I had a chuck key, which I had my hand on. try and bite me........ 14 inch Clausing with the hydraulic speed control, well, I was new to machining and at home with my cute lathe.... thought I could just bump the chuck a quarter turn for some reason... well, that key came around with my meathooks on it and when it hit the way, the square drive on key broke off and the lathe kept on turning.....I was very lucky to have not broken my arm...... scarred the poo out of me for sure, and I learned a very valuable lesson... love all your videos John...... best wishes from Florida, Paul
I seen a chuck key swing and hit the way and break off the square. Lol... Now, I have seen handles on top of a Bridgeport get flung a ways after beating up the top of the machine. Lol Can you do a test with a tighter fitting chuck key? It should break or bend the key and depending on the ways it'll dent or polish them 😂😂😅 Side note: you guys are fawking awesome! Lol. This, IMO is by far the best video to date. This is classic machinist humor heckling the hecklers. LOVE IT!
I threw a chuck key in school. Machines were all at an angle so the chuck/headstock of mine was in line with the operator behind me. Who happened to be one of two cute girls in our engineering program. It hit the floor and slid right between her feet with enough speed that hitting her would have been bad but probably not terrible and then it hit the next machine behind her on the leg of the tailstock side. The look I got when I turned around was very memorable. I have never left a key in a lathe since. I still think about it every time I use one 15 years later. I was probably running around 600RPM would be my guess.
Almost exactly the way I saw it happen in tech school. Next guy along the row forgot to take it out, starts up the spindle, and it makes a big bang and goes skittering off across the floor around my ankles. Wakes you up, makes it clear why you ought be wearing steel toes, but not exactly the 8 windows story lol.
I just had a 'lathe throw' incident. I was using parallels as a spacer when tightening the chuck and guess who forget to take them out? Didn't take long for them to get thrown out and into the ground. No harm done but certainly made me take notice when one bounced off my shoulder. Thanks for sharing.
At Universal Electric, I had to worry about flying shurikens, spray metal walking past the exhaust fan, or a certain person leaving the 480 test clips on the floor covered with a rag. And then left the switch on. The whole shop was taken aback, when for the very first time I chewed someone out. But I tripped on the leads, and it sounded like an explosion.
Saw one launch further than these just a couple of weeks ago, from a little old 3 foot bed Craftsman lathe, with enough force to knock some teeth out. It has to do with acceleration speed and key mass and balance, as well as how tight it fits in the chuck.
It is seemingly the surprise that makes it more shocking to the senses. I wonder if some of the more extreme examples involved the chuck key pinching against other lathe parts and the spin up rate varies, as you showed.
The real dangerous situation is with a tighter fitting chuck key that is left in with the machine turned on-that does not initially come out…but spins up fast and shoots out upon the chuck completely accelerated.
The other thing is that inexperienced people are more likely to use a smaller lathe, which would spin up much faster, and launch the smaller chuck keys with a greater velocity. I will admit I have done that. No damage beyond my pride.
Hi John Made me laugh with the reality applied. Someone (you would know him)here years ago Left chuck wrench in 17” lathe and snapped off .575 square stub off factory chuck wrench. I don’t know what speed he was doing. Some of these lathes have a pretty fast start up like Regal LeBlond , Clausing Colchester. Good video DP
Never left a key. Actually, a parallel flew out into the wall insulation behind it. The outside metal siding had the imprint. If not for the insulation, I am sure it would have stuck in the in the siding.
Never had a problem like this, but i have had a fuckup with a rolling door motor and a spanner. Me and another guy were trouble shooting one of those doors that would go down immediately after going up. So we set to work. Try out, hit E-stop, fuck around, deactivate E-stop, try out - fail, hit e-stop, fuck around etc. This went on for about 45 minutes, and eventually we decided we couldn't fix it and we'd manually crank up the door with the manual operation point on the motor. Dude starts opening the door manually, and right when it hit full open, the motor started, and the spanner was instantly accelerated to 3000rpm with a scary wooshing sound. When the motor stopped and the brake actuated, the spanner shot across the shop with a bang. Turned out, after disabling and re-enabling the door succesfully about 15 times, the 16th time we forgot to hit the e-stop, and when the door hit the upper limit switch it decided to go down again. In short: things that are loosely attached to motor shafts can easily get flung far away with a lot of force. Perhaps not a lathe, but definitely other things that accelerate faster than a lathe.
So what are the rules of the chuck key throwing contest? Lathes okay, people okay, cannons? What about size of chuck key? Does it have to be found or just mark a target? =)
Not sure, first we need to get enough people that are interested in coming to Fox, Alaska for the event. 3 events tentatively, distance with lathe chuck key not over 3? pounds, not under 1? Free throw by hand, standardized chuck key weight of 1.5? pounds, then the gun powder/air/etc. cannon event , that would be depth of penetration into the hillside.
Chuck key should have a home. My friends outside of work at training age didn't understand the danger. But turning on power what direction does your body move. Straight into the line of fire. My guard was dropped after a previous night's celebration. Coffee helps.
Hear me Out Maschinist Training Story : Germany Year 2010 . Manual milling Maschine course. We had a Cast Iron square Key to Change Tools in the Manual milling Maschines ..the Attachment Point was at about Head height. Guy on the mill next To me Changes in a 3mm drill Sets the gearbox for max max rpm of 2500 and hits Spindle Forward. The 3 pound Key Starts Spinning and then Release into the the Office cabin of the teachers. Trough a Window into the Backwall nearly and i really mean nearly Kills our instructor. He was Kater fired for not looking after us and because of His booze Problem. Was His Last day in the Job and nearly the Last of His Life. Stay save .
HAHA, I support this video. I have to admit, I often wince when I see those comments on forums and such and think to myself, "Did it REALLY go through a brick wall though?..." 🤣😂
@@austinpaxman503 You close the guard over the chuck key (yes this works, i've seen it done). Now the key can't fly out and will jam somewhere on the bed of the machine. Now the idiot who put it there will try to pull it out with the machine still on. Bang, arm's gone!
@@reinermiteibidde1009sounds like that chuck guard needs the switch that keeps it from turning on if it isn’t down, that is if your trusting a guard and not the user. But yeah, trusting gimmicky safety measures is more dangerous than not having them and using your brain to me.
I don't think science will get in the way of internet experts. Personally I think the key should always be in the chuck. That way you get used to checking the chuck has clearance before you turn it on. Of course that is heresy, but I do what I like in my own shop.
I had a small clocksmith lathe, i left the key in and when i turned it on it hit me in the face.... i then could not find it as the key was somewhere on the floor.
That’s a very dangerous experiment! I’m going to need to take that lathe off of your hands so you guys don’t get hurt!😳🤣😬🔥🙌 Joking aside, thank you for this video! You all are awesome!
Your demonstration debunked one of my most cherished warning beliefs. I still don't want to get hit and will still follow the no chuck key left in the chuck best practices. I did get to see the effects of unsupported stock stickout of the back end of the lathe spindle. It bent 90 degrees and then broke off. No one got hurt, but it did some impressive damage when the brken piece flew through the shop. It seems to me that the unsupported stickout was about 24". Another similar unexpected accident of this type happened to my 2nd shift maintenance tech. He was prepping to rig a Blanchard grinder alone. He was jacking one end if the machine with a 2x6 yellow pine block on top of a jacking air pillow. The bottom edge of the machine casting was very narrow at that location. It cut the 2x6 in half accross grain and sent the sheared end of the 2x6 block to the 24' high roof decking ceiling. The 2x6 dented the steel decking. I arrived shortly after the event to continue the machine relocation task. He was still shaking and was very pale. This jacking technique was standard practice and had never previously seemed in the slightest way dangerous. Most machine base castings in our shop were inches wide and jacking forces only made an indentation in YP blocking. Weeks prior to my industrial employment a workpiece was thrown out of a lathe. The workpiece went through the CNC lathe enclosure landing 2 machines away. The machine enclosure had been patched, but the scar was pretty impressive. I gained some early respect of what a lathe can do. My new boss was involved in the lathe repair and he was a believer in the power of a lathe. He made me a believer. A frequent repair on our Burgmaster CNC milling machines (vintage mid 1980's) involved disassembling the ATC claws. Spring tesion held the claws closed. The coil springs were stacked with a smaller diameter spring inside a larger spring. The nominal 10" long springs were preloaded to about half their relaxed length and secured with a counter bored nut. The nut had about 3/4" of thread. To compress (preload) the springs a length of 1/4-20 all thread was threaded onto the back of the jaw via the drilled hole in the securing nut and the ID of the coil spring stack. The disassembly procedure to relax the spring preload was to "simultaneously" back a jam nut on the all thread while removing the retaining nut. I was frustrated by the tediousness of this process, so I backed the all thread jam nut to allow about .100" clearance and loosened the retaining nut. When the retaining nut fully unthreaded it couldn't have had any more than the .100" free travel, but it slammed into the jam nut with enough force to stretch the all thread nearly 1". It made a surprising amount of noise in my face. The all thread didn't break, but there was a lengthy section of stretched threads that were nearly broken. I have often wondered how far that nut could have flown if not retained? We do lots of things routinely in the shop that are on the verge of real danger. The actual accidents demonstrate how close to the safety margin normal practices can be. I am like most industrial experienced techs and I am pretty jaded by the safety nazis, but I have experienced enough life changing events personally and second hand to respect the risk of the stored enegy and power that we work with. I am disappointed that the lathe chuck key lethal threat is so exaggerated. Has anyone tested the knocking over a welding cylinder missle threat? One safety video we had to endure showed a tank missle crashing through an office wall and head strking the boss. The boss injury prompted a room full of employee chuckles and cheers.
I actually sent a chuck key flying forgetting to remove it, it didn't do any dmg, but it might hurt someone. I'd be more worried about if it didn't fly out and instead spun around and either broke off or broke the machine
Worse than 😮 this demonstration is the stacking of steel parts on a surface grinder's magnetic chuck and impinging them to the rotating grinding wheel; then when the grinding wheel has come up to speed throwing the lever to the magnetic chuck and watching the load fly off at high speed into the far wall.
Obviously photoshopped. Over 1,000,000 people are maimed or killed every year in Wyoming alone by chuck key accidents. My friend knows a guy whose wife's cousin lost an arm, or something. 8)
Short answer, no. Machinists use their brain as the most important safety equipment. Often one needs to do some finishing operation close to the chuck and the guard would make that even more dangerous than it already would be.
I was setting up a through head stop for some parts over the weekend and turned the lathe on to check the stop alignment and didn't realize the key was in the chuck and it came down and smacked my ways... 😥 So your scrapping that lathe because of a power control issue?
This Lathe has multiple problems, the control harness was smashed, then Freddy Flinstoned together. It also has some twisted shafts & broken gears, if we get more shop space it might become a welding fixture.
Just a beautiful place you got there... really don't mind the rough appearance of the yard but I like the location .. in rural area where you can focus on your work. Anyway, thanks for putting an end to all those comments about chuck key in chuck being extremely dangerous.
Dude...no, just no. There is no valid reason to keep it in the chuck. It is potentially very dangerous. At the very least, it could damage the ways. I think you lose some credibility with these types of claims.
The reasons I always heard were not necessarily throwing the chuck key, but it hanging on long enough to pinch or grab some clothing and drag you in, or with a long handled key smacking into the bed ways and flinging from there, (presumably getting a lot of energy from the flexing of the shaft, presumably with a big geared head lathe that would just keep turning right through the key and not stall out)
Always been more worried about drawbar spanner’s seen a few helicopters in the workshop although they never flew off. With our apprentices I always liked to instil some fear of the machines so they didn’t get cocky, probably why these stories are so common.
When I was starting out learning on a lathe, I had the misfortune of leaving the chuck key in the chuck, a couple of times. Given the size of the lathe compared to my stature, generally I set the key between 10:00 and 11:00. Most every time I made the blunder of leaving the key in the chuck, it would slam to the floor right about directly in front of the lathe. I did get hit once after the key ricocheted off of the ways. It hurt like hell but didn't do any lasting or serious damage. The worst experience I had in the machine shop was with an old style tig welder. They had a big (red) AC/DC welder, with a High Frequency box on top. This thing utilized a foot peddle with a huge rheostat that was about 16" in diameter with no shielding. The boss put me to tigging up some dipole shields for a navigational system that was the forerunner of GPS. About middle of the day, the repetitiveness of doing the same task got monotonous and I stopped paying attention long enough to lay my leg against that rheostat. Needless to say, I no longer wondered what that high Frequency box did to that welding current. I had been shocked a couple of times stick welding, but that tig rig was the worst shock I've ever had. That high Frequency current will make you taste your fillings in your teeth.
OK, Lets talk about something us junkers like . Your shop yard, I see a lot of cool stuff that could be interesting projects. A little look around would be nice. I'm in Georgia so not to worry about me slipping in after dark. All kidding aside, Your channel is the first one I look at every day. Thank You for having it. Educational and entertaining for me. Now I'm headed out to my shop. Have a healthy day.
The one lathe I wouldn't dare test is an older Haas TL1. It's a servo spindle, yet is a hybrid CNC/Manual lathe with no shields. It can ramp up to 2000 RPM from a dead stop in less than a second. But to be fair, I'm more worried about not clamping my part well enough. That is terrifying.
Thanks for posting this. It should also be pointed out that most of your really dramatic flings were with the key in the 3-4:00 position when in reality it would almost always be left in the 10-12:00 position.
I love the bullshit detecting! I wonder if people are telling second hand stories and confusing stock coming out of the chuck with the chuck key? I bet 10 lbs of something wound up to 2k under cut loads and then coming out of the chuck would be exciting
When I first started at a machine shop, we had a big lathe with a bent chuck key handle. I was told that the boss had done that many years ago. I was admonished to never leave the key in the chuck, yada, yada, yada. A year or two later, we got a new chuck for that machine. I got it all installed and dialed in. Finally, a straight chuck key. Within a week or two the boss was doing something on that lathe and next thing I knew I heard this bang and turned in time to see the chuck key fly up maybe 3 or 4 feet and land on the top of a tooling cabinet. The lathe was running really slow and there wasn't clearance for the key, so it hit the carriage and snapped off the square part neat as can be. Still didn't have much energy, but startled me and the boss. New key was junk so I had to pull out the old bent one and use it the rest of the years I worked there. This is why we can't have nice things.
I agree the lighter lathes are most dangerous for throwing. Never did it on the Clausing but my 9X20 Chinese lathe(with a lightweight key) launched over my left shoulder once and hit the sander or something on the opposite side of the 2-car garage. I do remembering knowing better and was surprised at the force. It hit the other side before I realized what it was. That lathe sits pretty high so I shutter to think what that would have done to my teeth. As far as just not standing in front of the chuck, I agree, however, if someone will neglect to remove the key, they will likely forget to not stand in front of the chuck. Accidents are seldom caused one mistake but by multiple mistakes coming together. I certainly wouldn’t call this busted or “a lie” if only from what I saw with a small hobby lathe. Again, best practice.
I had a chuck key fly out of the chuck and hit a guy named Brad, he went home and killed his family. Poor Brad's family, killed by a chuck key. Another time I had a chuck key come out and I never saw it land, I still look up in the air whenever I am outdoors. Save your embellished stories people, the chuck key in a chuck tales are getting as bad as the wire rope tales. It isn't the best practice to leave it in, but it sure as hell isn't anywhere as dangerous as some of the stuff people consider normal. Just be safe out there. "I once met a girl name Hope, she got cut in half by a wire rope" I dated a girl named Able, she swore the load was stable, just like a goose, she left a pin loose, and lost her head to a cable.
I once had a chuck jaw on a wood lathe come out at 1000rpm which made me jump out of my skin. It was an old double-ended lathe where you could turn on either the inboard side (over the ways for you metal folk) or on the outboard side and I would leave a chuck on the outboard side, I think because it was threaded onto the outboard side it was spinning technically in reverse to how it would conventionally and it unwound the scroll over time to the point where the jaw was ejected. I've always been a chuck key skeptic. Even if the chuck key was ejected from a lathe with a 12" chuck that could instantaneously start at 3000rpm, it would be travelling at around 100mph which is not dissimilar to what a top-level professional baseball pitcher could throw. At a more realistic 1000rpm with the same lathe it would only throw it at around 35mph which a child could achieve by throwing it. There's a reason you never see any real examples or health and safety case studies of this thing happening, because it doesn't happen and people make up long tales.
You were looking for the correct term for throwing keys .. it's obviously called CHUCKING keys ! And hello from a fellow shop and mill in the upper peninsula. Michelle
I’ll add that I was hit in the jaw and chest in high school machine shop class. We had smaller lathes with 6” or 8” chucks. A lighter chuck will spin up quicker. That’s why drag racers use titanium rims instead of steel. Also the lathes were angled approx 15 degrees which aligned the next lathes operator with their chuck! Also 5 foot spacing. I can also see a lighter/smaller key that fits well as being thrown the furthest.
Realistically a chuck key ejected from a spinning chuck is not going to have enough energy to really hurt someone, the actual dangers are damage to the lathe's ways and clothes/body parts getting caught. It's good practice to remove the chuck key, especially if there's people walking around or you're stepping away from the lathe. Any lathe big enough to grab you and pull you in should just have a safety cover over the chuck, which stops you from inserting the key while it's down and stops the lathe from turing on while it's up
back when i was new too machining (still am by many people standards :p) i accidentally left the chuck key in the CNC lathe and it flew out of the chuck and hit the enclosed door, it would've hit me if i didnt have the doors closed
3:17 this is why being anal about safety shit is important. At this point he was about to put himself in an incredibly dangerous position with no control of the machine and what it's going to do. Don't get me wrong, I am responsible for my own safety and you your's, but a few guidelines and procedures make it so when you inevitable do something dumb the consequences are likely to be minor.
There's a lot of liar/narcissists out there exaggerating their stories apparently. It's nice you have some free time to have a little fun up there in Fairbanks. If I get up to Alaska again, I would love to stop in and see your operation.
this gave me the biggest chuckle. i dont wanna be on the receiving end of any of those chuck keys though. good advise not standing in the line of fire for sure. lol
I did work with a guy that had his finger tip pinched off by a chuck key in 1978. He was tightening the chuck when the compressed air hose fell down and hit the start lever. His finger got pinched between the chuck key and ways.
I was just about to comment that I would expect the risk of a crush injury to be far higher, especially if the key was a snug fit, and you seem to have provided the only real injury evidence so far. (Though to be fair, I haven't read all of the comments.) I guess that may be an argument for leaving the gap out of the bed if so equipped? 😂
Yeah, I saw his finger tip was missing and asked what happened. The shop owner at another place I worked, his fingertip was also missing. They say he was removing burrs from a thread and wasn't running the lathe in reverse. It threaded his finger tip in and twisted it off.
Hello for Scotland, When I was an apprentice one of the worst crimes that you could commit was leaving your chuck key in. You soon got used to putting it in your pocket every time you left the lathe or one of your workmates would put it in for you and wait until you were at the other side of the shop before shouting as loud as they could, "Jon, you've left your chuck key in!" The apprentice school foreman must have had high blood pressure, can you imagine being in charge of forty sixteen to nineteen year old boys and as many dangerous machines? I recently bought some lathe chucks, one is a Cushman chuck and has got me scratching my head. I have put it on TH-cam, 'Unusual lathe chuck'. I would very much appreciate it if you could have a look at it and throw a bit of light. Thank you, Jon
Yes, I am familiar with them. The first ones I know of in the US were made by Buck Chuck Company 1940s-50s?. I used one at my first industrial machinist job, they became popular for a short time in the later 70's to the early 90's, as CNC made them less expensive to build. You could set a eccentric condition, then repeat it quickly, they didn't stay put well though & needed tweaking often.
I once had a chuck key fly out, break my truck window, drive home, and sleep with my wife. Be careful with those chuck keys folks.
😂😂😂😂
I had a chuck key, which I had my hand on. try and bite me........
14 inch Clausing with the hydraulic speed control,
well, I was new to machining and at home with my cute lathe....
thought I could just bump the chuck a quarter turn for some reason...
well, that key came around with my meathooks on it and when it
hit the way, the square drive on key broke off and the lathe kept on
turning.....I was very lucky to have not broken my arm......
scarred the poo out of me for sure, and I learned a very valuable lesson...
love all your videos John......
best wishes from Florida,
Paul
I'm just shocked you guys didn't kill everyone in town with that reckless display of tool use
I seen a chuck key swing and hit the way and break off the square. Lol...
Now, I have seen handles on top of a Bridgeport get flung a ways after beating up the top of the machine. Lol
Can you do a test with a tighter fitting chuck key? It should break or bend the key and depending on the ways it'll dent or polish them 😂😂😅
Side note: you guys are fawking awesome! Lol. This, IMO is by far the best video to date. This is classic machinist humor heckling the hecklers. LOVE IT!
I threw a chuck key in school. Machines were all at an angle so the chuck/headstock of mine was in line with the operator behind me. Who happened to be one of two cute girls in our engineering program. It hit the floor and slid right between her feet with enough speed that hitting her would have been bad but probably not terrible and then it hit the next machine behind her on the leg of the tailstock side. The look I got when I turned around was very memorable. I have never left a key in a lathe since. I still think about it every time I use one 15 years later. I was probably running around 600RPM would be my guess.
Almost exactly the way I saw it happen in tech school. Next guy along the row forgot to take it out, starts up the spindle, and it makes a big bang and goes skittering off across the floor around my ankles. Wakes you up, makes it clear why you ought be wearing steel toes, but not exactly the 8 windows story lol.
One thing you haven’t taken into consideration is the magnetic affect up there in Alaska in the lower 48 I bet that key would go a lot farther 😊😊
I just had a 'lathe throw' incident. I was using parallels as a spacer when tightening the chuck and guess who forget to take them out? Didn't take long for them to get thrown out and into the ground. No harm done but certainly made me take notice when one bounced off my shoulder. Thanks for sharing.
Real informative, but it was whimsical and fun. I really like listening to you guys.😂
At Universal Electric, I had to worry about flying shurikens, spray metal walking past the exhaust fan, or a certain person leaving the 480 test clips on the floor covered with a rag. And then left the switch on. The whole shop was taken aback, when for the very first time I chewed someone out. But I tripped on the leads, and it sounded like an explosion.
Saw one launch further than these just a couple of weeks ago, from a little old 3 foot bed Craftsman lathe, with enough force to knock some teeth out.
It has to do with acceleration speed and key mass and balance, as well as how tight it fits in the chuck.
Great video! And thanks for sharing that “story” that guy told about key going through 10 windows then through the computer screen! LMAO!!! 😂😅😂
Yes, the biggest lie of that story is the chuck key would have stayed on a straight line. Especially after hitting 10 different objects.
@@brian_2040
Yes! Almost like the “Magic Bullet Theory” 😎
It is seemingly the surprise that makes it more shocking to the senses. I wonder if some of the more extreme examples involved the chuck key pinching against other lathe parts and the spin up rate varies, as you showed.
The real dangerous situation is with a tighter fitting chuck key that is left in with the machine turned on-that does not initially come out…but spins up fast and shoots out upon the chuck completely accelerated.
The other thing is that inexperienced people are more likely to use a smaller lathe, which would spin up much faster, and launch the smaller chuck keys with a greater velocity. I will admit I have done that. No damage beyond my pride.
As long as you a safe system in place and people fallow it is probably more important than details.
Hi John
Made me laugh with the reality applied.
Someone (you would know him)here years ago
Left chuck wrench in 17” lathe and snapped off .575 square stub off factory chuck wrench. I don’t know what speed he was doing.
Some of these lathes have a pretty fast start up like Regal LeBlond , Clausing Colchester.
Good video DP
Never left a key. Actually, a parallel flew out into the wall insulation behind it. The outside metal siding had the imprint. If not for the insulation, I am sure it would have stuck in the in the siding.
Never had a problem like this, but i have had a fuckup with a rolling door motor and a spanner. Me and another guy were trouble shooting one of those doors that would go down immediately after going up. So we set to work. Try out, hit E-stop, fuck around, deactivate E-stop, try out - fail, hit e-stop, fuck around etc.
This went on for about 45 minutes, and eventually we decided we couldn't fix it and we'd manually crank up the door with the manual operation point on the motor. Dude starts opening the door manually, and right when it hit full open, the motor started, and the spanner was instantly accelerated to 3000rpm with a scary wooshing sound. When the motor stopped and the brake actuated, the spanner shot across the shop with a bang. Turned out, after disabling and re-enabling the door succesfully about 15 times, the 16th time we forgot to hit the e-stop, and when the door hit the upper limit switch it decided to go down again.
In short: things that are loosely attached to motor shafts can easily get flung far away with a lot of force. Perhaps not a lathe, but definitely other things that accelerate faster than a lathe.
So what are the rules of the chuck key throwing contest? Lathes okay, people okay, cannons? What about size of chuck key? Does it have to be found or just mark a target? =)
Not sure, first we need to get enough people that are interested in coming to Fox, Alaska for the event. 3 events tentatively, distance with lathe chuck key not over 3? pounds, not under 1? Free throw by hand, standardized chuck key weight of 1.5? pounds, then the gun powder/air/etc. cannon event , that would be depth of penetration into the hillside.
Chuck key should have a home. My friends outside of work at training age didn't understand the danger. But turning on power what direction does your body move. Straight into the line of fire. My guard was dropped after a previous night's celebration. Coffee helps.
Hear me Out Maschinist Training Story :
Germany Year 2010 .
Manual milling Maschine course. We had a Cast Iron square Key to Change Tools in the Manual milling Maschines ..the Attachment Point was at about Head height. Guy on the mill next To me Changes in a 3mm drill Sets the gearbox for max max rpm of 2500 and hits Spindle Forward.
The 3 pound Key Starts Spinning and then Release into the the Office cabin of the teachers. Trough a Window into the Backwall nearly and i really mean nearly Kills our instructor. He was Kater fired for not looking after us and because of His booze Problem. Was His Last day in the Job and nearly the Last of His Life.
Stay save .
HAHA, I support this video. I have to admit, I often wince when I see those comments on forums and such and think to myself, "Did it REALLY go through a brick wall though?..." 🤣😂
Honestly, those dumb mandatory chuck guards seem to make it more dangerous.
How so?
How? Literally how????
@@austinpaxman503 You close the guard over the chuck key (yes this works, i've seen it done). Now the key can't fly out and will jam somewhere on the bed of the machine. Now the idiot who put it there will try to pull it out with the machine still on. Bang, arm's gone!
@@Tunkkisfalse sense of security perhaps?
@@reinermiteibidde1009sounds like that chuck guard needs the switch that keeps it from turning on if it isn’t down, that is if your trusting a guard and not the user. But yeah, trusting gimmicky safety measures is more dangerous than not having them and using your brain to me.
I don't think science will get in the way of internet experts. Personally I think the key should always be in the chuck. That way you get used to checking the chuck has clearance before you turn it on. Of course that is heresy, but I do what I like in my own shop.
Lot of the finned tubing we used to do required to work real close to the chuck, the chuck key smashing me in the face was the biggest danger.
Many gear lathes allow you to slip a lever into neutral when using the chuck key. Do it
I had a small clocksmith lathe, i left the key in and when i turned it on it hit me in the face.... i then could not find it as the key was somewhere on the floor.
That’s a very dangerous experiment! I’m going to need to take that lathe off of your hands so you guys don’t get hurt!😳🤣😬🔥🙌 Joking aside, thank you for this video! You all are awesome!
Your demonstration debunked one of my most cherished warning beliefs. I still don't want to get hit and will still follow the no chuck key left in the chuck best practices.
I did get to see the effects of unsupported stock stickout of the back end of the lathe spindle. It bent 90 degrees and then broke off. No one got hurt, but it did some impressive damage when the brken piece flew through the shop. It seems to me that the unsupported stickout was about 24".
Another similar unexpected accident of this type happened to my 2nd shift maintenance tech. He was prepping to rig a Blanchard grinder alone. He was jacking one end if the machine with a 2x6 yellow pine block on top of a jacking air pillow. The bottom edge of the machine casting was very narrow at that location. It cut the 2x6 in half accross grain and sent the sheared end of the 2x6 block to the 24' high roof decking ceiling. The 2x6 dented the steel decking. I arrived shortly after the event to continue the machine relocation task. He was still shaking and was very pale. This jacking technique was standard practice and had never previously seemed in the slightest way dangerous. Most machine base castings in our shop were inches wide and jacking forces only made an indentation in YP blocking.
Weeks prior to my industrial employment a workpiece was thrown out of a lathe. The workpiece went through the CNC lathe enclosure landing 2 machines away. The machine enclosure had been patched, but the scar was pretty impressive. I gained some early respect of what a lathe can do. My new boss was involved in the lathe repair and he was a believer in the power of a lathe. He made me a believer.
A frequent repair on our Burgmaster CNC milling machines (vintage mid 1980's) involved disassembling the ATC claws. Spring tesion held the claws closed. The coil springs were stacked with a smaller diameter spring inside a larger spring. The nominal 10" long springs were preloaded to about half their relaxed length and secured with a counter bored nut. The nut had about 3/4" of thread. To compress (preload) the springs a length of 1/4-20 all thread was threaded onto the back of the jaw via the drilled hole in the securing nut and the ID of the coil spring stack. The disassembly procedure to relax the spring preload was to "simultaneously" back a jam nut on the all thread while removing the retaining nut. I was frustrated by the tediousness of this process, so I backed the all thread jam nut to allow about .100" clearance and loosened the retaining nut. When the retaining nut fully unthreaded it couldn't have had any more than the .100" free travel, but it slammed into the jam nut with enough force to stretch the all thread nearly 1". It made a surprising amount of noise in my face. The all thread didn't break, but there was a lengthy section of stretched threads that were nearly broken. I have often wondered how far that nut could have flown if not retained?
We do lots of things routinely in the shop that are on the verge of real danger. The actual accidents demonstrate how close to the safety margin normal practices can be. I am like most industrial experienced techs and I am pretty jaded by the safety nazis, but I have experienced enough life changing events personally and second hand to respect the risk of the stored enegy and power that we work with.
I am disappointed that the lathe chuck key lethal threat is so exaggerated. Has anyone tested the knocking over a welding cylinder missle threat? One safety video we had to endure showed a tank missle crashing through an office wall and head strking the boss. The boss injury prompted a room full of employee chuckles and cheers.
I believe the Full oxygen stories to some extent, I took a valve off a 100# propane tank, and was much impressed.
This video was sponsored by the school of hard knocks and chuck u.😂 Great video as always.
I love this channel
It’s not just that it can also get your arm when you’re near the Chuck it’s just unsafe. I can’t believe you’re trying to justify it.
I'm calling the safety police right now.
Very interesting !
I actually sent a chuck key flying forgetting to remove it, it didn't do any dmg, but it might hurt someone. I'd be more worried about if it didn't fly out and instead spun around and either broke off or broke the machine
Shop science is awesome!
I had one once flew that far it left the earths orbit and hit apollo 13s oxygen filter and nearly killed them all
Worse than 😮 this demonstration is the stacking of steel parts on a surface grinder's magnetic chuck and impinging them to the rotating grinding wheel; then when the grinding wheel has come up to speed throwing the lever to the magnetic chuck and watching the load fly off at high speed into the far wall.
Obviously photoshopped. Over 1,000,000 people are maimed or killed every year in Wyoming alone by chuck key accidents. My friend knows a guy whose wife's cousin lost an arm, or something. 8)
Appreciate the psa, taken a couple chuck keys to the nether regions, its certainly way scarier than it is painful but it certainly doesn't feel good 😂
I would like to buy the lathe where is it and how much? 73 dan
Thanks science!
Saving this video for the trolls, thank you🗜️ 🙏
He'll,we should be using lathes and Chuck keys instead of rifles and bullets
How do I tag OSHA
Always keep the chuck in the jaws of the machines never had an issue
Does no company ever use a shield for the chuck? Is it only my school?
Short answer, no. Machinists use their brain as the most important safety equipment. Often one needs to do some finishing operation close to the chuck and the guard would make that even more dangerous than it already would be.
Good reply. No way around unless you have a home for the chuck guard.😮
I was setting up a through head stop for some parts over the weekend and turned the lathe on to check the stop alignment and didn't realize the key was in the chuck and it came down and smacked my ways... 😥 So your scrapping that lathe because of a power control issue?
This Lathe has multiple problems, the control harness was smashed, then Freddy Flinstoned together. It also has some twisted shafts & broken gears, if we get more shop space it might become a welding fixture.
That lathe isin't really spinning up fast enough.
Maybe smoking cigarettes is not so bad for your health after all. LOL --- Great video.
Just a beautiful place you got there... really don't mind the rough appearance of the yard but I like the location .. in rural area where you can focus on your work. Anyway, thanks for putting an end to all those comments about chuck key in chuck being extremely dangerous.
they don't teach that because it will defiantly injure or kill you, it is because it might... or could...
Common sense IS NOT COMMON. New aged terminology: (good sense)
How has nobody from pumpkin chunking cannibalized a lathe yet lol
They would want to "Chunk" the whole lathe.
Clearly, your chuck is too big, or too small to achieve the death launch.
23:05
Russian lathe video
Dude...no, just no. There is no valid reason to keep it in the chuck. It is potentially very dangerous. At the very least, it could damage the ways.
I think you lose some credibility with these types of claims.
I heard some stories of the chuck not being tight enough and throwing it 20 ft in the air. Try that test.😂
can i have the lathe? i promise to take care
of the old girl!
The reasons I always heard were not necessarily throwing the chuck key, but it hanging on long enough to pinch or grab some clothing and drag you in, or with a long handled key smacking into the bed ways and flinging from there, (presumably getting a lot of energy from the flexing of the shaft, presumably with a big geared head lathe that would just keep turning right through the key and not stall out)
I have seen some one panic and grab it. They got some sad fingers
Chuck keys rarely clear the ways.
Always been more worried about drawbar spanner’s seen a few helicopters in the workshop although they never flew off.
With our apprentices I always liked to instil some fear of the machines so they didn’t get cocky, probably why these stories are so common.
When I was starting out learning on a lathe, I had the misfortune of leaving the chuck key in the chuck, a couple of times. Given the size of the lathe compared to my stature, generally I set the key between 10:00 and 11:00. Most every time I made the blunder of leaving the key in the chuck, it would slam to the floor right about directly in front of the lathe.
I did get hit once after the key ricocheted off of the ways. It hurt like hell but didn't do any lasting or serious damage.
The worst experience I had in the machine shop was with an old style tig welder. They had a big (red) AC/DC welder, with a High Frequency box on top. This thing utilized a foot peddle with a huge rheostat that was about 16" in diameter with no shielding.
The boss put me to tigging up some dipole shields for a navigational system that was the forerunner of GPS. About middle of the day, the repetitiveness of doing the same task got monotonous and I stopped paying attention long enough to lay my leg against that rheostat. Needless to say, I no longer wondered what that high Frequency box did to that welding current. I had been shocked a couple of times stick welding, but that tig rig was the worst shock I've ever had. That high Frequency current will make you taste your fillings in your teeth.
OK, Lets talk about something us junkers like . Your shop yard, I see a lot of cool stuff that could be interesting projects. A little look around would be nice. I'm in Georgia so not to worry about me slipping in after dark. All kidding aside, Your channel is the first one I look at every day. Thank You for having it. Educational and entertaining for me. Now I'm headed out to my shop. Have a healthy day.
im in holly springs how bout you
Yard Tour Playlist: th-cam.com/video/nYKCK2BMTuw/w-d-xo.html
@@HOWEES Well, I asked for it and I'm not disappointed, thank you for the interesting tour.
Sarcasm is strong in this video!😅
I always remove the key. But incase I forget.
Your video shows a thrown key is not harmless but not very dangerous.
Thanks for the effort !
We may have a new weapon for the US Army
I am thinking these tall tales are from an instructor trying to scare a student......
hearsay......
The one lathe I wouldn't dare test is an older Haas TL1. It's a servo spindle, yet is a hybrid CNC/Manual lathe with no shields. It can ramp up to 2000 RPM from a dead stop in less than a second.
But to be fair, I'm more worried about not clamping my part well enough. That is terrifying.
Howee’s arm is better than mike Tyson’s
Thanks for posting this. It should also be pointed out that most of your really dramatic flings were with the key in the 3-4:00 position when in reality it would almost always be left in the 10-12:00 position.
The new Mythbusters....
Walking the talk
I love the bullshit detecting! I wonder if people are telling second hand stories and confusing stock coming out of the chuck with the chuck key? I bet 10 lbs of something wound up to 2k under cut loads and then coming out of the chuck would be exciting
Thank you from all of us who have heard tall tales knowing its not true!
When I first started at a machine shop, we had a big lathe with a bent chuck key handle. I was told that the boss had done that many years ago. I was admonished to never leave the key in the chuck, yada, yada, yada. A year or two later, we got a new chuck for that machine. I got it all installed and dialed in. Finally, a straight chuck key. Within a week or two the boss was doing something on that lathe and next thing I knew I heard this bang and turned in time to see the chuck key fly up maybe 3 or 4 feet and land on the top of a tooling cabinet. The lathe was running really slow and there wasn't clearance for the key, so it hit the carriage and snapped off the square part neat as can be. Still didn't have much energy, but startled me and the boss. New key was junk so I had to pull out the old bent one and use it the rest of the years I worked there. This is why we can't have nice things.
I agree the lighter lathes are most dangerous for throwing. Never did it on the Clausing but my 9X20 Chinese lathe(with a lightweight key) launched over my left shoulder once and hit the sander or something on the opposite side of the 2-car garage. I do remembering knowing better and was surprised at the force. It hit the other side before I realized what it was. That lathe sits pretty high so I shutter to think what that would have done to my teeth.
As far as just not standing in front of the chuck, I agree, however, if someone will neglect to remove the key, they will likely forget to not stand in front of the chuck. Accidents are seldom caused one mistake but by multiple mistakes coming together.
I certainly wouldn’t call this busted or “a lie” if only from what I saw with a small hobby lathe. Again, best practice.
Tended to agree with you about raising a bur and potentially dulling a file by back dragging it but this one is a strange hill to die on.
Do a wrench on the drawbar of a bridgport if you can. Or maybe small parts launched while using a big belt sander lol. Great video btw
Hitting the tape so it breaks is as good of a measure as you can get.
I had a chuck key fly out of the chuck and hit a guy named Brad, he went home and killed his family. Poor Brad's family, killed by a chuck key. Another time I had a chuck key come out and I never saw it land, I still look up in the air whenever I am outdoors.
Save your embellished stories people, the chuck key in a chuck tales are getting as bad as the wire rope tales. It isn't the best practice to leave it in, but it sure as hell isn't anywhere as dangerous as some of the stuff people consider normal. Just be safe out there.
"I once met a girl name Hope, she got cut in half by a wire rope"
I dated a girl named Able,
she swore the load was stable,
just like a goose,
she left a pin loose,
and lost her head to a cable.
I found your chuck key. It landed in Reno. It banged up. And smells funny.
I once had a chuck jaw on a wood lathe come out at 1000rpm which made me jump out of my skin. It was an old double-ended lathe where you could turn on either the inboard side (over the ways for you metal folk) or on the outboard side and I would leave a chuck on the outboard side, I think because it was threaded onto the outboard side it was spinning technically in reverse to how it would conventionally and it unwound the scroll over time to the point where the jaw was ejected.
I've always been a chuck key skeptic. Even if the chuck key was ejected from a lathe with a 12" chuck that could instantaneously start at 3000rpm, it would be travelling at around 100mph which is not dissimilar to what a top-level professional baseball pitcher could throw. At a more realistic 1000rpm with the same lathe it would only throw it at around 35mph which a child could achieve by throwing it. There's a reason you never see any real examples or health and safety case studies of this thing happening, because it doesn't happen and people make up long tales.
You were looking for the correct term for throwing keys .. it's obviously called CHUCKING keys !
And hello from a fellow shop and mill in the upper peninsula.
Michelle
I’ll add that I was hit in the jaw and chest in high school machine shop class. We had smaller lathes with 6” or 8” chucks. A lighter chuck will spin up quicker. That’s why drag racers use titanium rims instead of steel.
Also the lathes were angled approx 15 degrees which aligned the next lathes operator with their chuck! Also 5 foot spacing.
I can also see a lighter/smaller key that fits well as being thrown the furthest.
I think this could become a paper in Shop Safety Monthly!
Realistically a chuck key ejected from a spinning chuck is not going to have enough energy to really hurt someone, the actual dangers are damage to the lathe's ways and clothes/body parts getting caught. It's good practice to remove the chuck key, especially if there's people walking around or you're stepping away from the lathe. Any lathe big enough to grab you and pull you in should just have a safety cover over the chuck, which stops you from inserting the key while it's down and stops the lathe from turing on while it's up
back when i was new too machining (still am by many people standards :p) i accidentally left the chuck key in the CNC lathe and it flew out of the chuck and hit the enclosed door, it would've hit me if i didnt have the doors closed
3:17 this is why being anal about safety shit is important. At this point he was about to put himself in an incredibly dangerous position with no control of the machine and what it's going to do.
Don't get me wrong, I am responsible for my own safety and you your's, but a few guidelines and procedures make it so when you inevitable do something dumb the consequences are likely to be minor.
There's a lot of liar/narcissists out there exaggerating their stories apparently.
It's nice you have some free time to have a little fun up there in Fairbanks.
If I get up to Alaska again, I would love to stop in and see your operation.
this gave me the biggest chuckle. i dont wanna be on the receiving end of any of those chuck keys though. good advise not standing in the line of fire for sure. lol
I always knew these stories were exaggerated BS
Shout out to these guys for taking time away from making money to show the liars they need to catch up.
Yeeting. Yeeting the chuck key for science . I’m 42.
get hip o’le man ;)
When machinists aren't given enough work at work.
Strange things done under the midnight sun by the men who shape the steel. Testing this and that to obtain the facts to see what is lies from real.
Are you saying that common sense is an actual factor while using tools that can kill or maim? Huh
I did work with a guy that had his finger tip pinched off by a chuck key in 1978. He was tightening the chuck when the compressed air hose fell down and hit the start lever. His finger got pinched between the chuck key and ways.
I was just about to comment that I would expect the risk of a crush injury to be far higher, especially if the key was a snug fit, and you seem to have provided the only real injury evidence so far. (Though to be fair, I haven't read all of the comments.)
I guess that may be an argument for leaving the gap out of the bed if so equipped? 😂
Yeah, I saw his finger tip was missing and asked what happened. The shop owner at another place I worked, his fingertip was also missing. They say he was removing burrs from a thread and wasn't running the lathe in reverse. It threaded his finger tip in and twisted it off.
Hello for Scotland,
When I was an apprentice one of the worst crimes that you could commit was leaving your chuck key in. You soon got used to putting it in your pocket every time you left the lathe or one of your workmates would put it in for you and wait until you were at the other side of the shop before shouting as loud as they could, "Jon, you've left your chuck key in!" The apprentice school foreman must have had high blood pressure, can you imagine being in charge of forty sixteen to nineteen year old boys and as many dangerous machines?
I recently bought some lathe chucks, one is a Cushman chuck and has got me scratching my head. I have put it on TH-cam, 'Unusual lathe chuck'. I would very much appreciate it if you could have a look at it and throw a bit of light.
Thank you, Jon
Yes, I am familiar with them. The first ones I know of in the US were made by Buck Chuck Company 1940s-50s?. I used one at my first industrial machinist job, they became popular for a short time in the later 70's to the early 90's, as CNC made them less expensive to build. You could set a eccentric condition, then repeat it quickly, they didn't stay put well though & needed tweaking often.
Once I seen a chuck key knock a Russian satellite out of orbit.
\Love it!
I learned it to keep the lathe in well working order...
Haha love this! Excellent idea that I can’t believe no one’s ever thought of