Ouch! Or Vans Safety lesson of the day

Yep, they sure do, I know of plenty of IBEW Electricians that have work on the job for 30 years and or more and still get shocked about once every 5 years. .......................

I really liked one of the first safety lessons I every got as an electrician, working on panels and doing tie-ins. The guy teaching me said, " and after you get the cover off you put your left hand in your pocket."
Of course I said, "why?"
"That way if you touch something you shouldn't they won't have to go looking for you fingertips when they get blown off.", he answered.

Ok , it would take a heckuva jolt to blown your fingers off, but everytime I open a panel, my left hand goes into a pocket, or behind my back.
:mrgreen:
 
I really liked one of the first safety lessons I every got as an electrician, working on panels and doing tie-ins. The guy teaching me said, " and after you get the cover off you put your left hand in your pocket."
Of course I said, "why?"
"That way if you touch something you shouldn't they won't have to go looking for you fingertips when they get blown off.", he answered.
Ok , it would take a heckuva jolt to blown your fingers off, but everytime I open a panel, my left hand goes into a pocket, or behind my back.
:mrgreen:
*cackle* That's not the way I teach that rule...but it sure as hell will be from today on!
 
1st guy that taught me how to do a tie in did it first infront of me, with the words if I get shocked body check me as hard as possible. You get hit by 208, your nervous system is pretty useless.
 
I love the places were the house has to tie in. I was in a hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and the house electrician had to tie. I said thats fine after seeing the jungle of feeder that they had. I proceeded to run multi lines and hook up fixtures. All of the sudden, all the lamps that were plugged into the dimmers went pop. I raced over to the rack and threw off the breaker. The 'electrician' :rolleyes: tied the 208 line to the ground, and manged to melt the multi at the rack. :evil:
 
I love the places were the house has to tie in. I was in a hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and the house electrician had to tie. I said thats fine after seeing the jungle of feeder that they had. I proceeded to run multi lines and hook up fixtures. All of the sudden, all the lamps that were plugged into the dimmers went pop. I raced over to the rack and threw off the breaker. The 'electrician' :rolleyes: tied the 208 line to the ground, and manged to melt the multi at the rack. :evil:

This is why dimmers with a 5 throw breaker is usefull. After they do the tie in, you have test points you can test the power on for each leg, (or the nicer ones have voltage guages). Make sure you don't have anything coming accross the neutral or anything... then throw the switch. Very few places let you do your own tie in, most make the house do it, which is fine with me. I don't want to go digging around their usually crappy company switch.
 
I really liked one of the first safety lessons I every got as an electrician, working on panels and doing tie-ins. The guy teaching me said, " and after you get the cover off you put your left hand in your pocket."
That was one the two useful things in learned from my first experience with a mid sized provider back in high school.
That, and how to connect cams.
Grounds first!!!
 
That was one the two useful things in learned from my first experience with a mid sized provider back in high school.
That, and how to connect cams.
Grounds first!!!
and ground last on the out, left to right and right to left.
 
Yea Footer, agree with metering everything and always.The rack in question was also a 48 touring rack of Sensors, so only one breaker. However, turning it on with out telling me was also his doing. There are also a lot of places around here that let you tie in on your own.

I even meter Edison drops now. One time we bought some extra last minute lighting along to a gig, 2 dimmer packs and a few lekos. So I tell the house electrician I needed 2 20 amp 120v cucruits. I was suppose to be a camera op that day, so I didn't have any of my lighting gear on me.

Well, I plug in the packs, and they just start smoking. So I unplug them and call the house electrician and tell him he dropped me 2 220v Edison drops. Don't ask me how he did it, but I ask him to meter the line after he 'fixed' it. It was reading 80v then.

So he went back, fiddled with something and finally got it to 117v 2 dimmer packs and a couple of hours later. I love house electricians. Every experience has been an adventure and I'm still really young at this point.

Also, when connecting power, be sure to connect the 208 last and disconnect first as well. Reason being is I have seen so people fry older dimmer racks because they weren't 'smart' and didn't know what to do with just the 208 plugged in. This is for hot ties of course.
 
I can't agree with you more. In 1994, six days into my 30th year on Earth(and 14+ years into my stage carpentry career) I had been ripping 1x3's all morning, and in a fog of inattentiveness took 3/4" off my left thumb while reaching for the next board. I spent five days in the hospital and three months out of work. I was very lucky that it was my off hand, but when I finally went back it took me quite a while to use the table saw again. Folks with experience need to be aware that they are, perhaps, even more at risk than the newbies 'cause we aren't afraid of the tools anymore, and forget that a half second's daydream can have life-long repercussions.

Rick T.
 
My college just purchased a new Delta tablesaw and we were trained in my Stagecraft class last week how to use it. I really wish we had a Sawstop now. As an aside, the contractor who was working on the house back home two summers ago actually took off the tip of his thumb with a tablesaw. He said that he was cutting beadboard, and instead of lowering the blade - like he normally would have - he left it up. Luckily, they were able to take a piece of flesh from near his wrist and put it on as a new thumb tip, but that makes no difference on the lesson's learned just from a small act of carelessness.

On the case of powertools, while we might become comfortalbe with a tool and therefore "not afraid", we should never lose respect for their power! The same goes for electricity. Respect the fact that these things can, will and do kill, or, as I always tell people, "If you feel uncomfortable, ASK FOR HELP!".
 
My college just purchased a new Delta tablesaw and we were trained in my Stagecraft class last week how to use it. I really wish we had a Sawstop now. As an aside, the contractor who was working on the house back home two summers ago actually took off the tip of his thumb with a tablesaw. He said that he was cutting beadboard, and instead of lowering the blade - like he normally would have - he left it up. Luckily, they were able to take a piece of flesh from near his wrist and put it on as a new thumb tip, but that makes no difference on the lesson's learned just from a small act of carelessness.
On the case of powertools, while we might become comfortalbe with a tool and therefore "not afraid", we should never lose respect for their power! The same goes for electricity. Respect the fact that these things can, will and do kill, or, as I always tell people, "If you feel uncomfortable, ASK FOR HELP!".

"If you feel uncomfortable, it's not spinning fast enough!"

<Ever since Van's MEK discussion, I've had a disposition for the dark side.>

Seriously though, it's definitely a good point to make. Everyone should know their limits, and know when to stop. This actually brings to mind a discussion on the stagecraft listserve going on the last couple of days about a girl being hanged on stage. That's my understanding. Somehow something went wrong, and she didn't realize she had the authority to stop the dress rehearsal. Here is an excerpt:
This was all done with the utmost attention to safety, right up until
our final dress run. For some reason the swage on the cable got
caught on the frilly neckline of her dress, and she was too scared to
tell anyone because she didn't want to stop the run-through. When the
stagehands came to release her after the scene was over they saw that
she had already begun to bruise where her dress had tugged at her
neck during the several-minute scene.

Edit: Upon review, I don't think I made it clear enough. She didn't die. She wasn't fully hanged. All that happened was: "she had already begun to bruise where her dress had tugged at her
neck".
 
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That is actually worse than almost all the powertool stories I have heard.
 
That is actually worse than almost all the powertool stories I have heard.

Greenia, I just want to make sure you saw my edit. I think my original post was a little ambiguous. My understanding is she came out of it fine, save the bruising, but its all on the listserve anyways, so people may want to read for themselves, and not trust second hand information.
 
The company I work for during the summer has a saw stop and ther have only been 2 issues with it that the carps dont like. 1st is catching staples in wood. The yard they got wood from would staple tags onto the wood to mark on the end like most yards but would also do it in other places as well for some reason. One Thursday afternoon the ATD ran a peice with a staple in it through the saw and that tripped it. Luckly they had a spare but that got killed the next day so the carps had to use the back up saw while 2 new blades got shipped to use.

The other issue was that the guardwould get in the way if you didnt cut all the way through a board. IE just cutting a grove in a 2X4.

I can't offer my two cents becasue I just used it a few times when I was building footlight positions but it did seem very solid well built and it spun up fast.
 
Yea, it was a little vague, but I'd rather it be she came out fine. Still, scary stuff.
 
The company I work for during the summer has a saw stop and ther have only been 2 issues with it that the carps dont like. 1st is catching staples in wood. The yard they got wood from would staple tags onto the wood to mark on the end like most yards but would also do it in other places as well for some reason. One Thursday afternoon the ATD ran a peice with a staple in it through the saw and that tripped it. Luckly they had a spare but that got killed the next day so the carps had to use the back up saw while 2 new blades got shipped to use.
The other issue was that the guardwould get in the way if you didnt cut all the way through a board. IE just cutting a grove in a 2X4.
I can't offer my two cents becasue I just used it a few times when I was building footlight positions but it did seem very solid well built and it spun up fast.

I can see the problem with the stapled wood. Definitely have to be careful there. The blade guard is not a problem... anymore at least. Of course like any saw you can just take the blade guard off for groove or dado cuts. However sawstop has an alternate attachment that goes on to help stabilize the cut without the blade guard that's very slick. It sits slightly lower than the depth of the blade so it will clear any sort of groove. It's a knife that sits there to help keep wood going in the same straight path. Very cool. Maybe that wasn't an option when they got your saw. Also if it's a regular problem, like every other saw, the solution is to get one of those hanging blade guards. They attach to the back of the extension table on a long arm and the blade guard is suspended from above over the blade. That, combined with the knife attachment, would be very safe and never get in the way.

Not a sales guy... just a well informed customer.
 

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