was impressed that none of the audience died because that's where the blade would have landed.
And I saw first hand was an angle grinder disk does to someones skull. It has the habit of stopping in a place that will not kill you. But leave you blind,deaf and dumb, suffering for a long time. They scare me. When I use mine, I am wearing full PPE, have a guard on the machine and still keep a tourniquet around.
It especially makes my blood boil when bosses do this. They frequently do because they don't suffer the consequences but reap the gains.
If workers take a dangerous shortcut: increased productivity.
If workers get injured, they blame the worker for disregarding safety precautions. OSHA usually only steps in if safety equipment/practice is outright missing, not if workers are told to not use them.
Honestly you sound like you've three years in the industry and everyone but you is incompetent, especially the ones been at it forever.
It especially sucks how that attitude will trickle down and erode the safety practices for everyone. Depending on what and where you’re learning, you can potentially end up knee deep in hazards before you even know what you’re supposed to be avoiding.
I’m an apprentice bench jeweler and the common practices in this industry are fucked. There’s a container of actual asbestos that we pack around stones to insulate them for a weld. I was looking for a good method for affixing tiny parts for welds and everyone says just superglue it, since the glue burns off and doesn’t contaminate the weld. It just depolymerizes into highly irritating gases, and benches are fucking NEVER properly ventilated. There’s oxydizers we use weekly that say “only open outdoors” on the container.
A good respirator is a great investment, pretty much no matter your industry.
Motorcycle riders not wearing a helmet be like