Builder Injuries

Building an RV takes time and as time passes things happen (or shall I say S#*T happens). Sometimes it is damage to the RV parts or plane and sometimes it is damage to the builder while working on the plane.

Since I just had an accident while trying to bend a part on my canopy, I thought it might be entertaining to hear some stories from other builders about the physical challenges encountered while building their dream.

So I shall start with my folly.

As mentioned I was trying to bend a part of my canopy frame by hand. I was just about finished tweaking it to perfection. I had the part firmly gripped in both hands (like trying to break a small branch). Both thumbs were extended to get better leverage. I needed to give it my all to bring the part into submission when before my eyes I saw my right thumb bend in ways I had never seen before. It was accompanied by a nice snapping/popping sound as well. By the way I am a righty.

My first thoughts were boy this hurts, this can't possibly be good. So I iced it down for a bit and got back to work in the shop. Couldn't really hold anything well without a functioning thumb, but progress must continue. My only concern was how this injury will affect how much building I can get done in the next few weeks. I immobilized it and will probably go to the doctor next week. I have a friend at work who just retired from the Army as a special forces medic. He looked at my war wound and told me I had a class 2 sprained thumb. He also said that "It will heal faster in plaster" so don't be surprised if the doctor recommends a cast. I have been there and done that 30 years ago for the same reason and some thumb. I am not looking forward to seeing the doctor next week. Even if my right hand is in a cast, you all can guess where I will be for the next few weeks.... In the shop!!!!

BTW- My Special Force Friend has a newly released book out ROUGHNECK 91. It is about the last large tank battle in Desert Shield. He was part of a HUMVEE patrol that was attacked by several Iraqi tanks and armored vehicles in Dabecca Pass. My friend and his pals destroyed lots of tanks and armored vehicles without a single loss. You can find his book on AMAZON or at Barnes & Noble, Borders etc.

Paul

Not RV related but entertaining nevertheless. Several years ago I was in my garage trying to get the steering wheel off my old 71 Bronco. Well, as most of you probably know, the wheel is a big old hard plastic deal held on by a single nut and a tapered spline fit. I removed the nut and was trying to simply pull the wheel off. Sometimes this will work if things aren't too stuborn. Anyway, after a couple of hard yanks with no success I decided I'd go over to the tools and grab my steering wheel puller. Funny thing happened though. My brain was already halfway to the toolbox, but my body was somehow still in the truck giving one more almighty yank. Darned if the wheel didn't pop straight off and smash straight into the bridge of my nose, cracking the bone, splitting the skin, causing a concussion, and producing two black eyes by morning. At work the next day (yes, I went in) everybody kept asking what happened. When I'd say that I was hit in the face with a steering wheel they would all say "oh wow, you crashed your truck?". Good times.

Second drilled finger

The drill bit went through and then under the nail at an angle, You can see the dark area to the left of the blood. That really felt good.
And it was an air drill....turning about 2 grand. Thank God I had a drill stop on it!

I was match drilling the longerons to the aft fuselage skins.

Mayhem......

There is no end to the stories of the walking wounded that show up in the offices of the Plastic-Reconstructive Surgeon--I know---I live this deal every day!!

We recently saw a Ph.D. level software integration engineer with a 4 finger amputation-mutilation from trying(?) to clean out a jammed but running lawnmower with his dominant hand------of course he had disabled the "inconvenient" Honda blade clutch years ago......

My nurse said little except..."Mister: Doesn't it say on your paperwork you are an engineer?"

ER tales

cawmd82 said:

There is no end to the stories of the walking wounded that show up in the offices of the Plastic-Reconstructive Surgeon--I know---I live this deal every day!!

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I can imagine! My sister is an ER nurse, and the horror stories she tells should be required listening for every high school kid. Her stories of motorcycle crashes easily convinced me to sell my Harley!

OK, new rule; no more pictures, just textual accounts.

I never broke any skin with the drill, but whatta WEIRD feeling when the drill bit wiggles it's way onto your fingertip.

CJ

No wedding bands!

Mark, I noticed that you're wearing a wedding band. I was also a jeweler for 15 years until several years ago and I could tell you more horror stories about wedding bands and tools/machinery, etc.

My favorite was about a close friend of mine who bought a beautiful set for his wife and a stout, thick band for himself. He owned an automotive parts/repair shop and he was the chief mechanic. I told him to not wear his wedding band while working on cars but the new wifey wouldn't buy that. Before the first year was up, he almost lost the ring finger when the ring contacted the chassis while he was removing the 12 volt cable to the starter. The ring GLOWED red as the juice went through the wrench, through the ring, to ground and barbecued his finger. Needless to say, the ring stayed on the bench after that.

My suggestion is for all you guys to remove your wedding bands when you're working around tools in the shop. Doc will more than likely back me up on this one.

Rings and watches...............

Belong on the bench especially when working ANYWHERE near electricity or running motors. I see a couple of people a year with burns, degloving injuries--all skin pulled off, and the like from mechanic types tangling with their work. Fan belts are exceptionally hard on fingers--I will post photos for the disbelievers if needed....

Now about those motorcycles--wear a helmet, pretend you have a target on your front and back and have a good time--better yet---do a MSF safety course or any of the numerous skills courses to brush up your skills from time to time. I have been to a road race school(Schwantz), a dirt track school (American Supercamp), and a Wheelie school in the last 2 years and know it keeps my skills sharper.

Above all do not go buy a Harley if you have not ridden anything since the Trail 70 you had in 1972.....no different than flying a Beech 18 after 30 years of laying off after flying a 152!!

pierre smith said:

Mark, I noticed that you're wearing a wedding band. I was also a jeweler for 15 years until several years ago and I could tell you more horror stories about wedding bands and tools/machinery, etc.

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Pierre,
Very good point! Back when I worked "hands on" in industrial maintenance I would always take my wedding ring off at work. I've become too lax about it now.

On a side note, my wedding ring is very difficult to remove since I started working on the RV. I think the cleco pliers have "pumped me up".

pierre smith said:

Mark, I noticed that you're wearing a wedding band.

My suggestion is for all you guys to remove your wedding bands when you're working around tools in the shop. Doc will more than likely back me up on this one.

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Your right, I took mine off for good about 6 years ago and I've felt much safer ever since

After spending 25 years at a Fire Dept it never ceases to amaze all the wonderful ways people can find to damage themselves.
My only physical complaint so far are sore joints from all the time spent on the cement floor of the shop. Having had them all tore up from playing Hockey over the years didn't help much either I guess.

I've had my share of stupid mistakes, but nothing very unusual.

When out of town a business trip once (the only real time I have to watch TV) I was watching American Chopper. One of the guys on there was drilling some holes with a drill press. He was wearing work gloves and the bit grabbed the glove and sucked his hand into the bit and chewed it up pretty bad.

Anecdotal, perhaps -- but I don't wear gloves anywhere near a drill press anymore.

Nothing to major for me so far, but of note-Remember that the edges of the parts are like razor blades before they are deburred. I've sliced my hand TWICE now...you think I'd learn. Both times in the same spot, right where your fingers join the palm. OUCH!

The other injury I had was done while constructing my own C-frame dimpling tool (which works great BTW, but the DRDT is MUCH better!). I was tightening down a bolt when the square pipe I was holding on to slipped from my hand, and smacked me right in the forehead. Smacked me hard too! I was stunned for a second, then fell to the ground. It hurt, and no one was there to console me! Yep, I knocked myself out for a second or two. Brilliant.

A belt sander works great on aluminum but even better on a knuckle.

I've read these posts for two years while building my rv, and always chuckled as I read how other people managed to injure themselves as I have on occassion as a automotive tech for 25 years. I thought "those guys will learn now how to be as careful as I am". Well fate patiently waits for the smug, and the other day as I was drilling my cowling, I managed to put a nice deep hole in my middle finger. Took the smug right out of me

Canopy Roll bar mishap!

RV7 - starting on the canopy so layed out the locations for the slider roll bar. Seems it was a total of 7/32" wider than desired.

Instructions say "It can be adjusted quite easily by . . . putting one end on the floor and leaning on the other (to make it narrower). Go slooooowly. It is easy to do too much." Sounds easy enough.

After putting one end on the floor and applying increasing force up to my full body weight (170 lbs) the width refused to budge.

Next I tried my pipe clamp which has a total travel of maybe 4 inches. Still refused to budge!

Since there was no more travel in the pipe clamp I decided to pre-load the roll bar with my strap come-a-long. That plus the 4" of the pipe clamp gave me about 7" of compression. Surely that would do SOMETHING!?

About this time I had a brain f*&^%$ and released the strap come-a-long first before starting to unscrew the pipe clamp. The roll bar started to slip out of the pipe clamp as I merrily continued to unscrew the clamp. Suddenly the rollbar sprang out of the pipe clamp, shot across the workbench and on the way to the floor completely severed one of those veins that protrude from the back of the hand.

Blood everywhere! I have never seen so much blood! I put a clean rag on the wound and woke up my nurse wife. On the way out of the garage to go to the emergency room I stopped long enough to check the roll bar width. Surely it would have moved at least 3/32"!!! NOT!! No movement AT ALL!

7 stitches and 2 hours later I returned to contemplate my next move. I decided to call Van's. Support asked how far out the roll bar was. ONLY 7/32" I said. Oh that is close enough he said. I clamped one side, drilled it and inserted the bolts. Then pushed in the other side the 7/32" with my thumb, clamped it and drilled.

Don't believe everything you read!

End of story!!

Nose Out of Joint

Okay, I'll fess up as well. Back in the old days of -6 construction when you had to jig your fuselage the jig had two 2x6 uprights about 4 feet high that the firewall bolted to. One day I was bending over in front of one of the uprights and as I stood up I turned to my right and proceeded to contact the upright with the right side of my nose. Not unlike the gentlemen's sprained thumb I heard a very distinctive crack after which I became rather dizzy. I went inside to take a look in the mirror and discovered that my nose was clear dislocated to the left side of my face. My nose never did bleed but I ended up having an enjoyable surgery to get things back in alignment.

I won't mention the time I missed the step stool while extrating myself out of the fuselage. The wings weren't mounted yet. To this day there is a warp in the underside fuselage to wing fairing due some part of my body making contact with that piece of skin.

The scars are all badges of honor.

Near miss

While I didn't get hurt, it sure gave me pause. Back in another life I built (and repaired) several ultralights. I was straightening a nose fork--2"X1/4" AL that had quite a bend in it. I tightened it in a vise to remove some of the bend. I strained for all I was worth to get it REALLY tight. The vise was about chest high and as I leaned into the bar, the head broke off the vise. With the spring tension, it shot between my sholder and jaw, missing by inches at most. It flew over 26' to outside the garage before hitting the ground. I figure it had the enery of an exploding grinding wheel. VERY lucky! Never again have I bought a cheap vise.

Bob Kelly

Protection from ourselves

I have access to a new sheet metal shear. It is equipped with the latest safety devices.....including a rigid plexiglass guard which moves up and down with the blade. To make a short story, keep you fingers clear of the plexi guard when stomping on the cut bar especially when working with smaller pieces of metal. That was the same barely healed cross-drilled finger from drilling fuselage longerons. Taking pix was last thing on my mind.

Sounds like a new Discovery Freak Show channel series,
Steve

Not if, but when....

Side-grip Cleco clamps.

This one takes two times to learn. While constructing the empennage, I got in a hurry removing side-grip cleco clamps. I don't remember the actual part. As I removed the clamp, I placed it in my free hand before completely releasing pressure on the pliers. These things are VERY strong. It gave me a nice thick blood blister. I thought to myself, "Wow. That was dumb. Try not to do it again." I bet it wasn't 10 minutes later, I did it again, although not as bad. No blood blister the second time. Since then, it has not happened again. (Fingers crossed!)

I told my dad, who's helping' about my incident. He laughed, then procedded to do the exact same thing himself...twice in ten minutes.

Laugh now, but you've either already done it, or probably will.

Eye Protection

I'll fess up to a rather strange incident from some time ago. Let me start out by saying that I always wear my safety glasses & hearing protection when using power tools. I was deburring the edge of a skin with a hand deburring tool and a chunk of aluminum flew into my eye. After a couple of hours it finally came out and was amazed by how large it was.

Be careful in flying and building.

vmirv8bldr said:

Side-grip Cleco clamps.

This one takes two times to learn. While constructing the empennage, I got in a hurry removing side-grip cleco clamps. I don't remember the actual part. As I removed the clamp, I placed it in my free hand before completely releasing pressure on the pliers. These things are VERY strong. It gave me a nice thick blood blister. I thought to myself, "Wow. That was dumb. Try not to do it again." I bet it wasn't 10 minutes later, I did it again, although not as bad. No blood blister the second time. Since then, it has not happened again. (Fingers crossed!)

I told my dad, who's helping' about my incident. He laughed, then procedded to do the exact same thing himself...twice in ten minutes.

Laugh now, but you've either already done it, or probably will.

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This is hillariously funny but I just have to ask, how deep does this syndrome run in your blood line?
Do you have kids and if so, do they have clamps hanging from thier hands?

It took me a minute to crawl up from the floor to the keyboard.

(I've done it once myself)

Jekyll

Models

ericwolf said:

I'll fess up to a rather strange incident from some time ago. Let me start out by saying that I always wear my safety glasses & hearing protection when using power tools. I was deburring the edge of a skin with a hand deburring tool and a chunk of aluminum flew into my eye. After a couple of hours it finally came out and was amazed by how large it was.

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Some years ago, when I used to build models, I needed to glue a small piece of ply reinforcement above the wire undercarriage legs inside the fuselage. I got cyano onto the piece and was putting it in when I dropped it. Of course, it glued instantly in the wrong place. So out came the screwdriver to pry it back up. Access inside the fuselage was limited. It went ping, and something hit me in the eye. It was a small 1mm square piece of ply laminate that was now superglued smack in the middle of my eye!! Trip to the hospital, 'cos I wasn't going to touch it!! Four hours sitting in the 'emergency' waiting room (typical for the UK) by which time it had disappeared. Fallen/washed out most likely. Eye was all good so got sent home. Still hate safety goggles: for some reason they either steam up. And foreign objects still find their way around safety glasses. I do wear them sometimes though, for particularly hazardous jobs...

Deburr

Whilst drilling a bit for the fuse I manage to drill #40 bit straight into my index finger to the bone.
I SMS (Messaged) a mate that production had temporarily ceased and why.
Received a message back; "Finger should be deburred, dimpled and primed."
Sympathy?
Pete.

What's that smell?

While in the early stages of trimming the plastic off a wing skin rivet line, I picked up a very hot soldering iron, from the hot end! Before the brain registered the pain, I'm thinking "gee, what's the sizzling sound", followed by "that's an interesting smell.." Followed immediately, after the neurons caught up, by "!(@#$&(%!!!,,,,@#$%(*!!!.

Man, that was fun

JimP said:

While in the early stages of trimming the plastic off a wing skin rivet line, I picked up a very hot soldering iron, from the hot end! Before the brain registered the pain, I'm thinking "gee, what's the sizzling sound", followed by "that's an interesting smell.." Followed immediately, after the neurons caught up, by "!(@#$&(%!!!,,,,@#$%(*!!!.

Man, that was fun

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BEEN THERE DONE THAT! Worse part is when you drop the iron and for some stupid reason catch the iron with what will soon be the other bad hand.