Even making pens can be dangerous!

I’m posting this as a reminder to wear appropriate safety equipment… something I try to always do when in my workshop.

It really paid off and I had a very lucky escape today… This drill chuck and broken bit left the lathe at 700 RPM and bounced off my head today… notice the shattered drill bit stump!!

It’s a really good job I was wearing the cheapo visor on the right (£6.99 from Screwfix), rather than my often used goggles…

…or I’m sure it would have been VERY VERY bad. The drill chuck glanced off where my forehead would have been… just like a header in soccer, with a resounding thwack that pushed me back as if I’d been kicked in the head by a horse!

I normally drill my pen blanks on the lathe, so I’m used to doing it that way, but rather than use the tailstock to wind the drill in and out as I normally do (which is slow), to speed things up I was moving the tailstock out manually. The drill chuck decided to leave the morse taper, snap the drill bit and then it left the lathe like a bullet (with a similar noise), before hitting me a glancing blow where my uncovered forehead would have been had I been wearing the goggles. It may not have been glancing had the visor not been there.

After I recovered from the shock it took me another 25 minutes to find the drill chuck. If I had not been wearing the visor someone could possibly have been looking for my brains instead!

Stay safe people!