Lathe Safety Illustrations From the 1930s

[Subdeacon Joe]

People are still doing this kind of stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Blackwater 53393]

Tight shirts, no ties, no coats, short sleeves, eye protection, no rings or jewelry, and careful preparation, along with a firm understanding that that damn thing doesn’t feel ANYTHING!!

[Colorado Coffinmaker]

 

And Machine tools are faster than ANY reflexes.

[Yul Lose]

Pinterest has a bunch of short videos featuring very unsafe power tool usage, particularly table saw, joiner and compound miter saws. I’ve reported a lot of them but it doesn’t seem to do any good. I wonder how many serious injuries there are by people trying to duplicate what’s being shown. There was one video awhile back and the guy in the video was missing parts of 3 fingers but he was still pushing stock over a spinning joiner head with no push sticks or guard in place. Slow learner, I guess.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

It being the 30s, there wouldn’t be a caution about long hair getting caught.

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

1 hour ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

It being the 30s, there wouldn’t be a caution about long hair getting caught.

 

  ...... not so much the 30s, but Ladies was using such machinery for the "war effort" a bit later on ....

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

for some time now I have been of the firm belief that ALL powertools should be sold with the inclusion of a packet of "Band-aids" .....

       ...... just in case .......

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

PLAY stupid games 

 

  WIN stupid prizes 

 

   

[Yul Lose]

I worked in a sewing plant in Arizona City, Arizona back in the 1970’s and a lot of the sewing machine operators on the Wilcox and Gibbs side lock sewing machines had long hair. Getting that long hair caught in the motor pulley and the machine mechanism were real possibilities so they had a mandatory hairnet rule for those machines. One Monday morning the sewing floor supervisor didn’t show up to work and one of the girls that HAD beautiful long hair started sewing without the hairnet and it wasn’t long before we heard this sickening scream and then a whole bunch of frantic women yelling. I was back in the shipping room and when I got there her foot was firmly planted on the foot pedal and smoke was pouring from the machines pulley. No one had pulled the connection out of the overhead rail so I did it and the machine stopped instantly. A large chunk of here scalp was torn out and by the time we got her hair hacked away and untangled from the machine she didn’t have much long hair left. Not a pretty sight. She took some time off and when she returned to work she didn’t want to be a machine operator anymore and the rest of the operators were very diligent about wearing hairnets after that.

[watab kid]

i once almost lost a finger when my ring got nicked in a bandsaw - i was lucky only the ring permanently damaged , finger healed well with no problems , i dont wear jewelry these days also dont operate machinery much anymore but once burned .............

[Tex Jones, SASS 2263]

On 11/16/2025 at 10:22 AM, Subdeacon Joe said:

People are still doing this kind of stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Same instructions at the machine shop in high school 30 years later.

Edited November 17, 2025 by Tex Jones, SASS 2263

[Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933]

I watch lots of old films on YouTube about manufacturing in WWI, the 20s and 30s.  What is surprising is that a lot of the men are wearing suits and ties.

[Buckshot Bear]

[Subdeacon Joe]

Yeah,  I  don't feel like walking around it, I'll just step over it.

 

 

 

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

19 hours ago, Larsen E. Pettifogger, SASS #32933 said:

I watch lots of old films on YouTube about manufacturing in WWI, the 20s and 30s.  What is surprising is that a lot of the men are wearing suits and ties.

 

Yeah, I watch those an just shake my head.
 

 

[Yul Lose]

1 hour ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

Yeah, I watch those an just shake my head.
 

 

Wonder what the eye injury rate was with no safety glasses and how many 3rd degree burns resulted from not wearing any protection.