The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I was reading Robert Eilers post on Hero or Idiot and it made me think about my idiot adventure with a dremel tool yesterday.

I needed to make a decorative plate for my new radio installation to hide the hole that was left from installing a smaller radio. I had some fiberglass stock leftover from my Selkirk interior and decided to use that. I have been pondering the best way to cut this stuff for a week or so when I remembered that I had a guide for the dremel. It uses a drill bit to cut with, much like a milling machine. Well I got it all set up and went to work, forgetting safety glasses (I have used them religiously all of my life knowing that loss of an eye could mean an end to flying). I had that baby really screaming, at probably 20,000 rpm or so when I noticed that the drill bit was longer than before. Before I could react to the fact that it was obviously working its way out of the tool , it shot out like a bullet and shattered some jars that were at eye level with me and ricocheted off across my shop. Scared the bejesus out of me, especially when I realized that only luck sent the bit away from my eyes and not towards them.
I guess the moral of my story is be careful out there, no matter how long we do something there is always that one little instance when we might lose ourselves in the moment and... well you know.
David

As a young man of about 22 I worked as a new-car-dealer-mechanic. One of the other mechanics in the shop has cleaned some wheel bearings and was drying them with compressed air. HIs index and middle fingers were inserted thru the center race and he was spinning up the bearings with the compressed air-gun. It sounded like a small siren. Then it "BANG-ed!" as the little cage failed and let all those roller-bearings shot across the shop like bullets!

It broke a car windshield clear across the shop, put several dents in the metal bldg. walls, and darn near cut his thumb off at the second knuckle! We're lucky no one was killed because those little projectiles had some real speed behind them!

Life is fragile.

Thats why you never air clean a bearing by letting it (spin) with out luberation, you can gall the (race) and bearings in a heart beat... fast enough that it will come apart when it was fine just before you spun it.....