G'day Mike et al.
CHUCK GUARD.
You have to seriously wonder at the value of the chuck guard.
Somewhere in OH&S regs they say all rotsting pats must be guarded. On
automatic machines its presence is justified but on manual machines
it adds little to safety and may in itself create a hazard. It
obscures you vision when sighting how close the tool is to the chuck
and puts you at risk of crashing the tool into the chuck.
My lathe has a guard, thankfully without a kill switch so it is
always up; I only put it down if coolant is being flung about by the
chuck.
I have seen others in this group advocate leaving the change gear
cover off. I do not endorse this because it would be easy to let your
fingers stray towards the gears when using the lathe. The chuck guard
is another matter.
Let's do a JSA (Job Safety Analysis)
First danger: leaving the key in chuck; this should be overcome by
developing good habits; also starting slowly means the key drops out
rather than is flung out (this is inherent with the speed control
needing to be reset.
Second danger: clothing being caught in the chuck dragging in the
operator; overcome by wearing correct clothing, short sleeves, no
ties ec.
Third danger: ring finger getting caught, ripping off portion of
finger; overcome by taking rings off.
Forth danger: Swarf etc flung from chuck into eyes (it does happen);
overcome by wearing safety glasses.
The list goes on but each risk can be controlled by correct practices.
IMHO, take off the chuck guard and bridge out the limit switch.
As a professional I am safety focused, here is a very recent example.
I had a family from our church over for a meal. The son is doing
metal work at school and together we turned up a quicky widget on the
lathe. The corners need rounding so I showed him how the file must be
used left handed and stressed that your arms must not cross over the
chuck and the file should be on a line passing outside the body. Next
day he went to school and was using a lathe with a file. He
apparently followed my instructions much to the surprise of his
teacher who asked how he learned the correct way. Response, "The
pastor of our church showed me!"
My point. We must learn SAFE PRACTICES along with the skills we
master and, using groups like this, we must pass them on. the chuck
guard does little to enhance safe practice, it is appropriately
named, chuck it away!
One good turn deserves another.
Regards,
Ian
--- In 7x12minilathe@..., "Mike Payson" <mike@...> wrote:
I'm not sure if it's standard to all of the 7x's now, but the HF adds
a chuck saftey shield that is only 3" from the center of the chuck,
so
without removing it, somehow moving your work 3" or so from the
spindle, the
largest work you can possibly turn is 6".
