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In regards to attitude I have discussed gluing, soldering,
covering, sawing, and grinding. Now I'll cover the risks and levels of
safety defense for cutting, wire bending, sanding, assembling, and
painting. With the right attitude and after having performed prechecks
of your tools, it's time to work. There are some valuable lessons
learned I can share to help you minimize the blood and gore.
• Cutting:
Before I bought my self-healing cutting mats I used cardboard, wood
blocks, or newspaper as a backing for balsa I was slicing. None of these
was ideal.
The wood blocks and cardboard were dangerous because if I
applied much pressure, the knife blade would follow the grain of the
material. The knife could cut somewhere I did not intend. A new #11
blade in a hobby-knife handle can make a wicked slash in your arm if you
slip.
Cutting against a backing of newspaper was a bit better, but I had
to apply a great deal of pressure to compress the layers of newspaper
before the cutting was effective. The extra pressure is not good.
Using
these materials as a backing for your cuts raises your safety risk. You
need a firm, nongrained, self-healing surface for cutting. Several sizes
of these mats are shown in one of the photographs.
• Bending: This is a
setup where gravity can hurt you. I needed to bend a 5/16-inch wire for
a landing gear. This was too big a job for pliers. I needed to bring out
the big artillery: a 5-pound vise.
Did I bolt the vise to the worktable?
Nah! I was in a hurry. I clamped the wire securely in the vise, held
pressure on the end of the wire, and formed the bend by hammering on the
wire where it exited the vise.
Having completed the 90° bend in the
wire, I pulled the vise to the edge of the table to free the wire. I was
so eager to inspect the bend that when I loosened the jaws I didn't
bother to push the vise back from the edge of the table. With no human
control applied, it sought a more stable position by rolling off the
edge of the worktable and onto my shoeless foot.
The arch of my right
foot cushioned the vise's fall. It rolled off of my foot to the concrete
floor, undamaged.
However, the almost immediate appearance of red on top
of my white sock told me that my foot had suffered in this event. I
really didn't want to take the sock off to look at the damage.
Fortunately I didn't break any bones and just had to hobble around with
a sore foot for several days.
Don't repeat my foolishness. If you are
going to use a vise for any purpose, don't rush. Clamp or bolt it to a
bench. In addition, when working in the shop, please provide the
appropriate safety barrier for your feet; wear shoes.
• Sanding: There
are two aspects of this simple chore that can be of concern for your
safety, the first of which is that using folded sandpaper can be rough
on your fingers.
I was in the midst of building a model once when I had
to get fingerprinted for a security clearance. I had been doing a lot of
sanding to lighten the model and get a smooth finish. I got the smooth
finish on the wood all right, but my fingertips were smoothed as well.
The officer asked me if I had been trying to get rid of my fingerprints
for some reason. I had to come back several weeks later to get the job
done.
A good sanding board can save your fingers and provide a better
tool. Most hobby shops have aluminum channel-backed sanding boards or
you can make a serviceable one by gluing a piece of sandpaper to one
side of a straight section of 2 x 4-inch wood.
Second, if you use a
power sander such as a sanding disk or drum on the Dremel tool, you
should have barrier protection: goggles for your eyes and a dust (painter's)
mask for your nose. When you need to do power sanding, you can minimize
the dust you breathe and the particles that get into your home's
ventilation system by running a vacuum cleaner with the inlet in the
vicinity of the work surface.
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Assembling: The screwdriver shown in one
of the photographs looks innocuous enough. How could it be dangerous?
Look at the end of the inserted working head, with the Phillips-type
end. It comes to a sharp point.
Let's say you are holding a board to
mount servos for your model. Using the Phillips screw head you may apply
4 pounds of force to drive the screw into the wood. This force is
concentrated at the small tip, which makes it effective in turning the
screw.
Four pounds of force applied to an area measuring approximately
1/16 inch square translates to a pressure of roughly 1,000 pounds per
square inch at the tip. If the tip of the driver slipped off the screw,
you could easily nick or punch your thumb, finger, palm, or arm.
• Painting: If you are using spray paint to put the final touches on your
model, please remember to use the appropriate barrier; wear a painter's
mask. The hazard is breathing materials into your lungs that are not
intended to be there.
I know it can be tempting to do small spray jobs
in the shop, but that is not a good idea. Do it in the garage or some
other well-ventilated place, or fix yourself up with a spray booth such
as the one presented in the November MA.
I learned the value of the
simple spray mask when I painted a green chalkboard for my children in
the wintertime. I opened the kitchen door adjoining the garage to allow
the garage to warm up a bit. Then I sprayed four coats of flat green
paint on a piece of plywood to make the marking surface for the
chalkboard.
I didn't even think about using a mask at the time. After
all, it was a large garage. As a result of my painting exercise, I was
blowing green goo out of my nose and lungs for nearly three days. It was
not pretty.
I hope this discussion has made you aware of some common
workshop hazards, prepared you to adjust your attitude for safe work,
and armed you to put up a strong safety defense. Consider these
thoughts, take them to heart, and make them part of your shop work
ethic. Apply the appropriate levels of safety defense in your shop work.
Good luck and good flying. In the next article I'll discuss safety while
preparing your model for flight and flying-field etiquette. MA
Donald W.
Brooks
brooksdw@ida.net
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