Have you grabbed the wrong end of a soldering iron?

[Prime73]

Another fun (but much rarer I think) situation is when a ball of hot solder flings off or drops leaving a round indent in your skin for a while. That's only ever happened to me once.

Happened to me I'd say about 20 years ago - still have the mark

[nanofrog]

Never grabbed the wrong end, but have burnt myself a fair number of times. Most involved a firestick that rolled off the cheesy little stands that come with them. Worst one was when it rolled off, and landed in my lap. OUCH!

Most times, it was a finger getting tagged while holding/manipulating solder.  Holding the solder with a hemostat solved that little problem.   

[Neilm]

At work someone in production managed to burn themselves on an iron. They filled in the accident book as required.

Now the company mandates that irons should be turned off at all times unless ready to solder.

[IO390]

Yes, unfortunately.

I've also burned my tongue with a soldering iron too.

As well as a few other places, which I shan't delve into. And no, I have absolutely no idea how. None at all.

Your toungue? how???

Tongue I'm not sure. The rest was one of those little butane soldering irons. The exhaust was on the side just behind the tip, long story short, it fell on my trousers with the exhaust pointing downwards... Fucking lucky I caught it before it burned through.

[Corporate666]

I went to an electronics trade show years ago... I walked by the booth of the local Pace distributor.  I was thinking of buying their irons, so I picked one up and was looking at how the element went in... then I got that sizzle and shooting pain and realized it was turned on and I had just grabbed it firmly with my whole hand.

I quickly dropped it and then put it back into the stand.  The salesman was just standing there dumbfounded, and he said "why would you grab it by the element?"

I looked back at him with the same look and said "why would you have all of these turned on?".

He didn't get it... but to this day, I still don't get why on earth you would have a row of soldering irons all turned on.  It's not like they were doing demonstrations or you could use the iron to test out.  It was just a bunch of irons on a table with the handpieces out front - turned on.  Dumbest.  Idea.  Ever.

[scientist]

Smileys work if you first "preview". They do not work directly from the reply.
(Preview would be a good habit anyway)

No, in Chrome pressing the smiley icons to insert them doesn't work.

[iampoor]

I went to an electronics trade show years ago... I walked by the booth of the local Pace distributor.  I was thinking of buying their irons, so I picked one up and was looking at how the element went in... then I got that sizzle and shooting pain and realized it was turned on and I had just grabbed it firmly with my whole hand.

I quickly dropped it and then put it back into the stand.  The salesman was just standing there dumbfounded, and he said "why would you grab it by the element?"

I looked back at him with the same look and said "why would you have all of these turned on?".

He didn't get it... but to this day, I still don't get why on earth you would have a row of soldering irons all turned on.  It's not like they were doing demonstrations or you could use the iron to test out.  It was just a bunch of irons on a table with the handpieces out front - turned on.  Dumbest.  Idea.  Ever.

Maybe they were too heap to put security tags on them. Leaving them On would do the trick   

[wilheldp]

Well, a common saying is "they'll steal anything that isn't red hot or nailed down."  Having a soldering iron booth has a built-in security system.

[AlfBaz]

I use to do a lot of soldering out in the field and got into the habit of wiping the tip on my work pants. When I went home the habit continued where I wrecked a good pair of pants and burnt my leg on several occasions when I forgot I was wearing shorts

[Frenchie]

Voted yes, but never actually grabbed it per se. Burnt myself several times as a kid by not watching what I was doing and getting the other hand in the way which is just as dumb and warrants a yes vote.

My last burn was grabbing a board with a big copper plane that I'd just hot air reworked.

[IanB]

"Have you grabbed the hot end of a soldering iron?"

No. That would be dumb 

[echen1024]

I remember as an elementary student, I was just getting into electronics, and loved those little Velleman kits I could buy at Fry's. One time, I was using my weller fire cracker, and put it on the stand. Not thinking, I reached over to get it, and I grabbed the tip firmly. Very soon something along the lines of YYEEEOOOOOWWWW and a few Chinese expletives were shooting through the house. I remember throwing the fucking iron against the wall and looking at the big, soldering iron shaped imprint in my palm. Father was not pleased.

[cybermaus]

Smileys work if you first "preview". They do not work directly from the reply.
(Preview would be a good habit anyway)

No, in Chrome pressing the smiley icons to insert them doesn't work.

I am using Chrome. It does not work in the window you get for typing after you press reply or quote. But if you then press preview, but it will work in the window you get after you press preview.

[KJDS]

It wasn't a soldering iron but a big duplexer. About 14kg of metal and there was one very awkward solder joint on it that could only be made by putting the unit on a hot plate and bringing it up to temp. a technician was just finishing the joint and asked if I could inspect it. I peered in, but the light wasn't right, so i picked up this 14kg block to angle it better to the lights. I'd just got a clear view of the joint and could see it was good when one part of my brain told the other part of my brain that it was experiencing pain from the fingers and that something should be done. I put it down gently, otherwise the joint would have failed and we'd have had to start over.

i had no feeling in my fingertips for a while.

[hedgewallace]

Back in year 8 at school, I made a lighthouse in science. I burnt my self so many times I went to school with burns all over my hands, and I couldn't write properly!
no-one else needed to use a soldering iron, so they didn't feel the pain!

Oh there the days when you had a plug in soldering iron without a stand!

I have also burn't my-self using a hot glue gun. I was up-side down gluing wires in our boat, and a bit of glue dripped on my forehead! It was a great start to my holiday, a burn mark on my forehead!

[G7PSK]

Smileys work if you first "preview". They do not work directly from the reply.
(Preview would be a good habit anyway)

No, in Chrome pressing the smiley icons to insert them doesn't work.

I am using Chrome. It does not work in the window you get for typing after you press reply or quote. But if you then press preview, but it will work in the window you get after you press preview.

They worked at one time then they didn't then they did for a short time and now they don't again, now I will try preview.--   Edit. So they do! do they work in edit- No.

[XOIIO]

Back in year 8 at school, I made a lighthouse in science. I burnt my self so many times I went to school with burns all over my hands, and I couldn't write properly!
no-one else needed to use a soldering iron, so they didn't feel the pain!

Oh there the days when you had a plug in soldering iron without a stand!

I have also burn't my-self using a hot glue gun. I was up-side down gluing wires in our boat, and a bit of glue dripped on my forehead! It was a great start to my holiday, a burn mark on my forehead!

Oh man, that's great.

[cybermaus]

Smileys work if you first "preview". They do not work directly from the reply.
(Preview would be a good habit anyway)

No, in Chrome pressing the smiley icons to insert them doesn't work.

I am using Chrome. It does not work in the window you get for typing after you press reply or quote. But if you then press preview, but it will work in the window you get after you press preview.

They worked at one time then they didn't then they did for a short time and now they don't again, now I will try preview.--   Edit. So they do! do they work in edit- No.

But in edit too, you can go to preview, and then they work again.

[c4757p]

This is somewhat relevant.

Christ. Dumbest "safety quiz" I've ever taken.

[cybermaus]

Well, after reading this thread it is clear that #1, #2 and #5 are not as obvious as you would think.


Edit: but seriously: the reason these and other such workplace quizzes are required is not so much to teach people, but to avoid liability. 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.

[grumpydoc]

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.

[Tinkerer]

Never grabbed the hot end bfore but I have burnt myself. Cord got caught and the iron fumbled. Managed to avoid most of it but not before it knicked the back of two of my knuckles. Luckily the spots were only a couple mm. Took the skin right off though.

[vk6zgo]

I would advise you guys to never start playing with HV stuff. Natural selection is always ready and waiting.

Can't say as I've ever grabbed the wrong end of a soldering in all the years I've been using one. Always use the stand!

"Natural selection" my bum!

I've played around with more HV stuff than I care to remember,& I've grabbed the wrong end of an iron.
The hazards of HV are of another level completely,& most people know this.

The worst you are going to get by grabbing the wrong end of an iron is a nasty burn,& once you have done it,you are very unlikely to repeat the experience.

There are other things you can do,though!

Back in the day,a popular iron in Oz was the "Scope" brand.
These used a carbon element which was pressed against the back of the copper tip when a ring around the handle was pushed forward.giving"instant heat".

They were really quite good for valve type equipment,as you could manoeuvre the cold iron between a spiderweb of components,& only have heat when you needed it.
They could also solder quite large terminals & the like.

The downside was that the carbon elements would eventually become too short to make the connection,so that you sat there for a while,before you realised you weren't going to get any heat!

I,and some others developed the habit of testing the iron by holding it fairly close to our faces & waiting to feel the heat from the tip.
One one occasion,I misjudged the distance & placed the iron tip on the tip of my noise---Gee,that made my eyes water!

No lasting agony,though,as human noses aren't very sensitive to pain.

Back when I thought I could learn car bodywork from a book,I was continually picking up the hot end of gas welding rods,whilst attempting to fix rust on an old car.

In one magazine,it was suggested that I bend the cold end into a hook shape so I would know which was which.

This worked well for a while,until I got the "hook" caught under a wheel arch.

Impatiently,I jerked on the rod,it came loose & my hand swung into the very hot outside "feather" of the Oxy -Acetylene flame.

Now,that hurt!
You can forget your "fancy pants" solder tips!!!!

[TerraHertz]

No lasting agony,though, as human noses aren't very sensitive to pain.

Oh that's not true at all!

You know those big dropsaw-like abrasive-wheel cut off machines? Used for sawing through thick bits of steel quickly?
They have a simple clamping setup, to hold the workpiece. Much like a vice.
Which works fine for holding rectangular and round bars, but one time when cutting a piece of Dexion shelving L-beam, I made the rookie mistake of clamping it like this:   Wheel direction ---> ]L[
The problem is Dexion L-beam has a radius corner. So it didn't take much to work it loose from the clamp jaws, especially since the wheel starts cutting from the top down.

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.

Nice cut and swelling and very painful cartilage nose end bits for a while, but no permanent damage.

The whole thing was about as stupid as grabbing the wrong end of a soldering iron. I have no idea how I made that dumb error. Normally I wouldn't have. Not going to again.

[vk6zgo]

OK,but that was more like a massive punch in the nose!

I was really referring to a burn,or even a scratch on the nose--what happened to you is of another order of magnitude------like my Oxy-set burn,compared to a soldering iron burn.