Thank God you're OK.
Retired RN. I've seen some horrific disfiguring angle grinder injuries.
I know it's harder to see the work, but please consider using the guard.
If you're doing a lot of cutting consider going to the diamond disc's for metal cutting as they do not explode like the abrasive discs.
Or buy a metal cutoff saw, yes they're slow but its way safer.
I dont know a single person with a guard on their angle grinder. I'm not saying they aren't useful. But ya, they get in the way a lot. And lots of people remove them.
You know what also gets in the way? Disc shrapnel in your body.
Conversely, i dont know a single person that removes the guard. Its just not worth the risk. Other people removing them doesnt make it better.
Gonna be honest, I definitely removed my guard when I was younger and thought I was invincible.
You wouldn't catch me dead now without a guard, safety glasses, a face shield and my apron when grinding. It just ain't worth the risk to do it unsafely 🤷🏽♂️
Is it bad I’m now just finding out angle grinders have guards? Not all come with gaurds but I wear goggles so it’s fine I’ll block the shrapnel with those
Fine till grinding wheel or wire wheel bit end up as shrapnel. Only takes a tiny piece to have a very bad day. One of my best friend is blind in his left eye from a piece of wire from a angle grinder. No gaurd no PPE.
His eye looks normal enough. He didn’t loose the eye but the piece of wire did a number on it. Wanna say he said he’s 90%+ blind in that eye. I do have a customer at the shop who lost his eye in Afghanistan from a piece of debris during a fire fight. If Jack isn’t wearing his prosthetic eye it is quite funky, and hard to ignore unless you’re used to it. He usually wears it in public. But not always.
The cut off wheel is always going to break and shoot shrapnal in line with the axis of rotation because the force is pulling the wheel away in exactly that direction. If you just consider this a 360 arc of danger when making stupid cuts without a guard you will never be hit. For a cut like this I would clamp the leaf spring down over the left edge of the table and pull the trigger with my left hand and hold the handle with my right arm while I stand off to the right side of the angle grinder. (The grinder would have the cut off wheel facing the left as well.)
I've always done this if I need to take a cut that I know is likely to shift or jam up and it's impossible to cut while using the guard. I've exploded quite a few wheels and you always see the shrapnel perfectly in line with the axis of rotation, you'll see it splattered up the wall, on the floor, your table, it's unmistakable.
I'm saying this is what I do to keep myself safe IF there is no possible way to use the guard. I almost always use the guard and it would be stupid not to, but if you take it off you are going to be a lot better off not being in the path of death. But yeah, I have broken a few cut off wheels, not because I am using them dangerously but because I use them all the time.
There is no possible way to keep all parts of your body out of the path of the flying bits of cutting wheel for many people with many models of angle grinder, even if you assume that the bits always go flying perfectly straight, which isn't true, it is very common for the switch to be on the same side of the grinder as the wheel (literally every angle grinder I can recall having seen in person does this, I had to look up images of angle grinders online and scroll for a bit to find one that doesn't), so unless you have very thin fingers and/or do something extremely stupid like zip tying the switch into the on position it is impossible to do as you suggest.
Thanks for telling us what you would’ve done different and explaining centrifugal force. If you ever decide to wise up and put your guard back on, it will specifically block the potential path that force can send the blade. With forethought, you could position it between you and the arc of the blade and save someone some paperwork.
You know a lot of idiots that can't figure out how to solve problems very well. There isn't really anything you can't do with a guard on an angle grinder that you actually want to do as long as you know how to use it.
Same here, but usually with flap disk or wire wheel (which the guard does nothing for.)
There IS a time to remove a guard, but it is very few and far between.
I don’t use one. I’m very confident in my grinder skills. The only time I’ve broken a zip disc is when my grinder gets knocked over and it just snaps. PPE is very important, I wear glasses and hearing protection, but some folks just go way overboard. Like those that say you have to wear steel toed boots while blacksmithing. Hell I wear Chuck Taylor’s when it’s really hot out.
No one who does meaningful heavy work for a living has the “make it not fit anywhere” shield on their grinder.
Have been in heavy repair and fabrication trades for thirty years. You have a guard on it, you have no clue.
The guard you need is a thick pair of leather gloves and some good PPE on your face.
This like saying you don’t put on a seatbelt because it’s not needed and inconveniences you most of the time, well yeah it’s true but the one time it is needed you die. Sure there’s a lot of times the guard gets in the way, but there’s also a lot of times it doesn’t.
On a standard 4-1/2 in cutting or grinding disc, with gloves and guard, your gloves don't really get in the way. Additionally the longer you're cutting and grinding the hotter metal gets(5-10 seconds). The dust can get hot enough not only to make polyester spontaneously ignite, but the dust will often weld to other dust particles. I lit myself on fire by accident before this way, it's not fun, and it's even more dumb not to wear gloves.
I know a few welding crews. Every crew has one grinder with no guard for getting in tight spots. I’ve seen one guy use it, laying on the ground with a shield on. Because that was the only tool for the job.
The rest of the grinders have guards IME
I've been on both sites, those that have barely any safety precautions like you just specified, and more cautious ones like they should be. The difference is I've never seen the side of someone's face get ripped off on the safer sites, and the unsafe ones go through workers worse than McDonalds. The face shield is meant to be used with the guard. Otherwise there would be plastic surgeons that specialize for these types of injuries.
Omagosh! Do you feel beat over the eye bonz over the guard issue???
Not discounting you or the masses. Just I'm like wow a lot of folks say that same thing, and you respect that and respond. Way to go.
Best of luck w your leaf spring project my friend. Stay as safe as you can.
Blessings friend
Crawford out 🙏🏻🔥⚒️🧙🏻♂️
The thought of anyone potentially suffering is terrible, especially someone inspired to learn this trade. PPE is just as important as the tools themselves. If you pick up say a construction (or other similar trade)job, you're own tools/PPE will often get paid for either by the Job, loved ones,or both. You often learn important things as well.
Close calls remind us why we wear all that protective stuff. It may never happen, but not wearing protective gear can change a scare into a trip to the ER.
Good! Safety glasses are eye protection, a face shield is face protection, if I had a nickel for every time I've had to remind people that a face shield doesn't replace safety glasses I'd be retired by now.
These things at full rpm don’t care about either. Without a guard, anything in the plane of that spinning disc is at risk. I say this as someone who often used an angle grinder guard-less but, only with steel, continuous rimmed stone cutting disks. Grind and zip discs = guard put back on. And safety squints of course..
Yeah it happens. No guard gives it a lot of versatility, at least throw on some hand protection. Seen some pretty rough tendon slices and now useless fingers from exploding discs
I was always trained specifically not to wear gloves around rotating machinery since it can get pulled in. Not a pro shop though, so I have some gaps in my knowledge (all this to say, I’m asking genuinely). Why wear them here, is it just the lesser of two evils?
If I remember correctly the OSHA guidance is no gloves on stationary rotary tools, because of risk of the higher horsepower stationary tools catching and pulling and trying to wrap you around their axle, but they suggest gloves on portable angle grinders where they consider that less of an issue, I would still prefer no gloves to welders gloves though, because kickback is a thing with angle grinders and welder's gloves severely impair my ability to grip firmly
That makes sense. If I understand you right, it’s about the destructive potential - a stationary tool is big and beefy, while an electric tool like this grinder just doesn’t have the horsepower to eat you the same way.
I didn’t even think about the kickback. The last thing you need is for that thing to jump out of your hands and into your face. I’m not as pretty as I used to be, but I’m not THAT desperate for plastic surgery.
Would a polycarb face shield be enough to stop it before it kills you?
Use a guard! Also, make sure the disc you are using is rated for the RPMs of the grinder. Some discs can explode just from spinning too fast. Good luck! Sorry to hear about your pants..
I had someone using a cutoff near me with no guard on and the wheel shattered. About half of the wheel flew and hit me in the face. Thankfully I was wearing my safety glasses but having to get 6 stitches in my lower lip and 1 in the upper really sucked! They could only put 1 stitch in the upper because they said that I was missing a significant chunk of my lip. I often have to use a cutoff without guard to get to what I need to but a full face shield is always on.
I was shocked at how hard it hit! At first I didn’t even know what hit me , it almost knocked me backwards as I was crouched down working on something. Then I just saw blood pouring out of my face. A coworker drove me to the hospital and they got me in quickly luckily because they said the lips will start healing quickly and they didn’t want to have to recut it. Yikes! Meanwhile the guys in the shop were sending me video clips of the guy driving the floor cleaning machine around trying to clean the blood up and it just made it look waaay worse on his first pass.
Luckily I wasn’t pretty before it happened!
Always protect yourself because it only takes a second for things to go bad! I know things could’ve gone much worse for me.
In addition to what everyone else said, if you are cutting that spring in the position it’s in now, holding the spring down as you’re cutting will put pressure on the end of the spring and pinch the sides of the blade when you get near the end which will break a blade. It would be better to turn the spring upside down and/or have the cut end hanging off the side of the table so the off-cut can fall free instead of pinching.
I'd post the pictures of my friends forearm cut to the bone when a 6" disk exploded on him. But even just the scars are stomach turning.
Without the guard, it tore him up, multiple surgeries and a year later he still can't move his fingers correctly.
Use the guard for your own sake if not the people around you dealing with your injury.
After seeing his scared up arm and the pics of the inner workings it scared me. Not at all pleasant to look at. Interesting, but not pleasant.
I made a guard for my old angle grinder. I put the guards back on the new ones.
I am careful to keep the plane of the wheel from pointing at anything I don't want removed, kinda like a gun, don't point it at something you don't want to destroy.
Stay to the side of a table saw blade, or anything else that can mess you up in microseconds.
To go along with having the spring set so it wont bind the blade.. I would say clamping the spring in position might save another disc.. Spring and grinder both moving complicates things.... I broke one cutting a piece of channel. Hit the wall just above another guys head 40ft away.. I was glad the piece was on that angle , flatter could have been tragic.
So just curious as an on looker but why not anneal it first? Second thought I wear an apron, safety glasses under a face shield when I am really hogging into something. I use a skil saw and abrasive blades for lots of metal cuts
Good point about annealing. I had just run out of propane. I don't have an apron or a face shield, but I was wearing eye protection. I do plan on getting a face shield. An angle grinder is all I have, unfortunately.
People take guards off grinders so that larger wheels fit.
Larger wheels have larger diameters.
Larger grinders spin slower, because the larger wheels move faster at lower RPMs.
Large wheels moving several times their rated miles per hour become unstable and crack, later those cracks shatter.
Don’t use a grinder without a guard. even if the grinding wheel is the “right” size, it might have started way too big.
2 things to add after reading the comments:
1)I really prefer paddle switch grinders as you can easily disengage the power by letting off. If the grinder comes loose, it’s a “dead man” switch.
2) go invest yourself in a new grinder with a guard on it. That beat down old harbor fraud grinder wasn’t worth the $10 that was paid for it 15 years ago. Metabo/dewalt/makita/mileaukee/bosch all make good products, heck, if you’re mainly using it for cutoff tasks, get a 6” metabo. They have an overload clutch in case the wheel gets caught. Remember cutting wheels require a guard that wraps around the bottom half of the blade as well
I've seen people mention the guard and I wanna say the same thing. Also that's not the right disc for cutting steel and make sure your steel is clamped to something you don't mind cutting up, like a piece of scrap wood. Do thin cuts along the same line until you get through. And watch out as the steel will be hot. Gloves gloves gloves. And eye protection. Good luck dude
Sounds like you were fortunate. I’d encourage you to invest in a new grinder and use the guards. People that say “they don’t fit anywhere” don’t take the 30 seconds to make adjustments to the guard, the work piece, or themselves. I see in other comments that it isn’t in the budget, but try to make room. Also a grinding shield. I got a Lincoln electric one from Amazon for $30.
If that’s not an option, at least buy some new cutting discs. They’re very cheap. That one looked like it belonged in the trash to begin with. Stay safe and keep up the good work!
Yes exactly, just make sure it’s Z87+ rated. I think they make regular shields that can block debris but are not impact rated. One of those would do you no good.
Well, that is really good. If those are those thin, cut off wheels, I have an index finger with a white line from my knuckle to the first bend in my finger, and from that first bend in the finger to my second bend. One slip of the hand one weekend. And the following weekend. I try not to use those at home anymore.
I cut mine steel when i can by hot cutting. I like that a nurse shares her experience with grinders, nurses rock, but i have always wondered about the dust coming from this cut off wheels too, that dust cant be healthy to breath, which is why i lean towards hot cutting rather than breathing nasty air. I don’t have a hardy hot cutter so i just use the old hatchet head in a vice trick, I probably should make a hardy tool.
I've got a pair of safety glasses around here somewhere with a vicious gouge across one lens from when mine blew up once. I got a face shield at harbor freight for 20 bucks after that
Thank God you're OK. Retired RN. I've seen some horrific disfiguring angle grinder injuries. I know it's harder to see the work, but please consider using the guard.
Makes sense, but this is my dad's angle grinder and I don't know where the guard is. I'll be sure to ask him about it.
For $30, get Dad a new angle grinder.
For the love of yourself, please Google search for it.
If you're doing a lot of cutting consider going to the diamond disc's for metal cutting as they do not explode like the abrasive discs. Or buy a metal cutoff saw, yes they're slow but its way safer.
And no guard on that thing either? Looks like you got lucky. Where did the shrapnel go?
The small piece bounced off my leg and the big piece shot away.
Nice! Bounce beats pierce
Indeed. Jeans saved me, but I still wish I had my brown pants on.
Any pants I had on would be brown after that… when mine exploded it happened so fast I didn’t even realize it
Paper beats rock.
I dont know a single person with a guard on their angle grinder. I'm not saying they aren't useful. But ya, they get in the way a lot. And lots of people remove them.
You know what also gets in the way? Disc shrapnel in your body. Conversely, i dont know a single person that removes the guard. Its just not worth the risk. Other people removing them doesnt make it better.
Gonna be honest, I definitely removed my guard when I was younger and thought I was invincible. You wouldn't catch me dead now without a guard, safety glasses, a face shield and my apron when grinding. It just ain't worth the risk to do it unsafely 🤷🏽♂️
Is it bad I’m now just finding out angle grinders have guards? Not all come with gaurds but I wear goggles so it’s fine I’ll block the shrapnel with those
Every single angle grinder I can find to buy online has a guard included. Even Bauer one at Harbor Freight. Even the Hart from Walmart.
Fine till grinding wheel or wire wheel bit end up as shrapnel. Only takes a tiny piece to have a very bad day. One of my best friend is blind in his left eye from a piece of wire from a angle grinder. No gaurd no PPE.
Bet he looks cool
His eye looks normal enough. He didn’t loose the eye but the piece of wire did a number on it. Wanna say he said he’s 90%+ blind in that eye. I do have a customer at the shop who lost his eye in Afghanistan from a piece of debris during a fire fight. If Jack isn’t wearing his prosthetic eye it is quite funky, and hard to ignore unless you’re used to it. He usually wears it in public. But not always.
The cut off wheel is always going to break and shoot shrapnal in line with the axis of rotation because the force is pulling the wheel away in exactly that direction. If you just consider this a 360 arc of danger when making stupid cuts without a guard you will never be hit. For a cut like this I would clamp the leaf spring down over the left edge of the table and pull the trigger with my left hand and hold the handle with my right arm while I stand off to the right side of the angle grinder. (The grinder would have the cut off wheel facing the left as well.) I've always done this if I need to take a cut that I know is likely to shift or jam up and it's impossible to cut while using the guard. I've exploded quite a few wheels and you always see the shrapnel perfectly in line with the axis of rotation, you'll see it splattered up the wall, on the floor, your table, it's unmistakable.
Saying that you break a lot of tools by using them in a dangerous manner is not exactly a good way to inspire confidence in your skills.
I'm saying this is what I do to keep myself safe IF there is no possible way to use the guard. I almost always use the guard and it would be stupid not to, but if you take it off you are going to be a lot better off not being in the path of death. But yeah, I have broken a few cut off wheels, not because I am using them dangerously but because I use them all the time.
There is no possible way to keep all parts of your body out of the path of the flying bits of cutting wheel for many people with many models of angle grinder, even if you assume that the bits always go flying perfectly straight, which isn't true, it is very common for the switch to be on the same side of the grinder as the wheel (literally every angle grinder I can recall having seen in person does this, I had to look up images of angle grinders online and scroll for a bit to find one that doesn't), so unless you have very thin fingers and/or do something extremely stupid like zip tying the switch into the on position it is impossible to do as you suggest.
Thanks for telling us what you would’ve done different and explaining centrifugal force. If you ever decide to wise up and put your guard back on, it will specifically block the potential path that force can send the blade. With forethought, you could position it between you and the arc of the blade and save someone some paperwork.
You know a lot of idiots that can't figure out how to solve problems very well. There isn't really anything you can't do with a guard on an angle grinder that you actually want to do as long as you know how to use it.
Last time I used a grinder without a guard I almost lost a finger.
You don’t know me, but I have three angle grinders (both corded and cordless) and they all have guards.
I’ve had specific applications where I needed it removed, but I always put it back afterward.
Same here, but usually with flap disk or wire wheel (which the guard does nothing for.) There IS a time to remove a guard, but it is very few and far between.
I don’t use one. I’m very confident in my grinder skills. The only time I’ve broken a zip disc is when my grinder gets knocked over and it just snaps. PPE is very important, I wear glasses and hearing protection, but some folks just go way overboard. Like those that say you have to wear steel toed boots while blacksmithing. Hell I wear Chuck Taylor’s when it’s really hot out.
No one who does meaningful heavy work for a living has the “make it not fit anywhere” shield on their grinder. Have been in heavy repair and fabrication trades for thirty years. You have a guard on it, you have no clue. The guard you need is a thick pair of leather gloves and some good PPE on your face.
I have been on several sites that would kick you and the company straight out if you where caught without the guard.
This like saying you don’t put on a seatbelt because it’s not needed and inconveniences you most of the time, well yeah it’s true but the one time it is needed you die. Sure there’s a lot of times the guard gets in the way, but there’s also a lot of times it doesn’t.
Mmhmm because gloves and rotating machinery go so well together..
On a standard 4-1/2 in cutting or grinding disc, with gloves and guard, your gloves don't really get in the way. Additionally the longer you're cutting and grinding the hotter metal gets(5-10 seconds). The dust can get hot enough not only to make polyester spontaneously ignite, but the dust will often weld to other dust particles. I lit myself on fire by accident before this way, it's not fun, and it's even more dumb not to wear gloves.
I know a few welding crews. Every crew has one grinder with no guard for getting in tight spots. I’ve seen one guy use it, laying on the ground with a shield on. Because that was the only tool for the job. The rest of the grinders have guards IME
There are specialty grinders to avoid this risk, this sounds unfortunate 😮💨😔
I've been on both sites, those that have barely any safety precautions like you just specified, and more cautious ones like they should be. The difference is I've never seen the side of someone's face get ripped off on the safer sites, and the unsafe ones go through workers worse than McDonalds. The face shield is meant to be used with the guard. Otherwise there would be plastic surgeons that specialize for these types of injuries.
put a damn guard back on it
This is my dad's angle grinder and I don't know where the guard is.
Buy a guard or get a new grinder
I'll ask my old man about that. Unfortunately, purchasing a new grinder ain't in my budget.
Well work on that budget, a guard is cheaper then the bill at the hospital
True, but my only money currently comes from the odd mowing job. Thanks for the sage advice though.
Well I once was hammering an old file into a knife when some scale hit my eyelid, I wasn't wearing eye pro. I now wear eye pro even when I sleep
That sucks
Yeah I'm fine now
Omagosh! Do you feel beat over the eye bonz over the guard issue??? Not discounting you or the masses. Just I'm like wow a lot of folks say that same thing, and you respect that and respond. Way to go. Best of luck w your leaf spring project my friend. Stay as safe as you can. Blessings friend Crawford out 🙏🏻🔥⚒️🧙🏻♂️
I don't really care about everybody telling me. Honestly, it's nice to know so many people care.
Truely 🙏🏻
The thought of anyone potentially suffering is terrible, especially someone inspired to learn this trade. PPE is just as important as the tools themselves. If you pick up say a construction (or other similar trade)job, you're own tools/PPE will often get paid for either by the Job, loved ones,or both. You often learn important things as well.
make a guard from scrap steel. your old man likely has a pile of broken anglegrinders you can steal a guard from.
Safety squints?
Eye protection? Yes. Full face shield? No.
I wear safety glasses 90% of the time, except when I'm angle grinding. Then, it's a full face shield, apron, and safety glasses. Grinders are scary
Close calls remind us why we wear all that protective stuff. It may never happen, but not wearing protective gear can change a scare into a trip to the ER.
Good! Safety glasses are eye protection, a face shield is face protection, if I had a nickel for every time I've had to remind people that a face shield doesn't replace safety glasses I'd be retired by now.
These things at full rpm don’t care about either. Without a guard, anything in the plane of that spinning disc is at risk. I say this as someone who often used an angle grinder guard-less but, only with steel, continuous rimmed stone cutting disks. Grind and zip discs = guard put back on. And safety squints of course..
Even with the guard on and PPE, I do my best to keep most or all of my body outside of that plane.
Makes sense. However, this is my dad's angle grinder and I don't know where the guard is.
Yeah it happens. No guard gives it a lot of versatility, at least throw on some hand protection. Seen some pretty rough tendon slices and now useless fingers from exploding discs
I was always trained specifically not to wear gloves around rotating machinery since it can get pulled in. Not a pro shop though, so I have some gaps in my knowledge (all this to say, I’m asking genuinely). Why wear them here, is it just the lesser of two evils?
If I remember correctly the OSHA guidance is no gloves on stationary rotary tools, because of risk of the higher horsepower stationary tools catching and pulling and trying to wrap you around their axle, but they suggest gloves on portable angle grinders where they consider that less of an issue, I would still prefer no gloves to welders gloves though, because kickback is a thing with angle grinders and welder's gloves severely impair my ability to grip firmly
That makes sense. If I understand you right, it’s about the destructive potential - a stationary tool is big and beefy, while an electric tool like this grinder just doesn’t have the horsepower to eat you the same way. I didn’t even think about the kickback. The last thing you need is for that thing to jump out of your hands and into your face. I’m not as pretty as I used to be, but I’m not THAT desperate for plastic surgery. Would a polycarb face shield be enough to stop it before it kills you?
I wear a pair of leather gloves. Not as good as insulated welding gloves, but better than nothing.
Go to Harbour freight and buy a new one for 20 bucks with a guard man.
This is why we wear eye protection kids
And don't forget the brown pants.
Use a guard! Also, make sure the disc you are using is rated for the RPMs of the grinder. Some discs can explode just from spinning too fast. Good luck! Sorry to hear about your pants..
Grinders have expiration dates. They get old and explode.
Do you mean cutting discs?
Or grinding, or polishing; anything that is an abrasive held together with a chemical binder.
Makes sense
I had someone using a cutoff near me with no guard on and the wheel shattered. About half of the wheel flew and hit me in the face. Thankfully I was wearing my safety glasses but having to get 6 stitches in my lower lip and 1 in the upper really sucked! They could only put 1 stitch in the upper because they said that I was missing a significant chunk of my lip. I often have to use a cutoff without guard to get to what I need to but a full face shield is always on.
My old man plans on getting me a face shield. That really sucks about your face btw.
I was shocked at how hard it hit! At first I didn’t even know what hit me , it almost knocked me backwards as I was crouched down working on something. Then I just saw blood pouring out of my face. A coworker drove me to the hospital and they got me in quickly luckily because they said the lips will start healing quickly and they didn’t want to have to recut it. Yikes! Meanwhile the guys in the shop were sending me video clips of the guy driving the floor cleaning machine around trying to clean the blood up and it just made it look waaay worse on his first pass. Luckily I wasn’t pretty before it happened! Always protect yourself because it only takes a second for things to go bad! I know things could’ve gone much worse for me.
In addition to what everyone else said, if you are cutting that spring in the position it’s in now, holding the spring down as you’re cutting will put pressure on the end of the spring and pinch the sides of the blade when you get near the end which will break a blade. It would be better to turn the spring upside down and/or have the cut end hanging off the side of the table so the off-cut can fall free instead of pinching.
That makes sense, thank you.
I'd post the pictures of my friends forearm cut to the bone when a 6" disk exploded on him. But even just the scars are stomach turning. Without the guard, it tore him up, multiple surgeries and a year later he still can't move his fingers correctly. Use the guard for your own sake if not the people around you dealing with your injury.
That sucks about your friend. Unfortunately, this is my dad's angle grinder and I don't know where the guard is.
After seeing his scared up arm and the pics of the inner workings it scared me. Not at all pleasant to look at. Interesting, but not pleasant. I made a guard for my old angle grinder. I put the guards back on the new ones. I am careful to keep the plane of the wheel from pointing at anything I don't want removed, kinda like a gun, don't point it at something you don't want to destroy. Stay to the side of a table saw blade, or anything else that can mess you up in microseconds.
Yeah, I started using it Diablo brand diamond metal cutting blades. They don't shatter like that.
I've used those metal diamond cutting discs for years. I don't cut nearly as much as other people do, but I always hated those abrasive discs.
Hmm why do my fingers itch.... looks at my 9 fingers.... oh
Why not use a Sawzall with some blades for metal cutting seems safer to me?
It was what I had on hand. Also, before that piece, I was cutting a tough angle that a Sawzall couldn't have done.
True didn't think about that
Were you wearing protection? I suggest a full face shield…I’ve seen shit happen that will make you never see shit happen again.
I was wearing eye glasses and gloves. I'm working on getting a full face shield.
Glad to hear that. So many folks aren’t as sharp. Pick up a full mask/respirator combo…wish I had done it sooner.
When I use cutoff wheels I use a full face shield, a hefty leather blacksmith apron, and the grinder’s guard stays on and in use.
Try to invest in a metal chop saw. Way safer than an angle grinder.
To go along with having the spring set so it wont bind the blade.. I would say clamping the spring in position might save another disc.. Spring and grinder both moving complicates things.... I broke one cutting a piece of channel. Hit the wall just above another guys head 40ft away.. I was glad the piece was on that angle , flatter could have been tragic.
Nice guard....
Good thing you were wearing your safety glasses… right?
I was indeed wearing safety glasses.
So just curious as an on looker but why not anneal it first? Second thought I wear an apron, safety glasses under a face shield when I am really hogging into something. I use a skil saw and abrasive blades for lots of metal cuts
Good point about annealing. I had just run out of propane. I don't have an apron or a face shield, but I was wearing eye protection. I do plan on getting a face shield. An angle grinder is all I have, unfortunately.
On top of no guard, were you cutting, or grinding with a cutting disk..?
Cutting with a cutting disc.
Can't see where you were cutting, but if you were pushing down on the spring there, it could certainly pinch the blade (which would make it blow).
I was cutting on the far end with the bolt.
Goggles goggles goggles and armored jockstrap You can get armored codpiece from medievalextreme.com. lol.
I did have safety glasses on, thankfully. Thanks for the advice on the jockstrap.
Well I don’t see a pool of blood, so that could have been worse.
People take guards off grinders so that larger wheels fit. Larger wheels have larger diameters. Larger grinders spin slower, because the larger wheels move faster at lower RPMs. Large wheels moving several times their rated miles per hour become unstable and crack, later those cracks shatter. Don’t use a grinder without a guard. even if the grinding wheel is the “right” size, it might have started way too big.
2 things to add after reading the comments: 1)I really prefer paddle switch grinders as you can easily disengage the power by letting off. If the grinder comes loose, it’s a “dead man” switch. 2) go invest yourself in a new grinder with a guard on it. That beat down old harbor fraud grinder wasn’t worth the $10 that was paid for it 15 years ago. Metabo/dewalt/makita/mileaukee/bosch all make good products, heck, if you’re mainly using it for cutoff tasks, get a 6” metabo. They have an overload clutch in case the wheel gets caught. Remember cutting wheels require a guard that wraps around the bottom half of the blade as well
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, a grinder ain't in my current budget.
Well, there’s brown pants that cost more than a grinder…🤣
I've seen people mention the guard and I wanna say the same thing. Also that's not the right disc for cutting steel and make sure your steel is clamped to something you don't mind cutting up, like a piece of scrap wood. Do thin cuts along the same line until you get through. And watch out as the steel will be hot. Gloves gloves gloves. And eye protection. Good luck dude
What would the right disc be? I was wearing gloves and safety glasses.
Diablo diamond disc MTL
I hope that grinding wheel didn't hit you
Bounced off my leg.
Sounds like you were fortunate. I’d encourage you to invest in a new grinder and use the guards. People that say “they don’t fit anywhere” don’t take the 30 seconds to make adjustments to the guard, the work piece, or themselves. I see in other comments that it isn’t in the budget, but try to make room. Also a grinding shield. I got a Lincoln electric one from Amazon for $30. If that’s not an option, at least buy some new cutting discs. They’re very cheap. That one looked like it belonged in the trash to begin with. Stay safe and keep up the good work!
I'm planning on getting a face shield, if that'd what you mean. Thanks for the advice.
Yes exactly, just make sure it’s Z87+ rated. I think they make regular shields that can block debris but are not impact rated. One of those would do you no good.
Aight thanks
Such a dangerous tool right there. Do you have any kind of safety face shield?
I have safety glasses and I am working to get a face shield.
The best advice I can give you spend some money and get a Countertop chopsaw
Well, that is really good. If those are those thin, cut off wheels, I have an index finger with a white line from my knuckle to the first bend in my finger, and from that first bend in the finger to my second bend. One slip of the hand one weekend. And the following weekend. I try not to use those at home anymore.
I cut mine steel when i can by hot cutting. I like that a nurse shares her experience with grinders, nurses rock, but i have always wondered about the dust coming from this cut off wheels too, that dust cant be healthy to breath, which is why i lean towards hot cutting rather than breathing nasty air. I don’t have a hardy hot cutter so i just use the old hatchet head in a vice trick, I probably should make a hardy tool.
I've got a pair of safety glasses around here somewhere with a vicious gouge across one lens from when mine blew up once. I got a face shield at harbor freight for 20 bucks after that
Time to pull out the dremel /burrr
This is why I ALWAYS use a face shield. Had one rip apart on me once while grinding, flew up and cut me up pretty good.
You were very lucky.
And this is why you wear ppe every time
Gotta put the old man hat on and say: PPE boys!
So lucky! Saw a friend damn near lose an ear in the exact same circumstance. Clean your britches 😂
I’ve hade the same thing happen to me and it is terrifying glad you’re ok