# Wire wheel woes



## medicman619 (Jul 1, 2011)

Maybe it's me, but my wire wheel and I are not getting along. My forearms have so many bloody wheel marks on them, it's embarrassing. And then it happened.....While the drill was locked in the "on" position, the wheel grabbed my t-shirt a proceeded to wrap its self over and over until the drill was at my chin. Luckly it jammed the motor to a halt as I frantically had to unplug the stupid thing cause I could'nt get to the trigger anymore. 

Am I the only one? Post your story and make me laugh!


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## Jim (Jul 1, 2011)

I'm not allowed to touch any tools in my house or any friends houses. :lol:


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## Deadmeat (Jul 2, 2011)

My idea of a precision tool is a sledgehammer and an anvil. Anything more complicated than that and I have to call somebody. It's the same with anything electrical. Ground to me is where my wife plants her tulips every year, polarity is where Santa Claus lives, a terminal is where I catch the plane, and a fuse is what I blow when I screw something up. 

For some reason I have yet to figure out, something always goes wrong when I'm out of town, and the worst things happen when I'm out of the country. I was in Thailand a few years and we had just bought a new house before I left. My wife called and said that the old clothes dryer we had had a 2-prong plug and the new house was wired for a 3-prong plug. My brother said that all I had to do was go to Home Depot and buy a new wire with a 3-prong plug on it, put it on the clothes dryer, and I'd be ready to go. I should have guessed it wasn't quite that easy.

Anyway, I bought the new plug, brought it home, and tried to match it to the outlet to see if I had the right one. The prongs on the plug were at different angles, and for some reason they just didn't seem to have the same angulation as the receptacle. Figuring that since the wire wasn't hooked up to anything there wasn't much that could go wrong (yeah, right), I'd just go ahead and plug it into the receptacle and see if it was the right one.

The problem was I hadn't thought about all those little wires with connectors that came out the opposite end of the cord--and were in contact with the dryer. Well, I crawled in behind the dryer and plugged 'er in. No sooner had the plug entered the receptacle than there was an explosion that sounded like someone had just touched off a .45. A ball of flame came out where the wires touched the dryer and melted a hole in the nylon parachute pants I was wearing (real near the twins, I might add). My wife let out a scream that could have been heard a mile away, and I bashed my head on the louvered doors trying to get away. It also shut down the electricity in the whole house. There was a burned spot about the size on a saucer on the side of the dryer and there was a distinct burned smell throughout the house. I was still holding the wire and plug because it scared me so badly that I yanked it out of the receptacle without even realizing it. 

Once we had calmed down a bit I called an old shooting buddy of mine who is good with all things electrical and told him what had happened. He said, "Rick, you didn't!" Actually, I did. He then said, "Here's what I want you to do: Back away, don't touch a thing, and I'll be there after work to fix it. And next time, if you so much as need to change a light bulb, call me first."


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## Captain Ahab (Jul 2, 2011)

Deadmeat - that is too funny


but really, parachute pants?


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## Deadmeat (Jul 2, 2011)

Can't Touch This! Fortunately that ball of flame that went past the twins didn't. You ought to see my Nehru jacket, leisure suit, and bell bottoms.

Actually, I'm also a skydiver and what we call parachute pants isn't quite the same thing as what you're thinking of.


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## Captain Ahab (Jul 2, 2011)

Deadmeat said:


> Can't Touch This! Fortunately that ball of flame that went past the twins didn't. You ought to see my Nehru jacket, leisure suit, and bell bottoms.
> 
> Actually, I'm also a skydiver and what we call parachute pants isn't quite the same thing as what you're thinking of.




Are they plaid like the pair Popeye wears?


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## Ranchero50 (Jul 4, 2011)

You are in good company. I was using a cup wheel in a 4" angle grinder cleaning body sealer out of the cab on my '71 F250 and shazzam the shirt got sucked into it. No blood or anything bad but tore up the shirt...

Jamie


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## roblj65 (Jul 4, 2011)

Ranchero50 said:


> You are in good company. I was using a cup wheel in a 4" angle grinder cleaning body sealer out of the cab on my '71 F250 and shazzam the shirt got sucked into it. No blood or anything bad but tore up the shirt...
> 
> Jamie


Been there, done that, and did strike blood. Nothing serious though, just a good deep scratch clear across my stomach


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## bcbouy (Jul 4, 2011)

i made the mistake of using a cutting disc i used to cut aluminum to cut a piece of steel.bad mistake. the wheel litterally exploded.fortunately it happened outside and nobody caught shrapnel.lesson learned the hard way.


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## fender66 (Jul 8, 2011)

Nothing with wire wheels, electrical, or parachute pants, but last year I did have a piece of aluminum angle kick back in my miter saw. Fingers never touched the blade. This is all from the impact of the aluminum smashing my fingers. The one wrapped was much worse, unfortunately.


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## gouran01 (Jul 8, 2011)

OUCH
the end


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## KMixson (Jul 8, 2011)

A couple of years ago I had an electric shaver that had a cord that I thought was too long. The cord was able to reach the sink in my master bath. I went about shortening the cord. I plugged it in into the wall socket to see how much I needed to cut off of it. After that I was not thinking and took my Gerber Multi-tool and snipped it off where it would not reach the sink. As the cutters made contact with both wires there was a blue flash and I dropped the multi-tool. It did not shock me but it shook me up thinking how stupid am I? It did not trip the GFCI or the main breaker. It did burn two nice little indention into the cutters where the wires made contact.


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## wasilvers (Jul 8, 2011)

I was changing a tire one time when the car shifted. In slow motion I saw it drifting forward in slow motion and I beat it out from the car ASAP. No damage done, I have a soft driveway (probably why the jack gave) and it burried the disk into the drive way. Took a while and a few jacks to get it back up. Fortunately, no damage was done and the 'boss' wasn't any wiser. 8) 

My dad used me to test the grounding of an RV once... "Just touch that bumper there" he said. So I grabbed it WOW! In the days before stun guns, I knew how they felt. My dad just laughed and said something must be wrong. #-o 

Scariest one was the most boneheaded. I have some cool airguns and worked on modding them for more power (of course) I wanted to do some damage so I grabbed a piece of plywood on some benches, put the barrel of the gun down on it and pulled the trigger. OF course the pellet went right through the plywood and slammed into my shoe, barely missing any flesh.... Can't image explaining that to the wife!


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## Hanr3 (Jul 8, 2011)

Sounds like a few of you need to step away from the power tools and leave them to the pros. :mrgreen: 

I've been working with power tools for a long, long time. 
Scariest- standing at the top of a 20' extension ladder leaning against a 6" wide metal parking lot light pole. The center of the rung was centered on the square pole. My task, drill a hole to hang a new light fixture. Simple enough. At teh time my best drill was an old Milwaukee 3/8" drill. So I'm leaning pretty heavy to drive the bit through the 3/8" thick steel, bit stops, drill doesn't, my hand was still holding it up until the point my arm was twisted as far as it would go and i finally broke grip, which meant I was in the process of losing my balance 16' off the ground. Ladder sliding left, I'm going right, and drill is stuck in place twisting in circles pull more and more cord around itself. Fortunately, my left hand made contact with the pole and I was able to pull the ladder back center and balance myself, happended aobut the same time the cord came unplugged and the drill stopped. 

Another time, helping my brother install an fan in the gable end of his attic. Two story house, Im working basically on the third floor. My extension ladder is on top of the porch roof. Almost done cutting the hole in the wall for the fan when the ladder starts to walk out from under me. I threw the saw in the attic and managed to hook one arm in the opening before the ladder disappears from under me. Long story short, I still have the scar where my arm got scrapped up while I was clinging on for my life.

When I was an electrician in Washington State I was working new apartment complexes. My task for the day was to make the final connections in the electrical panels. I was pushing a 30amp double pole breaker in with my linemans pliers when the pliers slipped off the breaked and shorted both hot legs. Basically, my pliers shorted across 220 volts @ 100amps each. Teh ensuing explosion sent sparks that melted into the glass in my glasses. Fortunately the only damage was to the glasses. Had I not been wearing them I may be blind today. 

By far the worst though, I was using a chisle to notch out hinge locations for a cabinet I just finished making. The wife honks the horn to let me know shes home and to help her with groceries. Unfortunately, that split second of distraction was enough time for me to shove the chisle through the side of my thumb, including the nail, and stop at the bone. 

Funniest- same set of apartment complexes, this time another guy and myself were doing the electrical trim work. I was installing switches, outlets, and hooking up the hot water tanks. His job was the dinign room light and garbage disposal. Timing wise he would finish a couple minutes before me and head off to the next unit. Once there he was supposed ot turn off the power, however he would stop and smoke a bowl waiting for me. While Im spreading the switches/outlets around the unit he starts on teh garbage disposal. I hear, zap, shit, thumb, zap, shit, bump, MFer. and I start laughing my arse off. Let me interpret. Zap, he just shorted the wire and got shocked by 110v, 15amp,
shit- him cusing cuase he got zapped,
thump- hit head head on the cabinet,
zap- pulled head away from cabinet and got zapped agian,
bumb- hit his head again. 
Best part- this happened 6 units in a row. 
I yell at him, might want to turn the power off next time. His response- yea, yea. Tehn I'd yell at him, hey smoke another bowl, itll be alright. :mrgreen:


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## medicman619 (Jul 9, 2011)

Nice shirt Jamie! Mine looked about the same. Glad I'm not the only one! After reading these stories, it seems I'm not doing too bad! LOL


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## Dragonman (Jul 9, 2011)

Watch them wire wheels they will get ya!!
Wow Hanr3, I dont have any stories to come close. Where you live in Central Il? Im 30 minutes from Springfield.


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## Deadmeat (Jul 9, 2011)

Hanr3, I'm lauging so hard at tht last one I cant se to typ.


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## Hanr3 (Jul 9, 2011)

East Peoria is where I call home now.

Yea, I've been in construction, automotive repiar, and manufacturing most of my life. Im a part time furniture/cabinet/wood worker too. Seen some stupid stuff, funny stuff, and the effects of unsafe acts. I make light of the dangers of power tools, however they do have an evil side and will make you a Darwin award recipient if you disregard safety. 

Might be a good time to interject a few of the basic safety rules.
Wear eye protection- you only get one set of eyes, and they cannot be fixed. 
No loose clothing- as demonstrated by the wire wheel incident, bigger tools have bigger damages.
No Long hair, if it is long, pony tail and tuck it up under a hat- hair gets caught in tools too. 
No watches, rings, braclets, pendants, body piercings, etc.- basicaly take off all jewely- flesh and metal dont play well together.
Use the safety devices, they are there for a reason.
Keep your work area clean and organized- you dont need to implement 5S, but its not a bad idea.
Pay attention!!! Stop day dreaming.


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## MDFisherman57 (Jul 9, 2011)

Lol I had this issue. When I stripped the paint off my boat I used a 3m carbon rubber disk to take the paint of and it worked well. I do had it on locked on position and it caught my shirt and wound it up pretty good but thankfully since I used that disk it wasn't a hard disk so it bent to the point that it seized enough for me to unplug the drill. Only wound I had was so rug burns from the disk. I really like that 3m paint stripping disk thoug compared to the impact of the grinder with a wire brush lol


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