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Used to work in a bagel shop. We have a big ass slicer, spinning blade you drop bagels into down a chute.
Every day we turn it off and wipe the chute. I wasn't thinking. Unplugged the machine, scooted it out, and began wiping down the chute inside, brushing down crumbs.
It's a fucking miracle my finger barely grazed the still spinning blade that hadn't come to a stop yet. Immediately recoiled my hand and just got a scratch from it, not that deep.
I was pissed at myself for not realizing the blade was still spinning. That shit could've been so much worse.
That sounds like a work hazard. Shouldn't there be a brake on the blade if the safety is broken?
Of course there should be, but my guess is things would get stuck there & jam the machine several times a day causing you to have to take the whole thing apart during the middle of the rush.
If you just take it off, you don't have to worry about that and no one is going to be dumb enough to not wait for it to stop...
Yeah every now and then a bagel would get stuck. We had this like plastic rod with a massive end so you could jam it down the shoot without ever hitting the blade.
It was really just me forgetting to be patient and wait. It takes like a good minute for the blade to come to a complete stop. Usually you can hear it whirring and know it's still spinning, but after working in there all day you kind of get used to the sound.
That forgetfulness is why OSHA rules exist. Probably should have had Lockout/Tag out on that machine
That's how experienced people get into accidents. Work fast and forget to think. It happens so often.
glad you got to keep your fingers 😊
I'm not sure if that works while the blade is spinning down after being shut off. As I understand it, the tech uses electrical resistance to detect contact with flesh, so if the on/off switch cuts power entirely, it wouldn't be able to detect that. But I have no idea how those are generally wired.
From my time in the factory, if a safety seal was broken (e.g. open a hatch giving access to rotating parts),the whole machine halts.
you are correct though that such safety would require electricity to function.
I did not meant a brake like you have on the table saws that pull away the saw upon skin contact. That shit is expensive
One way to implement something like that would be to have a fail safe break that uses electricity to pull a friction pad away from the blade when the machine turns on. Then when you shut it off, the brake gets applied, slowing the blade quicker than the friction of the bearings would alone. It would probably be safer to do that than to use energy to apply a brake because someone might be used to the blade stopping and get hurt if the power goes out.
So yeah, I agree that there should be something like that, now that I understand what you were referring to.
That reminds me of my accident with my dad's circular saw. It was one of the ones embedded in a table. Tried to do everything the right way with it because I knew they were dangerous but I wasn't familiar enough to realize I needed to raise the saw so it would cut entirely through the 2x4 I was cutting length-wise.
I make the cut and then it gets stopped by some part that expects the whole thing to be cut through. I knew I couldn't just let go of the piece while the blade was still spinning, so I hit the stop. And then immediately let go of the wood. I've got a scar on the back of my index finger from where the wood launched by the still-spinning blade hit it.
All I could do was laugh at my stupidity, deal with my wound, then call my dad to ask how to raise the blade and finish that cut properly. He was a bit alarmed.
Though he still has me beat. One day he bought a nail gun. He was looking at it to see how the firing mechanism worked and assumed that they wouldn't have loaded it up with nails. He kept a copy of the X-ray showing the nail embedded in his belly, luckily the fat stopped it before it hit any organs. Mom never did let him get a chainsaw, and in the end he must have agreed because he never got one after she passed.