Dumb things that you did.......because you didn't know any better.

Rainy Day Auto said

I tried to drill out the back of a crankshaft to accept a 4 speed. It was a shallow undrilled 383 crank. I had a big drill bit and big 1/2 inch drill. I had to hold on with both hands.

So I got it cutting pretty good, i had my weight on it. I let go of one hand while it was running. It went a little off center when I let go of one hand and it caught a burr and whipped the drill around violently while I was still holding on with one hand.

I felt a big pop from my wrist and then it felt like my wrist was on fire. I let go and dropped the drill and I couldn't feel my hand.

Clean wrist break.

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That was a hard lesson learned. I've never broken my wrist or arm, but I've come CLOSE and seen someone else do it. When I worked at a local mom and pop machine shop when I was in school....and a little after, we used an OLD (like 1940s) Hand held Delta Rockwell 1/2 electric drill. One of them gear drive bad boys. It even had the screw on horizontal handle to hold onto. We used it to finish hone blocks. You had to be careful, because if you went too far down into the main cap area, the end of the hone would hang up on that part of the block. Most times, you were coming right back up anyway, so most times it let loose. But sometimes it didn't. When that happened, you better be ready to turn it loose and I mean QUICK, because you were NOT stopping that drill. Wasn't happenin. The guy I worked with broke both bones in his forearm one day doing just that. Tell you somethin funny. I was REAL stout in my chest and arms when I was young. I'm still not weak there by any means. I had that same drill hang up on me and I didn't let it go in time, but I held on. It BROKE the drive shaft to the hone right in half. Snapped it like a twig. Amos (the guy I worked with) just looked at me with his jaw on the floor. He said "Mr Rob, I ain't ever gonna piss you off" LOL! I did of course, weld the shaft back together. lol