No gloves.

No gloves around any moving machinery. Better to lose a chunk of finger than entire finger.

No gloves

What they said.

NEVER wear gloves around machines.

At my old job, we had a kid nearly lose a finger to a milling machine because he didn't adhere to our safety protocols (or follow posted signs ON THE MACHINE!). He was lucky and only sprained it. Could have been FAR FAR worse (eg. Michael Ironside in The Machinist... )

Right. And without the gloves you will probably get some nicks and cuts, which you can heal pretty easily. Losing a finger is a little more of an ordeal.

Read at your own risk. Gruesome stuff.
http://madmodder.net/index.php?topic=9069.0

No Mas! No Gloves!

No gloves.

I use gloves. They are the tight fitting that have a orange rubber over fingers and palm. I have never had any problems. The rpm on the wheels are not that powerful and you must always respect the wheel and the direction it is spinning. Also avoid getting you fingers too close which is always the safest bet with or without gloves.

Seriously? No gloves is the consensus? I'm surprised. The wheel is totally free with no guard on mine- I thought that was pretty standard. What would your glove get caught on? The shaft somehow? Guess I should reconsider this

Another reason is if one is buffing small parts.
If one is holding in gloved hands, it can be harder to sense grip, and a
small piece of metal flying off hurts like hell to get hit!
Usually a Plexiglass screen in front for protection, but sometimes polishing without one,
I trust my finger pressure, if I havent clamped down a piece for buffing.

I am glad I read this because I did not think of a possible catching issue. I just bought a bench grinder for metal polishing which I have not used yet but I had used one attached to my drill and had a rash all over my hand from what I figured was contact dermatitis from the polishing compound. The rash caused all the skin on my hand to peel off and took weeks to get better. Of course, that is MUCH better than loosing a finger. Glad I read this!

I think most of the time gloves on this type of stationary device are overkill.

Goggles and or face shield a must. Gloves are not really worth the loss in finger dexterity to me.

If you have flipdown plastic gaurds it should save your hands from hot metal pieces.

Really ?? I use nothing and have never had a problem.

I'll go further.

NO GLOVES. NO RINGS.

Wow, I wear leather gloves mostly to prevent the annoying shocks I get when buffing metal. After reading this, I won't wear gloves anymore, but how do you prevent the shocks? (static electricity build up)

Is bolting it down a must? I've seen videos where folks are buffing in the driveway (for better air circulation I guess) and I don't think they've bolted it to the ground out there (it's bolted to the stand, but that's not enough)?

i dont have room to permanently bolt a stand down. I keep a foot on the base if it wants to walk, caould also just put something heavy on the feet, sand bag, cat littler, concrete bag, etc.

I actually stopped using my bench buffer a few years ago. No matter what I did, it always felt unsafe.

Wear a respirator and a full face shield.

If a ball guide gets wrapped around the wheel, you don't want it flying up and slicing your face and eyes.

... And tuck in your shirt

Tucking in your shirt is VERY valuable advice.

Using a real buffer (rather than a grinder/buffer) is safer because it runs at 1/2 the RPMs.

Getting the buffer off the bench and onto a stand makes it safer still, as you don't have the workbench surface to deflect off of.

A 5 gallon bucket filled with cement mix allows you a semi-portable stand base ( 100lbs), that you can dolly out to the driveway. Just set the base pipe into the wet mix

image_21076.jpg

Oddly enough, that's the actual buffer I have (minus stand).

It wasn't so much the buffer not being locked down. It kept grabbing parts from my hand and I was afraid I was eventually going to take one to the head/chest.

I once had a piece of plexiglass explode on a table saw and cut my chest up, so I get nervous when the tools start grabbing things.

I put that stand into concrete, lol.

Although if you want to use it as it, drill the pipe at one of those holes, then tap it and run a bolt through the stand and through the pipe.

Good point. Now, while it's not LIKELY anything is going to happen with the ring, if the ring gets caught on some sort of torsion device, you get to be 'degloved'. No links this time, but if you are terribly interested, google "ring deglove" at YOUR OWN RISK.

easy fix, drill the post to have the screw go into the post rather than on the surface like a set screw.