Latest Shop Blunder

[Will Derness]

Hunkered down under shelter waiting for Hurricane Isaias to roll over us this evening.

Over the past several years about 95% of my canoe repair work has been putting on dynel skid plates using carbon powder infused epoxy. Black skid plates are the result.

This past week I was helping a friend restore a savagely used Wenonanh Prism and after putting on one black skid plate I directed my attention to a longish crack along the keel line. Placing an ellipse of S glass over the crack seemed like a good thing to do. I didn't intend to use carbon powder in the mix so I forgot I needed to cut off the black trace line off the ellipse. It is now visible under the clear epoxy.

I realized my mistake as I laid the cloth on the hull. I pondered pulling it off and taking scissors and trying to cut the offending black line off the wet fiberglass. Visions of the disaster that could result had me leave the fiberglass in place.

My friend does get the benefit of an easily identified Prism.

 

[alsg]

Oops. Stuff happens.

 

[Boatman53]

Looks like you just need to keep the boat in the water.
Jim

 

[ppine]

Or paint it at the 3 inch waterline.

 

[Will Derness]

My friend was understanding of the outcome and put a positive spin to the mishap. I offered to tape off the canoe and paint the ellipse black to match the skid plates. He responded to leave it as is, the repair could be the beginning of a conversation concerning the many repairs the canoe has undergone.

 

[Larry650]

Oh there is a shop blunder section here?
Well, well. No pictures but just some good advice. Not a good idea to lay down an angle grinder in the bottom of a Royalex canoe, while the angle grinder is still spinning. Don't ask how I know that, please.

 

[Gamma1214]

Somehow I think a "shop blunder" section has the potential to surpass Mem's Photo of the Day thread (no research but it HAS to be one of the longest threads on the site). That is, of course, assuming that we all want others to see behind the curtain...

 

[scoutergriz]

Larry650, oh I know very well why it's a bad idea and have the scars to prove it!

 

[LanceR]

Larry650, oh I know very well why it's a bad idea and have the scars to prove it!

Ditto. The scar on my thigh has faded over the intervening 18-20 years but I happened to notice it a week or so ago for the first time in years and it is still ragged and bright white in a smooth field of pale skin.....

Best regards,


Lance

 

[stripperguy]

Not from canoe building, but it was from an angle grinder...This is what happens when the Jeep frame you're cutting apart to lengthen it pinches the cut off wheel. The angle grinder kicked back rather rapidly, serving up a heck of an impact injury. Tore open my gut, but didn't even rip my flannel shirt!
And the timing couldn't have been worse, it was 6 days before a century ride (100 miles on a bicycle) that I was planning to ride with my biking buddies.
Yeah, I still rode the 100 miles.
Yeah, it was a bad idea...

 

[scoutergriz]

mine wasn't that bad, but it sure made life interesting for about a month, I had a cutoff disk explode and slice open three of my fingers on my left hand on the inside of the joints, did you know that part can't be stitched? and of course I'm left handed!
It sucks waiting for tissue to "granulate"

 

[Will Derness]

The evolution of this thread has me feeling better about my shop mishaps. So far I haven't had any blood involved in my mistakes.

That may be due to my preference to limit the use of power tools, but there are times when that is what you need use. When power tools are added to the project I try to always do power tool work first thing in the morning, when I'm fresh and alert and quit using the power tools BEFORE I am tired. Most projects have components that don't involve power tools and I'll switch to work on them in the afternoon. If the amount of power tool work is too much for a morning, I'll postpone was hasn't been done until the next day.

So far that approach has had me injury free in the shop.

 

[Cheeseandbeans]

I can relate. I find myself using hand tools more often than not these days. My mistakes happen much slower and I get more satisfaction from the end result. My wood stove runs primarily on blunders!

Bob

 

[lowangle al]

Grinders are the most dangerous tool in the shop. I had a stone grinding wheel blow up on me and break a finger a few years ago.

 

[scoutergriz]

wil derness; I've actually sustained worse injuries with hand tools! It's hard to hit your hand with a power planer, but I've chiseled it a few times when hitting a variation in the grain, and don't ask how many times I've hacked the tip off a finger using a miter box or vise, or hit my finger with a hammer.
with power tools you generally have noise to warn you of the risk, handtools not so much.

 

[Chip]

I try to be careful, but it is probably mostly luck I've avoided shop injuries--except for the grinder. Twice I've sliced hand hand or finger with a cutting wheel. Leather gloves may have helped, but did not prevent bloody injury.

As for shop blunders, by best blunder was rupturing a royalex OT Chipawan. It was badly oil-canned, and I reasoned I could get it hot and un-can it. I built a big insulated box, put the canoe on top, more insulation and some weighted buckets inside the hull, and started a slow cook. I was aiming to slowly heat to somewhere around 200 - 220 F degrees. I started out just shooting a heat gun into the box, but couldn't get past 190. I added some lightbulbs (the good old bulbs that made a lot of heat), and that was working--had the box up to 201. However, the heat was not evenly distributed, and the spot above a 200w lightbulb got a little too hot and began to rupture.




It seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

[dougd]

I did something similar with a heat gun on a Roylex hull. A bit too much in one spot! It wasn't pretty and required some patching. No grinder injuries here, I suppose if I owned one I'd have bragging rights to share!

Doug

 

[scoutergriz]

I did something similar with a heat gun on a Roylex hull. A bit too much in one spot! It wasn't pretty and required some patching. No grinder injuries here, I suppose if I owned one I'd have bragging rights to share!

Doug

yeah, I think injuries are inevitable if you own a grinder, they've got a ton of torque and can go snakey on you if you don't have a firm grip, plus those discs are pretty unforgiving on anything they touch. Add in flapper disks losing flaps, grit and sparks flying (wrecked more than 1 pair of prescription glasses), their proclivity to set rags, clothing, etc on fire, and the occasional disc grenading on you, and they're probably the most dangerous tool in the shop!

 

[Guest]

I was using a paper cutter yesterday to trim the pinked edges from a pack of Seattle Fabrics multi-color samples, and some small slivers of fabric eventually began to adhere to the blade. Repetitive trimming; 28 pieces of color-sample fabric, pinked edge trimmed straight on all four sides. Slachunk, slachunk, slachunk 112 times.

(An idiot classmate cut off half his thumb in grade school using a paper cutter and I was being very careful not to get my thumb anywhere near the working blade during the slachunk, slachunk, slachunk action)

I went to pull off one wee sliver shaving of fabric and instantly sliced the end of a finger. Whadda ya know, that’s 12” long freaking razor blade.

Stuck a bandaid on it, and thought I would carefully clean the blade of heat sealable residue with some alcohol. Carefully; using a piece of paper towel, folded 12 ply thick ought to work.

Carefully sliced through that paper towel and into the same finger, in almost the same spot, on the first gentle wipe.

This is all I have to say about that.

 

[scoutergriz]

I try to be careful, but it is probably mostly luck I've avoided shop injuries--except for the grinder. Twice I've sliced hand hand or finger with a cutting wheel. Leather gloves may have helped, but did not prevent bloody injury..

you're not supposed to wear gloves with a grinder if possible, there's a very high risk of the disc grapping that glove and pulling your hand in- I knew a guy the took off 2 fingers at the first joint when his hand got pulled in between the disc and the guard until the disc cut through his fingers, releasing the rest of his hand....