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Comment by jordanb | Hacker News Reader

> Like wearing gloves has killed several people.

This is interesting. How/when are gloves dangerous? I've been TIG welding for about a year now, I self-studied my way through a welding textbook[1] and have friends who are professional welders (union pipe-fitters, etc) and have never heard anything about gloves being dangerous. In fact according to the pipe-fitters, gloves are in the category of eye and head protection of "must be worn on a union jobsite."

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Welding-William-Bowditch/dp/156...

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This was a reference to the machine shop in general and lathes in particular. Cloth will sooner or later get caught in rotating machinery. This is the same reason why machinists don't wear long sleeved shirts. I haven't heard of any glove type being exempt from this rule. Hair and beards are definitely discouraged as well. When I was in the air force wedding bands were discouraged during ground battle exercises given the ease of getting caught on something and losing a finger.

I think this is a good example of why the safety guidelines are strict and mostly require rote learning. Gloves protect against heat, but everything you have been plasma cutting or welding needs to be handled with tongs because even if the metal doesn't glow it's probably still pretty hot. Most of these rules make sense in retrospect, but they are universally hard to deduce from first principles.

Gloves protect against heat, but everything you have been plasma cutting or welding needs to be handled with tongs because even if the metal doesn't glow it's probably still pretty hot.

This is very true. I haven't welded since high school, but a single arc weld can get a piece of metal hot enough to burn almost instantly through heavy leather gloves.

As someone with light machine shop experience (building things in my ME schooling) gloves are dangerous on machines like mills (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milling_machine) where they are spinning so fast when they catch the glove you will not be able to brake and you most likely will not have parts or all of your hand.

Yeah I suppose that makes sense with milling machines. When I read the OP's comment I was thinking he was referring to grinding machines.

I always wear my TIG gloves when operating grinders and was glad I do a while back when my hand made contact with the wheel: what would have been a nasty and painful gash ended up being a scuff mark on my glove.

But that raises another question: Why on earth would your hand be anywhere near the head of an operating milling machine?

EDIT: Thinking about this more, we might have different concepts of "glove." TIG gloves are thin, tight-fitting, and leather.

They also have a "gauntlet type" cut that extends up your forearms and over your sleeves. I don't think they'd be any more likely to catch a machine part than your skin would, and I think they'd actually reduce the chance that a sleeve gets caught.

OTOH, it makes sense that the thick, heavy fabric gloves that are used for MIG or stick would make your hands more clumsy and prone to getting caught in machines. I agree that those are probably pretty dangerous.

People can be stupid, even the smart ones.

That is probably the only reason training is so important.

The grinder -- the one you use to sharpen your tungsten tips for TIG welding -- at the machine shop I where I learned to weld had signs all over it reminding you to take off your gloves before turning the spinning grinder wheels on.

That shop, at the local community college, is the only one I've ever used, so I can't guess what practice is more common.

Why on earth would your hand be anywhere near the head of an operating milling machine?

Accidents happen. You slip, or get tired and careless and then suddenly your hand isn't where you expect it to be. On a manual mill, it's more likely that your face, not hand will be closer to the bit as you monitor how it's cutting.

A chemistry senior was killed by a lathe at Yale last week working alone late at night when she was pulled against the machine by her hair.

An average size lathe with a 6" chuck will pull 18" of hair in a single revolution. At a moderate speed of 300 rpm that's too fast for a person to react. In the battle of human vs. 3hp motor, human loses. I've seen enough photos of human bodies turned into hamburger by even small industrial machines to not take the danger seriously!

your hands need to be near the tool in a mill for a couple of reasons, including clearing chips and applying oil/coolant.

also when you zero out a mill, you need to touch off a tool (don't know the name) to define your origin spot. it's not sharp and you should spin it at low RPM, but it's still moving, and you shouldn't have gloves anywhere near it.

My brother lost two fingers trying to stop rotating part of powered off machine by bare hand 25 years ago.

Wouldn't they catch a bare hand the same way? How does not wearing gloves help?

Fabric is just so much easier to catch thats why things like short sleeves and no gloves are so important, it is probably much less likely for your hand/arm to get wound around the machine because the muscle and skin doesn't catch as easily.

But yes you'd end up hurt either way.

A bare hand would probably just be cut badly. A hand with gloves can be pulled into a cutting tool that will then dismember your arm.

Gloves are dangerous because they will not tear like skin. The mill will continue rotating as it rotates then arm around the bit, usually about 1" in diameter. So think about how your bones would be crushed to spiral around the bit. The blood loss would be so rapid you would probably die. If you are by yourself, the pain will probably cause you to faint and die.

Leather and clothe gloves are not allowed around rotating machinery for that reason. Latex would be okay.

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