rigger wrote:
David Utidjian wrote:
Gunner wrote:
On Sat, 11 Mar 2006 23:11:15 -0500, David Utidjian
wrote:
Most of my customers shops have the tailstocks at the wall..with the
lathe at a 45' angle for this reason. Gives a bit more floor space
than a true 90
Gunner
Thanks for the pointers.
A few comments:
As I understand it OSHA requires that machine tools be anchored to the
floor. This shop is in a small state college in New Jersey. I am
required to comply
blink blink...most lathes, such as virtually ALL Hardinges..have
absolutely NO provision for bolting to the floor. In fact..the only
machines Ive ever seen bolted to the floor were bar feeders attached
to lathes (and special provisions had to be made for most of those
lathes to be bolted down..IE welding tabs on the bases and I dont
think Ive ever seen a mill of any type bolted down.
I am not making this up.
See: http://tinyurl.com/mghf2
You may have the luxury of ignoring 1910.212(b) but I do not.
Shears, power brakes and stuff that have a hell of a lot of gross
physical movement..yes indeed. But..damed little else
To that I would add machines that are top heavy- drill presses, pedestal
grinders, some hydraulic presses, and anything where the machine is
rather heavy relative to the mass of the stand it is mounted on. Also
machines that may have large horizontal forces applied (whether designed
to or not) such as table saws, tubing and bar benders, polishers and
grinders, planers and sanders... I know many of them are designed to be
portable and can have quite spindly bases.
All of the machine tools and power tools we have in this shop that are
designed for a fixed location have provisions in the base for bolting
them to the floor... lathe, drill presses, band saw, horizontal mill,
vertical mill, pedestal grinder, belt sander... all have holes in the
base and all the manuals say to bolt them to the floor. All of these
machine tools and their manuals are circa the early 1970s.
And Im a professional machine tool mechanic. Its how I make my biscuts
and gravy.
I'm certainly not going to question your status or professionalism...
however... if we contracted you to install the machines in this shop it
would be specified that it would have to be in compliance with current
OSHA regulations. If the tools are designed for a fixed location and
were not all anchored as required in OSHA 1910.212(b) you would not get
paid because you had failed to fulfill your part of the contract.
That said... some of the aftermarket "guards" that they asked me to
install on the drill-presses were worse than nothing. (They meaning the
people whos job it is to oversee "safety" at my work). Crappy little
plastic shrapnel generators would be the kindest description. They
completely ignored the biggest hazard that I know of in general drill
press work... proper work holding fixtures for sheet metal, plastic and
wood.
Thanks again for your advice and experience.
-DU-...etc...
I doubt anyone would suggest you'd made anything up however here's my
take:
During 13 years of machinery moving I never heard of a company being
cited for not having machines fastened to the floor although easily 75%
of the machines we installed and removed had no such fastening.
During 8 years of machine rebuilding and sales the results were
comparable. In fact fastening a precision machine downward is almost
sure to affect it's accuracy in a negative way, hence the main reason
(in my book) for not fastening.
During almost 23 years with a machinery manufacturer in production (3
years) and service departments (20 years), working with customer's
problems (thousands of installed machines out there), the ONLY time
fastening to the floor was required by inspectors, was in the San
Diego, CA area and was due to earthquake ordinances.
If this was considered either an standard OSHA issue or an insurance
company issue I would have heard about it immediately from any new
machine buyer.
That being said there had been a few calls by people who had OSHA
comment about machine movement and asked that it be corrected. This
tells me the interpretation by OSHA is "If it ain't broken (not moving)
don't fix it".
If you want to fasten a machine down, at the feet, just try not to put
ANY stress on it. In fact isn't there provision for leveling between
the bed and stand? The stand is built with relatively little precision
and is probably subject to a lot of expansion and contraction. I'd
suggest putting nothing under the feet (and no tools of hardware can
get under) and just do a good job on the bed.
The question is whether you have to satisfy the OSHA people or the company's
safety engineer, who may have a different view of the regs. I remember one
place I worked the safety engineer required that elaborate guards be put on
a press that had been there since before WWII with no injuries in all that
time. After the guards were installed they had five injuries in the next
two years all associated with the guards.
This same safety engineer wouldn't issue a respirator to a guy spraying
urethane because according to her elaborate air quality measurements that
probably cost ten times as much as the respirator the guy didn't need one.
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)