Whats the stupidest thing?

[Bill Barber]

You have ever done with a machine or tool.

last night I was boring a 30mm hole in a piece of mammoth Ivory,was epoxied to a wood fixture.

Somehow I got epoxy on the bed, I epoxyed (SP) the tailstock in place.

Took a BF hammer to get her loose.:angry:[Broken External Image]:

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Stupidest thing I ever did with a tool...



Was working on our family farm at the ripe old age of about 16. A rough-cut piece of wood on a stall/stantion was coming loose so I grabbed a hammer and a big, thick ring-shanked nail and went to secure it. Well, the wood was hard and the nail started to bend, and no amount of straightening could get it to drive the rest of the way without bending.



Since it was a ring-shanked nail it wasn't about to be easily pulled.



My bright idea? Get the bolt cutters and cut the bent nail off near the base and pound it in the rest of the way.



The only problem, the nail was on the board at about eye-level. You guessed the rest. The stress that a sheared piece of metal is under is pretty great when cut with bolt cutters (duh). When the nail being cut finally broke loose it SHOT like a bullet...straight at my head, which was only about 18" away.



Yeah, it was stupid, and I felt REALLY stupid when the flying nail hit me square in my right eye; the same eye I held my hand to for several minutes as it teared, and bleed.



Never told anyone about it for some time (really stupid). Years later when getting a eye checkup the opto said: "You have a lot of scar tissue near your retina...did you ever get your eye injured?"



Lucky. God protects drunks, fools and kids.



TJR

 

[Kevin Palmer]

Doing a wood project when I was younger I nailed it down onto our kitchen counter,,,



Mom was NOT impressed..



I am sure i have done worse, just need some time to think about it.. LOL

 

[swshawaii]

Used an electric drill to mix gel coat and MEK peroxide catalyst spraying boat molds.

Poured acetone into a container to clean the mixing paddle. Almost pulled the trigger.

STUPID :fire:

 

[Mark K 2]

Us two EMS assistant chiefs decided to repair an air horn on one of the ambulances one day. We had to make a 1/4" hole in a brass bracket into a 5/16" hole. I held the bracket while the other guy drilled. The bit grabbed and dug into the hole. It fed its way into the hole and straight into my knuckle. We both looked at the situation for a second. I laughed. He freaked. I told him, "Back it out VERY slowly. And make god damned sure it's in reverse."



After my finger was free, we looked in the wound and moved the skin around to see what the damage was. I could see a partially-severred tendon moving around as I bent my finger. That's when I looked up and said, "ER. Worker's comp."



The doc looked at my tendon and decided to leave it alone. The bit stopped just short of the joint capsule. In other words, no interior damage. He stitched up the skin, gave me a tetanus booster, and a week's worth the antibiotic.

 

[Shawn Rivest]

I was a welder/fitter apprentice back some 12 years ago - I was removing braces from a conveyor that I was welding on. I started by grinding down the tacks, then hitting the braces with a ball peen hammer. A few of the braces required an upwards hit - one of the braces broke free with very, very little force... so the momentum of the hammer combined with the trajectory placed the hit squarely in the center of my forehead. It wasn't enough to knock me out, but it did open up the skin quite handily.



It's a pretty interesting scar.... hahaha

 

[Thomas Rogers]

For those out there that are not "Mr Wizard", swshawaii's story is more amusing if you know what acetone peroxide is...

 

[Paul Gleason]

Another welding story. I think it was early 1994 and I was working at Tampa International when we were building the Airside A terminal. We were laying the underground fuel lines so we were working in a 15' ditch. In Florida the ground is so sandy that you have to have the walls of ditches braced so they don't collapse. We had metal wall bracing. To avoid having to walk to the end of the ditch all the time we would frequently weld rebar rungs to the wall to be able to climb out wherever we were working. Well, one afternoon i had just finished welding a few rungs to the wall and immediately removed my gloves and stated to climb up the wall. Guess what! That rebar was hot!! It left some real nice cross marked burns on the palm of my hand. My welding partner just looked at me and shook his head, Didn't say a word!! I looked at him and said "What a dumbass!!!":grin:

 

[Korey Kreiter]

#1: Was drilling a small hole on the trunk liner of a new '97 Eagle Talon to mount a subwoofer...when I pull out the drill, I hear a pppppppssssssssss. I drilled a hole through the sidewall of the spare! Of course it couldn't be repaired/patched. $50 mistake (only because my local Firestone dealer had one laying around). A new donut spare would have been $90.



#2. Was using as scratch awl to remove dried, old rubber spline while replacing a screen in a metal frame. I slipped and jammed the awl into my other hand -- right into the tendon between my thumb and pointer. It went in hard. My thumb and finger were numb for days. I still have a scar as well -- but I'm sure it's not nearly as large or noticeable as Shawns'.

 

[David Ponder]

Had a door that was sticking, so I tried to use a circular saw to "just trim it" a bit... While still on the door frame. Well, while holding the saw above my head I was trying to hold the door still with my foot, and the handle with one hand, saw in the other. Needless to say, the door wouldnt stay still, nor would my hand. There was no injury, but the cut looks like crap, and you cant really put that wood back on once its cut.. (Imagine that?)



I now have one half of a french door that has a deep gouge in the side of it, and on top of that, it STILL sticks. (A new back door is in my future)

 

[Ben Geller]

Was using a belt sander and wasn't paying attention to where my thumb was, looked at the belt and saw red all over it... Needless to say I now have a permanently flat sided thumb.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Bill Barber should feel smart with some of these stories. They make his example of a stupid thing sound down right genious in comparison.



Another story, also with bolt cutters.



My 10yo brother cut a plugged in extension cord with a pair of bolt cutters once. My dad was using the extension cord to run an electric jackhammer at the time, actively running the hammer when we heard a loud POP as the hammer came to rest. Looked over and my younger brother was still holding the smoking cutters over/on the cord and said: "I didn't think it would do that!"



Dad was jack hammering some concrete. The bolt cutters nearby to cut rebar.



TJR

 

[Tom Schindler]

I was drilling a set of rotors for my car. While cutting them, I broke a drill bit. Three metal splinters hit me in the face. I wasn't wearing safety glasses at the time. All three splinter hit directly around my eyeball, within 1/4" of the eye ball.



I replaced the bit, put on safety glasses and continued to work.



That was the last time I ever worked without safety glasses.





Tom

 

[Roger Batts]

I was working for my dad at his service station when I was in high school. It was their wedding anniversary, and we were getting ready to close so Mom and Dad could go out. Lady pulled up and asked me to check the oil and the water. I took a couple of rags and cracked, then closed the cap. I did that about four times. The last time I did it, either I turned it too far, or the tabs on the cap broke. I felt it give and started to run. I got sprayed with scalding hot, rusty water on my right shoulder and back. I was out for two weeks while my 2nd and 3rd degree scalds healed.

 

[Jimmy Lavoie]

In a recent move to my current house, I was at the end of many days of moving - tired and worn out. I had several large boxes of books (VERY HEAVY) on the ST's tailgate that I was about to load on to a hand truck.



Picture this... I have the ST in the back yard - backed near to double french doors - parked on the grass... the hand truck is also on the grass just behind the tail gate.



Because I was tired and worn out, I pretty much dragged the first box to the edge of the tail gate and dropped it on the hand truck - which in turn - (gotta love physics) violently plunged the bottom plate of the hand truck down into the soft grass - and shot the top of the hand truck towards my forehead - BAM!!! Square in the middle of my forehead.



... remember the cartoons - when someone gets hit in the head - they see birds? Well, there was a whole flock of them flying all around, diving, chirping and crapping all over me. Needless to say, I immediately dropped to my knees, yelled (in a stroke-like voice) at my wife to get me some ice ASAP. Of course, she immediately did - while laughing hysterically - she actually peed herself.



When the birds finally flew away, my eyes stopped rapidly fluttering left and right, and I realized that I wasn't dead, my wife changed her clothes, we BOTH had a good laugh at the dumb ass - ME.



Moral of this story - well - I used to have one but the part of my brain that holds that... was killed that tragic day!



Oh by the way, this icon -> :banghead: < - is me and the hand truck.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

Ok, I have two contributions..



We own a salvage yard, my brother came in from the yard for something and then headed back out a few minutes later. He came back inside and said,,, "ok,,, funny stuff, where is it?" The "it" he was referring to was a Terax Loader, and if you are not familiar with a Terax Loader, they are pretty big. 25 feet tall by 35 feet long is close to accurate.



After convincing him we did not move it, he went back to where he parked it and followed the tracks. Which,,,, lead strait to the nearby creek. Which,,, was in a 30 foot raveen...



After he realized he left it in reverse, he came back and said he had a little problem.



We ended up using another loader and pretty much cut a ramp down to the Terax, hooked a chain to it and pulled it out and replaced the soil we dug out to get to it..



The other is,

I was doing a brake job on a Ford LTD cop car, when I came to, there was a hub cap on the ground just spinning around. It seems,,, that a car driving by the shop lost its hub cap and it took off like a Frisbee. Flew into the garage not hitting anything on the way except my forehead. I was wearing safety glasses, not that it mattered. It crushed them into my scalp. Cost me about a pint of blood and 15 stitches and an eyebrow as they had to shave it off to do the stiches...

 

[Clay Campbell]

Not really a tool, but today we were putting an Austin Healey on our homemade rotisserie. I grabbed a set of work gloves off the floor to help remove the rear axle. I neglected to check inside of them and stuck my hand down in one. A small brown bat bit my index finger 4 times before I could get the glove back off. I always check, not sure why I didn't this time. So anyway, stomped the bat out, took him with me to the ER. He'll get test for rabies and I'll wait to hear whether or not I have to take all those shots.

 

[Kevin Palmer]

Clay,

I can't imagine how fast you tried to get that glove off.. LOL



Hope all the medical stuff comes through well for you.



While deployed, one of my mates slipped his foot into his boot and felt something, but it didn't bite him. However, he was scared to pull it off as he felt he had it trapped.



We ended up cutting the toe of the boot off and it was a Scorpion...



He looks at ANYTHING he puts on his feet now including flip-flops.. LOL

 

[H D]

I pushed my '69 Cougar out of the garage to work on my brakes (new everything), just as I had done many times. Even in the last several days I had done this. Except this time, it just kept rolling.



There isn't a steep hill and I never expected that to happen, but as soon as I realized gravity was at work I thought about jumping in for a second but realized that every braking mechanism and line was either missing or disassembled.



My next thought was to get in front of it and use all my strength to stop it. Mind you this isn't a steep hill and it isn't rolling fast. Well, I couldn't stop it (surprise!) and I stepped aside to watch it slooooowly roll down the hill and into a tree.



This was very shortly after I had all the bodywork finished and new paint. I didn't even go down to look at the damage for hours. I just let out an expletive, walked inside, slammed the door behind me and went to my room and lied down.



Here's the damage:



[Broken External Image]:



Ever try to find a non-rusted out bumper for a '69 Cougar? Luckily, my dad's convertible had a shiny chromed, brand new bumper that was meant to go on his. I didn't dare even ask, but since he wasn't going to get around to body work for a long time, he decided to let me have it.

 

[David Ponder]

Justjimmy.. You must have an understanding wife... Mine would have made me leave out the part about her peeing herself. (Or she would be doing this to me .. :smack