Gloves and Grinders Don’t Mix

If there is a worse combination than grinders and gloves, I don’t know what it is, except perhaps gloves and a drill.

We posted a really cool video on our career blog about making a light saber sword here. But we were shocked to see the guys in the video wearing heavy leather gloves while working with grinders. By “grinders,” we mean abrasive belt grinders, bench grinders, pedestal grinders, surface grinders, and also abrasive cutoff machines.

Sanders, polishers and buffers that involve rotating wheels or transversing motion are also included in this classification for the purposes of hazard analysis.

Here are six reasons to not wear/not permit the wearing of gloves while working with grinders or grinding machines:

• It’s the general duty of employer to provide a workplace free of recognized hazards
• Gloves can catch on rotating equipment and pull operators hands into the equipment; the operator cannot get hand out of glove when it catches
• Rotation of grinding wheels is at high RPMs
• Equipment horsepower and machine material properties exceed those of the operator’s flesh; amputations can occur

We did a quick calculation of a 12-inch grinding wheel and 3,600 rpm and arrived at a speed on the periphery of 120 miles per hour. This speed leaves no time to react.

Originally posted on PMPAspeakingofprecision.com blog.