lathe safety

[BowtieGuy]

Not sure what nuclear power lathe are you running But mine doesn't produce anything blue hot, or white hot, or yellow hot, or even any hot chips.

During summertime I actually do operate the lathe shirtless simply because it's the safest (and comfortable) way. There are no hot pieces flying around.

I agree about the "supervision" nonsense, though. Five minutes in, the one watching is having worse reaction time than the guy actually operating the lathe, due to being bored out of his mind and daydreaming/sleeping.

When I mentioned the hot "blue" chips, it was relative to the OP's pictures of lathe work in an industrial/toolroom setting, which most of the time would probably include the cutting of steel.
If you are turning steel in most any size lathe, (doesn't even need to be a nuclear one ), and you are taking a decent size cut, the chips should be coming off the part and turning blue.
This indicates that the heat from cutting is being removed with the chip (a good thing), and not staying in the part. This is for steel only, aluminum will never change color.

On our hobby size projects, working mostly with aluminum, and taking light cuts, the heat shouldn't ever be a problem.

Below are a couple of pics showing what the (steel) chips should look like after a cut.

 

[USAbro]

Well I use a dremel tool for my metal working.

 

[Eudaimonium]

When I mentioned the hot "blue" chips, it was relative to the OP's pictures of lathe work in an industrial/toolroom setting, which most of the time would probably include the cutting of steel.
If you are turning steel in most any size lathe, (doesn't even need to be a nuclear one ), and you are taking a decent size cut, the chips should be coming off the part and turning blue.
This indicates that the heat from cutting is being removed with the chip (a good thing), and not staying in the part. This is for steel only, aluminum will never change color.

On our hobby size projects, working mostly with aluminum, and taking light cuts, the heat shouldn't ever be a problem.

Below are a couple of pics showing what the (steel) chips should look like after a cut.

Oh sh**, I totally misunderstood you there, sorry about that.

Yeah I'd imagine that if you're cutting steel non-stop on a machine, both the tooling and working bit could become very hot.

That's actually very cool, temperature changing the metal's color, reminds me of that picture of titanium colored using some sort of electro-plating technique, the picture shows pieces ordered by voltage, and they go from deep violet to deep red. Anybody have that pic?

 

[Dr_Evil]

I had a PC with a Socket A CPU in it. It was one of the 1.4 GHz CPU with the ceramic base. The heatsink was copper. One night, the fan had stopped for some reason. The copper itself had greens and blues from the heat. The CPU was dead but everything else was fine.

 

[10fenny]

I work full time in the automotive industry! I am constantly using a brake lathe! Its belt driven which might help.. like a percent. Going through the automotive program they showed you all sorts of terrible pictures. My mother is a nurse and went through the autopsy program.. WOW talk about seeing some of the worst pictures at a super young age! I think that's why I can be a weenie when it come to dangerous things... like lasers!!!!! BE CAREFUL WITH ANYTHING THAT'S STRONGER THAN YOU!

 

[The Lightning Stalker]

Yikes. I don't care how unsafe you are, that is just an awful way to go.

This is a great way to go. I would love to
go that way. Suddenly and without warning,
quickly, any pain he felt would have been
so brief. The opposite is being diagnosed
with an incurable disease. Being told by
doctors you only have a few months or years
to live, and suffering in pain in a
hospital bed somewhere unable to go
anywhere or do anything day after day after
day without even the tiniest little lathe
anywhere in sight to end your suffering

You're right about the family though. They
are the ones suffering.

Probably worse yet would be to survive such
an accident and lose a limb(s), vision, or
something else. Then having to live out
the rest of your years in pain and dying of
old age, being told by doctors you only
have a few months or years to live, and
suffering in pain in a hospital bed
somewhere . . .

aluminum will never change color.

I can get it to change color. Not with a
lathe, though.

 

[Sheppie]

This is a great way to go. I would love to
go that way. Suddenly and without warning,
quickly, any pain he felt would have been
so brief. The opposite is being diagnosed
with an incurable disease. Being told by
doctors you only have a few months or years
to live, and suffering in pain in a
hospital bed somewhere unable to go
anywhere or do anything day after day after
day without even the tiniest little lathe
anywhere in sight to end your suffering
.

It is all true but the problem is timing. I don't think that the guy planned to go that particular day. Lathe can pull you in and kill you in seconds. You say it's a great to go - but I repeat what about planning? I doubt you'd like to be pulled in like today or tomorrow.

 

[The Lightning Stalker]

I doubt he had time to think about that.