our female guest

Mine has been a godsend during the build process of my current project (a homebuilt CNC router/engraver). Always there to hold a part, paint the frame, work a wrench or double check my soldering (her eyes are way younger and better than mine....lol). It helps that she was the first female to ever take 'shop class' at her high school too I guess. Mind you the downside is we are way behind on the domestic chores ;-).

did you guys see that post a while back about the married couple building a submarine? wow! that is one big and ambitious project. especially because they started out with no metalworking skills. i wish them much success and fun with their sub.

b.w.

Long sleves around a lathe? I wouldn't do it.

Lane

Indeed! Having her jacket open and flapping around isn't exactly worksafe, either.

Come on, guys. Give the gal credit where due. She wasn't there to show off her prowess on machines, she was there for the child's birthday......

How many of us have found ourselves in a circumstance where we weren't appropriately attired for a particular occasion? Did you really expect her to show up in a machinist's apron with her hair in a pony tail?

Harold

Wise old scout saying: "Be prepared" :^)

Not without a hair net! Heh, heh!

Yes guys. You're just determined to argue that she's incompetent :-D. She does have the glasses on and her hair tied back.

Chris

Well, yes, she does get points for that...it's just that in my impressionable days as an apprentice, I once saw a guy get his sleeve wrapped around a piece of metal he was turning on a lathe - big gash along the length of his forearm, lots of blood - that sort of thing. So I guess it's coloured me a little sensitive to the issue of shop safety...

Mind you, there're plenty of pictures on the web of guys working in their capacities as amateur machinists that make my hair stand on end, too!

No kidding. Reading the responses here makes me realize why women shy away from shops.

I have enough trouble convincing males in my labs to wear safety glasses, much less keep the drawers closed or the workbench sanitized.

Though I honestly don't like those goggles she was wearing. They're too cumbersome for wearing all the time, and when hung up they invariably wind up lenses down, which means they collect all kinds of swarf, dust, and junk.

I've taught my family that a) they can expect to find good safety eyewear in my shops, b) they're required to wear it, and c) it's a darn good idea to wipe out or otherwise dust out whatever is *in* any glasses or goggles they're not familiar with. In my shops glasses are kept in clean zip-lock bags to prevent the 'eyefull of crap' effect.

I think that lady was doing just fine at her machine.

Jim

Moderately tall, blond, the body looks fair, early to mid 20s based on the hands, which has no wedding ring....

Does she like cowboys?

Gunner

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stewart Mill

Personally, I prefer (and wear) full face shields like this 3M unit:

Easy to clean (not a lot of small nooks and crannies to collect junk), great peripheral visibility, no fogging, more comfortable, and easy to raise/lower without removing from head. But most importantly, they protect the entire face from flying swarf (and possible high-speed projectiles which I would not want to catch in my mouth or other part of my face).

...

I store my respirators in zip lock bags (after cleaning and air-drying), but I simply hang my face shields. The shields hang nicely with the polycarbonate lens in a vertical orientation so they hardly collect any dust.

Following this thread, I've been reluctant to criticize her (after all, I did ask for the pictures). But I have to admit, seeing the long sleeves and open jacket front hanging into the lathe did make me instinctively cringe. I'll graciously assume that she was just keeping warm while setting up the job, and removed her jacket before powering-up the machine. :)

In any case, I wouldn't take the other poster's comments as vindictive or nasty, but rather as constructive (and instructive) criticism. I'm sure we'd all like to see this fine young lady machinist maintain her health (and all her limbs!) so that she can continue making chips well into the future.

Regards, Michael

I also wish them well, but they sure could have made things easier on themselves by asking for a bit of advice here. Remarkable amount of knowledge here, amazes me some of the obscure subjects that someone knows a bunch about.

John

Let the record show that Gunner wrote back on Mon,

09 May 2005 02:05:31 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :

She's a machinist, or used to working around machinery. Machinist who wear rings get called "Nine Fingered" if they don't get named "Gimpy", "Stubby" or other sobriquets.

Are there any more like her at home?

I spent much of last year finally learning to weld. I had the time on my hands, so enrolled full time at the local tech school, where all the other students were half my age. (They couldn't understand that I was there just for the fun. "Fun is when you go to the beach, dawg. This here's work, know what I'm sayin'?")

The best student in class was covered with tattoos and built like King Kong (though he talked like Tweety Bird, which kind of spoiled the effect). The second, third, and fourth best were three girls, petite, skilled, and damn-the-torpedoes determined. My favorite was a pretty young mom from BossTown: she must've been about five-two, her hair color changed by the day, and outside of class she was always dressed to kill. She was sweet as could be if she liked you, but God help you if she didn't, 'cause she'd make sure you knew about it. She worked like hell and man, could she weld.

But the really, reeeally gorgeous one was in the shop next door, working on semis all day, learning to be a diesel mechanic. She used to see the student beauticians coming out of class, discussing scissors. She'd heft her big socket wrench, and snort, and roll her eyes, and get back to work.

What tickled me was not just that this seemed normal to the girls, but that none of the guys saw anything unusual about it, either. (Or if they did, they bloody well kept their mouths shut, which was smart.)

Pete

Heh. She took it off because she was running a lathe!

What, you know a cowboy in need of a mate?

Jim

Can't really tell any private details, but let me just say that there is a few survivalism related ones that I will omit. Some people do fun things.

i

Izzat because ther ONLY thing she was wearing was protective eyeware?

Jeff

On Sun, 8 May 2005 17:07:39 -0700, the inscrutable "Harold and Susan Vordos" spake:

We did, but we also noted the safety violations.

Likely ALL.

Do you drive without a seat belt? Do you bend over a fan belt or machinery with a heavy gold chain around your neck? Do you stand in the water while doing electrical work bare-handed with the power still turned on?

Sane people would answer "No" to all the above. 99.999% of the time seatbelts aren't absolutely necessary, but it's that 0.001% of the time that you play for. I've needed my seat belt just 3 times in my life and it has saved my life twice and prevented an accident the other. And we've all seen gory pictures of what happened to the guy with the necktie/sleeves/gloves/long hair over the lathe, right?

If I'm not dressed for the occasion, I'll remove the unsafe items and only THEN go to it, but I DO try to remember safety when it comes to potentially losing a hand, an arm, or a leg, thanks.

That said, I usually work with the circuit breaker still on. It's a known risk, I accept responsibility for it, and I'm careful (and usually nitrile gloved.) Oh, I drive fast, too.

--------------------------------------------------- I drive way too fast to worry about my cholesterol. ---------------------------------------------------

Refreshing Graphic Design

On Mon, 9 May 2005 00:38:08 +0000 (UTC), the inscrutable Christopher Tidy spake:

WRONG! We all pointed out safety violations, not incompetence. Nobody said anything negative about the lovely lass.

--------------------------------------------------- I drive way too fast to worry about my cholesterol. ---------------------------------------------------

Refreshing Graphic Design