Have you grabbed the wrong end of a soldering iron?

[Psi]

The thing with high speed power tools, is if you got it right nothing bad happens, but if you got it wrong, the bad things happen very suddenly and with a loud BANG!

Anyway, loud bang, huge blow to face, and finding myself laying on back on floor. All in one instant.
The bit of steel had come loose, turned, jammed the cutting blade, and been thrown end first at my nose. Like being punched in the face, but with a pointy thing. I can assure you that it hurt, a lot.

Yeah, i tried to cut the end off a paintbrush a few months back using the drop saw.
There was some dried paint set on the very end but the rest of the bristles were brand new and i wanted to save the brush.

The dropsaw started cutting fine but it must have gripped a hard bit of paint and twisted the brush because it swung around violently and smashed into the tip of one of my fingers.
Hurt like hell for a few days but no real injury.

ps, angle grinders scare me the most.

[G7PSK]

I am sure McDonald's wished they made everybody fill in a "Coffee is a scalding hot if you spill it on yourself Yes/No" questionnaire after the infamous hot-coffee lawsuit.

If you read the article (which can fairly easily be verified) it seems entirely appropriate that McDonalds lost that one.

We all like to complain about over-zealous health and safety idiocy but if we never had concerns about improving workplace safety we'd probably still be sending children into working looms to fix broken threads and not worrying about the occasional complete loss of fingers.

Just read all of that and by the same reasoning she should have sued her grandson the car maker and the maker of her clothes. for not having warnings about hot coffee or other liquids in cars, any one and all of the facilitators of her stupid mistake could be held responsible under those criteria. As for serving coffee that is too hot McDonalds would have been held liable for any and all illness caused by the coffee not being sterile due to not being held at sufficient temperature.

[grumpydoc]

As for serving coffee that is too hot McDonalds would have been held liable for any and all illness caused by the coffee not being sterile due to not being held at sufficient temperature.

They would only need t o hold it at 60^oC to kill any bacteria.

The real clincher for me (and I suspect significant for the court) was the fact that there was clear evidence of McD's knowing about the problem as they'd paid out for not merely tens but hundreds of previous claims for scalds but still felt that they should serve the coffee at almost 90^oC.

Also the court did decide that Liebeck had some responsibility in the incident - they ascribed blame 20% to her and 80% to McDonalds.

[lapm]

Haven't taken wrong end but have derped few times otherwise.

For example tried to rest hot soldering iron against my leg, not recommending trying this at home. Luckily reacted fast and didint get too bad burn..

Once sticked hot tip of iron in my other palm.. Thats was painful...

[hiddensoul]

angle grinders scare me the most.

I dont mind small angle grinders but big ones scare me, as do the large demo blades in chain saws as used by emergency services to get in to cars and buildings. I was a volunteer fire fighter for years in Perth and I did car rescue but no way was I using the demo saw 

[Dave Turner]

Never; but in the days when all I had was an Antex I have picked up the iron without realizing I'd trodden on the mains cable and dragged the iron through my hand. Definitely need a new smiley to express this.

[GreyWoolfe]

Perhaps one that says "Dammit, man!"

[babysitter]

Once rested a hot soldering iron on my wrist when initiating a emergency call for somebody else many years ago. Just tried to find the mark but in the meantime it is gone. That was in the days without the money for a stand. Anyway, he most important lesson I learned quite quick: If it starts to move, let it drop.

[johansen]

I managed to burn myself with a soldering iron between the two fingers of my left hand (wasn't entirely sober)
yeah, you know that sensitive spot where the skin is as thin as paper? yeah, right in there. both sides too...


btw, i seem to have developed an allergy to copper dust getting in my nose.. as in, it hurts for days. similar sensation as mild chlorine gas exposure.

[cosmos]

I also had an Antex (15W, must be more than 30years ago now).
These had no stand, only a hook you would hang it by, leaving the element straight up and in the air not touching anything... if you paid attention.
I looked for pictures, these days they are yellow, mine was red with a very small and rounded metal hook.

I must have made most of the stupid things one can do with this one...
Missing getting the hook to catch and catching again it on the way down (by the element ... ouch...)
(as someone else mentioned) stepping on the cable and having the iron ripped out of the hand while trying to put it somewhere above normal work height.
missing getting the hook to catch and melting/burning stuff when it found an unintended new position 20cm further down.
placing it on a flat surface and then moving the cable so it tipped over making a 10cm burn mark ...

Now ... I love my WSD81 ... and the Antex is just a faded memory.

[XOIIO]

I managed to burn myself with a soldering iron between the two fingers of my left hand (wasn't entirely sober)
yeah, you know that sensitive spot where the skin is as thin as paper? yeah, right in there. both sides too...


btw, i seem to have developed an allergy to copper dust getting in my nose.. as in, it hurts for days. similar sensation as mild chlorine gas exposure.

Between the two fingers on your left hand?

What happened to the other three?  (Well, two and a thumb)

[Dave Turner]

Let us consider that in years past, a good many of which I remember, all we had were direct mains antex, weller, solex (or was it solon) et. al. electric soldering irons. My first iron was a lump of copper heated over my mother's coal gas fired oven. Nevertheless good technique allowed the construction of a vast amount of electronic devices.

I'm the happy owner of of a Blackjack BK6000 rework station, currently somewhat underused I'm afraid, which is my instrument of choice on my bench. However don't expect me to throw away my collection of old soldering irons; I for  one won't be without them despite the scars!   

[jwm]

I have not grabbed the wrong end of a soldering iron, but I did get molten solder in my eyeball once.

I was desoldering a shielding can on a circuit board and didn't realize the can was in tension when soldered in place and actually quite springy, perhaps it was squeezed into slightly misplaced holes on the PCB or something. As soon as the last bit of solder melted on one side the metal sprang out of the PCB acting like a little catapult throwing the molten solder right into my face. No permanent damage, I did have a yellow spot on the white of my eye for a while, luckily it didn't hit the lens area. I didn't realize it had actually hit my eyeball (I was too distracted by the solder burning my face) until I looked in the mirror later and saw the spot.

[scientist]

I had a solder ball hit my eyelid, blinked just in time.

[XOIIO]

I have not grabbed the wrong end of a soldering iron, but I did get molten solder in my eyeball once.

I was desoldering a shielding can on a circuit board and didn't realize the can was in tension when soldered in place and actually quite springy, perhaps it was squeezed into slightly misplaced holes on the PCB or something. As soon as the last bit of solder melted on one side the metal sprang out of the PCB acting like a little catapult throwing the molten solder right into my face. No permanent damage, I did have a yellow spot on the white of my eye for a while, luckily it didn't hit the lens area. I didn't realize it had actually hit my eyeball (I was too distracted by the solder burning my face) until I looked in the mirror later and saw the spot.

Holy shit, you got lucky as hell.

I had a solder ball hit my eyelid, blinked just in time.

I think I too got solder on my eyelid, but it was just a little tiny bit, barely anything.

[JuKu]

Once I nudged the cord, pulled the iron off the stand and by instinct, caught a falling object. Unfortunately, I didn't miss.

Another occasion, I did some soldering, needed to change the tip, got distracted, noticed an undone connection and started to install the tip I just took off. Usually, when you change tips, you can put the new tip in place by bare fingers... Ouch!

[peter.mitchell]

i often use a butane soldering iron for prototyping just because i can move it to my other desks ect without hassle, and there is no cable to hit anything on the desk, also the catalyst works as a for air gun in a pinch.

when i put it down for a moment, i often stick it in the center of a solder spool, it's the perfect size, however i also use the same hole in the spool to occasionally hold markers, one day i reached to grab a marker from the spool whilst working on something, turns out it wasn't the marker i grabbed.

[klr5205]

In one of my finer moments I was changing the tip of a hot soldering iron, and in the process I dropped the set screw - so of course I reach down and pick it up! I was rewarded with a nice circular blister between my thumb and forefinger.

[GEuser]

JuKu Ha Ha Ha I did that once I was most worried that it would burn the carpet at first , then it happened again and being fairly quick in movement I thought I was smart to catch it again by the handle this time but it still half got me .

Then another time , exact same situation and iron I got smarter (so one thought) and as it fell off the bench I thinks "Ha you don't fool me this time" and just let it fall , but guess who's foot was directly underneath and was wearing flip flops  , pointy end straight in from the top 

Ha Ha Ha Ha

[jwm]

In one of my finer moments I was changing the tip of a hot soldering iron, and in the process I dropped the set screw - so of course I reach down and pick it up! I was rewarded with a nice circular blister between my thumb and forefinger.

I actually am wary of ever changing my iron tip when it is not on. Or even interacting with it much when it is off. If I develop a muscle memory for tip changing on a cold iron I could easily accidentally do it when distracted when it is on, but if I learn when the iron is hot and I always have to use the silicone heat resistant pad then no big deal if I am distracted and use the pad even if the iron is off. Sort of like I developed the instinctive habit of always tapping my pocket to see if my keys are there when leaving the house whether or not I am locking the door, make the default case I learn fail-safe and don't have to worry about it in the future.

I still have issues where I instinctively untangle the cord of my soldering iron waving the tip around or pulling it towards me without thinking, it's because I regularly have to untangle cords not attached to hot burny things.

[GEuser]

I don't remember and I could not be bothered going back through all the posts

Has Mr Dave been in here or what  ?

[Terabyte2007]

I set my arm down on a 45 watt before. That left a mark!