Funny Shop Mishaps

Married2Allis · Dec 8, 2015

After high school I got a job for an HVAC company in their metal shop. I was very glad I never saw any serious injuries, but there were some funny moments. We had to makeup a set of ductwork for each HVAC job. The installers would load them on the truck the next morning. Working with sheet metal you would get cut once in a while. Some installers got really upset when they saw blood on the ductwork! They would come back in at the end of the day and yell at us. Then the shop foreman would yell at us. The funniest thing was there was a bench grinder with one side missing so that when it ran the threaded shaft was exposed and rotating. A couple of guys in the shop had long hair. One day someone had the grinder on and dropped something on the floor and went to pick it up. The next thing he knew most of his hair was gone on the one side of his head. Foreman came out and yelled at us again when he saw the clumps of hair spinning around on the ginder.

IaGary · Dec 8, 2015

We had a newbie at the weld shop.

He build a rectangle shape gas tank.

Boss told him to air check it for leaks. Told him don't go over 3 or 4 pounds of pressure.

The guy thought it would take a while to get to 3 pounds and walked away.

A few seconds latter he no longer had a square tank. It was now round and about 20 foot from where he left it.

Tore the hose when it moved.

He started on a new tank.

Gary

Steve@Advance · Dec 8, 2015

When I was just out of high school, went to work at an automotive machine shop/garage.

One day I was grinding valve seats. The motor that drives the seat grinder had a hex drive ball on the end, think it turned 12,000 RPM. I had the seat grinder motor in my hand. The owners son who was a couple years younger than me, came over and started horsing around.

I had just taken the drive motor off the seat grinder and it was coasting down. I turned slightly and gave him an elbow to get him to go away, but he stepped forward about the same time. Somehow the drive motor caught his T shirt right in the front center. It instantly balled that shirt up and ripped if completely off! It left a big red pucker in the middle of his belly, but could have been much worse!!! We both just stood there, wide eyed, mouth open, scared stupid!

Amazing how fast bad things can happen!

Adirondack case guy · Dec 8, 2015

We had a young fellow working for us in our machinery dealership one summer. He got mad at something he was working on and threw the wrench down he was using and it bounced back at him and gave him a fat lip, which made him even madder. We all thought it was hilarious.
Loren

L.Fure · Dec 8, 2015

Years ago I was at a neighbors shop to help change out a set of snapping rollers in a JD mounted corn picker. We had to change the shafts while doing this. Probably because the ones on the used set we were putting on were worn out. To do this we had to heat the ends of the snapping roll in a coal fired forge. When it was red hot I carried the roll into the shop and clamped it into a large bench vice, then Bob would grab hold of the shaft with a channel lock pliers and work the shaft out. We got the first roll done with no problems. When we got the second one red hot I took it to the vice and clamped it in and Bob grabbed the shaft like he had done the first roll we did. He just gave the shaft a little wiggle, and POW, there was a big bang like a shotgun going off. When the smoke cleared there was Bob standing in a batters position hanging onto the pliers and shaft. His eyes were as big as pie plates. I guess I had the same look on my face, because he asked me if I was alright. I asked him the same thing. Other than having grease splattered on our faces we weren't hurt, just surprised. What had happened was this second snapping roll had the bolts installed at the top of the roll. These were used when the corn stalks were still a little green and the bolt heads were installed to help grip the stalks. With these in the roll was sealed shut and pressure built up in the roll when we heated it. It released when Bob loosened the shaft a little. The looks on our faces after it went off where priceless.

RBoots · Dec 8, 2015

Working on my pickup on the
pit in my shop, I had the
hood open and a 12" crescent
wrench laying on the top of
the core support above the
radiator. I went back
underneath to do something
else, and the cat jumped up
under the hood and knocked
that crescent down when I
happened to be underneath
looking up. That 12" crescent
hit me right between the eyes
on the bridge of the nose and
blackened both of my eyes
lol.

Ross

4520BW · Dec 8, 2015

Worked at a Deere dealer thru collage and we had a helper who was a little different. Would work like a mule but not real bright. One day we sent him to the parts dept to get turn signal fluid or muffler bearings well they sent him to Napa! Bet they got a chuckle too. One time he was going to changing oil in a service truck so someone told him to drain change filter and refill. Well he filled it alright! Good thing we seen it before he started it!

37chief · Dec 8, 2015

When I was working at my factory job, I was in the weld shop. I had just finished cutting a piece of metal with the cutting torch. About that time the boss came in to chew me out about something. As he was at it, he didn't realize he was standing on a glob of hot just cut metal. Don't know if it was the smoke or the heat, but he left hopping on one foot, yelling about his new florsheim shoes.Stan

Ken Macfarlane · Dec 8, 2015

Not in a shop but a summer student who had gone to school with my wife was given the task of removing old abandoned network cables from the ceilings at an office. Not just
any office but the power companies head office. The lead guy pointed at what to cut and Mark we'll call him climbed the ladder with a sawzall to cut the bundles.

Well the first bundle didn't go so well. In the middle of the network cables (which turned out to be good ones) was the 600 V feed to their main server electrical room. It shorted
into the network cables and burned up hundreds of network cards, then shorted phase to phase and blew Mark off the ladder as their computer centre went down.

In the resulting confusion, they accidentally hard shut down the redundant server which took the whole network.

jeremy in NE · Dec 8, 2015

I worked at a manufacturing plant that made oil filters. They had a machine that would cut open the filters, but you had to use the proper base for the filter to sit on and than a
cylinder with a cup on the end would come down and apply pressure to hold the filter in place. The base screwed on to the shaft, so to change it, the shaft had a hole in it to put
a screw driver in to hold it from spinning. I watched the guy put the new base on and put the old one away. What he failed to do was remove the screw driver. Before I could
even hollar he had a filter on and hit the run buttons. That screw driver shot out and hit him in the jiblets. He went down like a ton of bricks. Once I knew he was alright, we
laughed for a long time. Same guy was chasing me around with one of those squirt oil cans, but could not get it to squirt, If i had not seen it first hand I would not have believed
it. He set it on the bench and opened the top to see if it had oil in it. It had oil so he put it back together and started pumping away, but nothing was coming out, So he decides
to look into the end of the tube while pumping away, You guessed it. Squirted right up his nose. I missed him when he quit. Was always good for a laugh.

Karl in MD · Dec 8, 2015

Our electric motor shop used to do a lot of sewer pump rebuilds. One day we had just picked up a 650 hp DC electric motor with the shop crane, and I went out to the warehouse to talk to the boss and the shop manager. KA-BOOM!!!! Dust raining out of the ceiling trusses. We ran into the shop, knowing that the crane had dropped that big motor. Nope. The pump tech was heating a support leg (2" pipe) on a sewer pump with a torch to unscrew it and I guess it was either sewer gas or water that turned to steam, but it blew the end clean out of that 2" pipe cap. Bad part is that when it flew, it hit his hat brim and knocked it clear across the shop. We never did find that end.

Dachshund · Dec 8, 2015

When I was in the USMC (Helicopters), we would send "newbies" for "a gallon of rotor wash", "safety wire stretchers", "50 feet of flight line", etc, etc. The best one though, was when we had an ex "grunt" (infantry) transfer into the squadron. We sent him out into the hanger to work wit "Chili", a Corporal we had. They are working in the sponson (sort of the "wheel well" of a CH-53 Sea Stallion Helicopter.

Chili tells the new guy that he needs the "Fallopian Tube" to fix whatever the problem was - and he needed it NOW! He sends the terrified newbie back to the shop to find it, all the while yelling for him to HURRY! We catch on pretty quick and send him down the hanger to Hydraulics shop - "they borrowed it just this morning". As the poor sod is running toward Hydraulics, Chili is hollering for him to HURRY, or "this thing is gonna BLOW"! Everyone in the hanger can hear Chili's "desperate pleas by this point.
Our hero gets told by Hydraulics that some guy came over from HMM 163 (across the hanger)a few minutes ago, and borrowed it. THEY (163) tell him that someone from our shop just came and got it, so he heads back to us, all the while passing by Chili and his merciless hollering! When he busts into the shop - out of breath, we tell him that it was actually Flight Equipment shop who got it, not us, so go up there and get it!

Well - there happened to be a WM (Woman Marine) assigned to the FE shop, and she was the type that would roll with it and play along - and maybe even give him a biology lesson. The next thing we knew, this poor guy bursts through our shop doors yelling "I get you ------'s for this! I knew it all along!" Then Chili comes busting through the door laughing. We had this poor guy running allover the hanger for over half an hour! He knew he'd been had! Everyone laughed for a good long while over it, including the victim.

Now it was HIS turn to plan for the next newbie.....

fixerupper · Dec 8, 2015

I don't know if this classifies as funny or scary. When I was using the cutting torch in the shop I heard an authoritative sounding WHOOSH come from the other side of the shop. I stopped cutting and glanced around but saw nothing so I resumed cutting. A few seconds later I thought I had better investigate where the sound came from so I looked around closer and saw fumes coming out of the neck of a half full five gallon pail of lacquer thinner. I looked closer and saw flames inside the pail so I put my foot over the neck to starve the flames of oxygen and the fire went out. Soon afterwards I built closed cabinet for flammable paint related items and the lid always goes back on.

oldtanker · Dec 8, 2015

After 20 years in the Army there are so many. One that stands out that fits this really well requires a little explanation.

On the M60A1 tank the sight reticle was etched on to a prism that was the glued to a lens. Sometime, not often the prism would fall off and when you looked through the sight all you had was a clear field of view. The sight had to be pulled out and sent to support maintenance for repair.

I was a gunner on a tank in Germany between 76-78. We had a new kids in and we were doing a crew level inspection of the tank. I looked thought the sight and my primary site had that clear field of view. I told this new PVT to go see our company motor SGT for a box of sight reticles. He sent the PVT to see a turret mechanic at battalion maintenance who then sent him to see one SSG Web at support maintenance. SSG Web was well known for having no sense of humor. We all had a good laugh at this new kid walking about a mile to get reamed out by SSG Web for being stupid and wasting Web's valuable time!

Rick

Dune Country · Dec 8, 2015

In my 20's bunch of us in a buddys garage drinking beer installing a engine I had just rebuilt.
Primed the carb with gas in a beer bottle, fired 'er up, purred like a kitten, to celebrate grabbed a beer bottle and took a BIG swig,you guessed it, it was the gas bottle, wasn't funny then, is now

jacksun65 · Dec 8, 2015

In the Navy we sent a kid to get some prop wash LOL there is such a thing, special soap
for cleaning props.
Working in huey squadron had a call from one that an gearbox chip detector light came
on and were making an emergency landing, The officer of the day took the call but
didn't ask where they were. He sent the emergency crew to the field they were supposed
to go. They got there and couldn't find it. The officer cussed them told them they were
blind ect was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. The plane captain E2
tried to talk to him he told her he didn't have time for her s--t walked off. Chief
warrant WO2 thirty years in asked her whats up. she points to a helo on the other side
of the field and says isn't that the one he's looking for.lol it was ps she stood 6'4"

ObsoElitist · Dec 8, 2015

Working in an auto shop during a slow period, i adusted the air powered barrel grease gun to max, and set up a target above the dumpster. You could fire a gob about 60 feet. I told the guys never fire itnat skin, it couldmcause massive infections. The shop flunky, the bosses brother, one day must have forgot, he hit me in the side of the head from 40 feet away. Just missed my ear canal and did not break skin. I walked over and decked him. I looked at the office and there was the boss, laughing his @ off. He said "its about time someone taught him something he'll remember.".

JRSutton · Dec 8, 2015

Probably not very funny, but certainly memorable. I was working for AT&T - we had a few new server's come in - basically jumbo sized (very heavy) PC's.
One had to be shipped back to the NJ office for whatever reason.

We paid $62,500 for these things - each (a number which is etched into my brain).

Instead of deligating, I just shipped it myself. I grabbed one of the original boxes - put it all in with lots of bubble pack - taped it up real good...

well...

I taped up the open TOP of the box real good. I never thought to look at the BOTTOM of the box...

It shipped in this box originally so I guess I just assumed it was fine. It was not.

To make matters worse, we also had a policy in our office to never insure shipments (to save money). Of course, our shipments were usually worthless
documents, not expensive computer equipment.

Well - you guessed it - the box arrived in NJ with a SMASHED server. Apparently they were moving the box between trucks - or over some kind of gap - and
it fell out - and dropped FAR down onto pavement.

The damage was pretty impressive. Not much was salvageable.

ditchwitch · Dec 8, 2015

When i worked at a machine shop grinding crankshafts there was a fellow i trained to run a lathe
just cleaning up the centers of the crankshafts for the main grinders. he reached over the
crankshaft while it was spinning in the lathe to pick up a dial indicator and when he did the
counter weight from the crankshaft grabbed under his arm and caught his short sleeve t-shirt. Wasnt
nothing left on the man back but the red collar of the t-shirt that was around his neck. Its a
thousand wonders that crankshaft didnt slice him open in his armpit. After all the noise it and he
made and made sure the man was ok it was pretty dang funny watching that lathe spinning with his
shirt wound up in it .

Dblair · Dec 8, 2015

worked in a shop where a turret lathe caught a guys coat and wound him up like button on a sh-- house door and beat his
brains out before the operator could stop the lathe .

dzc3 · Dec 8, 2015

The year was 1957 My father was grinding feed with the JD 70 Diesel. He reached up to shut the pto off, his bibs got caught in the PTO shaft. Thank God he had one arm around the seat. His grip bent the seat, and the pto had his bibs. Said it happened so fast, if he hadn't had a grip on the seat it would have ended badly. Tractor is long gone but I save the seat, just as a reminder.

TimV · Dec 8, 2015

Our shipping department had just installed a new machine to put shrink wrap around pallets--you set the pallet on a turntable, attached the wrap to the pallet, the turntable rotated and wrapped the pallet. Shipping feller was a skinny little not-too-bright fellow--shortly after the installation, someone heard him yelling "help!, help!" and went to investigate. He'd got too close to the pallet while the table was turning and the machine was wrapping HIM up along with the pallet! Shut it off, cut the wrap off, and no harm was done, but it wasn't long afterward he went off to greener pastures, presumably somewhere where the machines didn't try to eat him!

fixerupper · Dec 8, 2015

A neighbor's hired hand came walking up the house naked after the PTO shaft on the grinder mixer caught his clothing. It can happen fast. Marilyn's brother was flopped over and plopped on the ground by a PTO shaft. He Got a rope burn where his pant leg squeezed his leg but otherwise he wasn't hurt. [/b]

casecollectorsc · Dec 8, 2015

My son's buddy was trying to get his truck running in my shop. Beer drinking as usual, pouring gas in the carb with a beer bottle. Engine backfired and started the bottle of gas in his hand on fire, threw it in the corner of the shop. Needless to say we were running around like cats covering poop to get the fire put out.

Bernie/MA · Dec 8, 2015

I built a small hydraulic tank out of 1/4" plate, held about 7 gallons. I had been building 4" diameter air tanks for water collectors that I tested at 40# so that what I was testing my tank at. Suddenly realized it was rocking on the bench because the sides were bulging. I did some calculating and there was 17 tons of pressure in it. That experience helped me later patching a catamaran boat. Bought a gage that would measure 2#.

Royse · Dec 8, 2015

I was in my pole barn working on something, don't remember what.
Simple pole barn, no insulation, no sound dampening at all.
Nobody around but me as far as I knew.

My nephew's girlfriend was outside the pole barn trying to
uncover their race car that was on the trailer parked behind
the pole barn. No one else around as far as she knew.

One of the 6 foot bungie cords got away from her and the metal
end smacked the outside of the pole barn with a full head of steam!
The echos inside that building made it sound like someone had
fired a 10 gauge inside the building! Scared the bejeebees out of me!

I yelled something to the effect of "What was that?" and
apparently did so loudly enough to scare the bejeebies out of
her too since she though she was out there alone!

Nephew married her anyway, and we laugh to this day about
her trying to kill the "old man" by giving him a heart attack.

old-9 · Dec 8, 2015

A buddy of mine was working in a bank and was told to rip out some wire. A very short time later all kinds of police cars came screaming up , guns drawn and all. Seams the alarm wires were still in service.
A couple years later in another branch bank I was moving a panic alarm switch under a desk and butt dialed 911 on my cel phone. Was glad they did not have the GPS feature back then. joe

Andy Martin · Dec 8, 2015

(quoted from post at 12:18:07 12/08/15) In my 20's bunch of us in a buddys garage drinking beer installing a engine I had just rebuilt.
Primed the carb with gas in a beer bottle, fired 'er up, purred like a kitten, to celebrate grabbed a beer bottle and took a BIG swig,you guessed it, it was the gas bottle, wasn't funny then, is now

LOL, that's a gas!

Ted in NE-OH · Dec 8, 2015

I was at work in the shop of an electronics manufacturer. We had mice and one got stuck in a large metal wastebasket. I pored
alcohol on the mouse hoping to asphyxiate it or drown it. That did not work so I hooked up a high voltage power supply to
electrocute the mouse. It arced and set off the alcohol , did the mouse in and my eyebrows.

wisbaker · Dec 8, 2015

We sent an Airman out for a bucket of jet wash and 50 feet of flight line. Of course the idea was to bounce him around to the various supply
offices and jerk him around a bit. Don't know exactly when he figured it out but he got us back, he went back to the dorm and continued
calling in "reports" until we fessed up which was about the time he called, at the end of the day, apologizing for not being able to get the
stuff but that he had an appointment the next morning at main base supply and for us not to worry he was going to get it for us.

We often used trouble shooting matrices when trying to resolve problems with aircraft. The matrix would say something like "test component
"X", if it fails the self test then try component "Y", if "Y" passes order next higher assembly" Well one of my SSGTs was working on a bomb
release system on a B-52 and had gotten the "order next higher assembly" solution. He pulled out the chart for the bomber and looked up the
part number for the item he was working on, them found the part number on the table that would indicate the next higher and next lower
assemblies where. He wrote down the part number and looked at it thinking "my that looks familiar" after thinking about it he smiled and sent
the requisition in. About a day and a half later I got called from Base supply, they were pretty upset and didn't "see the humor" in our
little prank, you see the familiar looking stock number was for one each Boeing B-52 model "H", we figured supply would look at it laugh and
query us to what we really needed, and by that time we might of figured out what was really wrong with the bird. Well they didn't check it
out and sent the requisition off base, depot was not amused. But our Chief of Supply at that time was kind of a jerk and making him and his
squadron look bad wasn't really that hard but we had to have a hobby or we'd go nuts.

daisyman · Dec 8, 2015

Many years ago when the company I worked for was starting out, they had borrowed a small single cylinder air compressor for my area. I had a steel bench with a large steel plate on the wall with small rods welded to it to hang all my tools on. Beside it was my drill press and a plate that I had attached the three tiers of a drill index. The compressor sat under the bench.
This was in a steel building with horizontal purlins, one about a foot off the floor and again about four feet up and so on. One day I had been working at the drill press and the compressor turned on, and I had just stopped for lunch and was setting about 30 feet away and a table. I thought is seemed like that thing had run quite awhile, when, BOOM, the back blew off the tank, hit the bottom purlin, shot up to the second one, and flew about 15 feet over my head and landed about 100 away in the back of the building. The compressor shot across the isle and hit my 6 x 8 foot wood bolt bin, knocked it over against a building pole and scattered stuff everywhere. All the wrenches and drill bits come raining down on that steel bench what seemed like forever. I about ChiTT my pants. It bent the tin on the side of the building and ruined the purlin. Workers poured out of the buildings down the whole block on both sides wondering what happened. The switch on the compressor had stuck and the pop off valve was corroded shut. Mercy me!! If had been still working where I was a few minutes before, it would have cut me in two.
Irv

Repski65706 · Dec 8, 2015

The dealer I worked for had a customers 100hp deutz out back waiting for a bill to be settled. Every year the latest newbie would be given the fall coolant checklist with careful instructions not to forget said deutz. Would keep him pretty busy polling all our mechanics about the radiator location. Fun times.

ObsoElitist · Dec 8, 2015

(quoted from post at 12:18:07 12/08/15) In my 20's bunch of us in a buddys garage drinking beer installing a engine I had just rebuilt.
Primed the carb with gas in a beer bottle, fired 'er up, purred like a kitten, to celebrate grabbed a beer bottle and took a BIG swig,you guessed it, it was the gas bottle, wasn't funny then, is now

Saw a buddy do something like that. Mickey's big Mouth beer bottles do look like the brake fluid can. In my opinion they taste about the same too. He was sick for a few days.

tractorhead · Dec 9, 2015

Walking thru the machine shop many years ago. Two of the machinist were trying to drive a 8inch bearing off of a shaft.One was holding a 1 inch by 3ft. brass bar against the bearing the other swinging the sludge hammer.... Let me show you how to swing that hammer I said. First swing I made with both feet off the ground.... Richie was holding the bar, Maybe he moved or I just missed. nailed Richie right in the nuts. He just stood there for a second then opened his mouth and his false teeth flew over my head. We laughed and laughed...we were dumb a$$ kids then

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