Well, I was told this before and I agreed with the statement, but it's not until now that I'm determined to implement it. You see, during my past employment, I've worked along side several very skill machinists and from time to time they would impart nuggets of wisdom to me. One of those nuggets was not to wear gloves while using a lathe. I tend to wear gloves often while working in the shop and I normally don't remove them when I use the milling machine or lathe. Usually, I'm aware that I have them on and keep my hands away from anything spinning, but last week I made a careless mistake. I was in a hurry to get a freshly printed part installed and needed to drill some holes quickly. No big deal, right? As I was drilling the holes, I decided that it was a good idea to brush the chips, that were being created, away with my gloved hand. I did it twice. The first time, no problem. On the second time, the drill bit snagged the glove at the tip of my pointer finger and began to wind it up. It quickly pulled my finger and therefore my hand into the bit. I immediately began to pull away, but I could not free myself. The glove ripped and the digit of the glove became like a tourniquet, tightening more and more as each second went by. I grunted in panic, eventually realizing that I could not pull away, I tried to turn off the mill. I overturned the three position switch, making it temporarily go in reverse and then I finally switch it to the middle, cutting the mill off. At this point the drill bit stopped and I was able to remove the glove and therefore my hand from the mill. There was no blood just soreness. Thank the Lord that the glove took all of the cutting from the edge of the drill bit. I am so thankful that there wasn't any permanent damage done and that this serves as a reminder to adhere to safe practices around machinery.
