As an engineering Technician apprentice we were taught how to use Oxy/Acetelene cylinders correctly and part of this was to watch British Gas supplied safety films, one I will always remember was a small ramp with the Oxygen cylinder laid with the valve at the bottom, the valve was knocked off with a sledge hammer and the cylinder left the ramp like a missile and carried quite a distance, another cylinder was over pressured until the cylinder body split open and almost became a flat sheet.

Martin P

I once pulled a CO2 extinguisher out from under a pile of junk in the garage, it went off and I exited quickly – then ran in and quickly extracted a confused cat!

It wasn't live for more than a few seconds but it created a huge fog!

Neil

twenty five years ago I was a volunteer for the Imperial War Museum at Duxford and I was part of a seven man team who restored "Mary Alice" the museums B17G Flying Fortress, our Crew Chief was an employee of the museum and a seriously qualified Aircraft engineer asked me to remove the CO2 fire extinguisher cylinders from under the Pilot/Copilots seating area, he had checked them, I crawled into the space, not very big, via the front hatch and proceeded to remove them and the pipework until I released the pipework of one when with a loud pop I was sitting in freezing fog with my right hand on fire, I was holding the cylinder by the neck with my thumb and fore finger wrapped around it and now was frozen to the neck, I couldnt see a thing at all and aimed the cylinder to where I thought the hatch was and lobbed it out closely followed by me to watch the cylinder spin on the floor for a minute until it emptied.

Most of the crew fell about laughing as all they could see was steam leaking from every orifice it could around the fuselage and me screaming. The crew cheif sent me of to get my hand looked at and he decided he would check them again before I took anymore out.

Martin P

That's a good tale!

Many, many years ago I lived in a little cottage. I used to collect a rucksac of branches and smaller logs from the nearby forestry, and one day I left a mate making a fire. He tried to start it with a bit of paraffin, but it went out. The warm hearth filled up with a thick white fog of paraffin vapour – then he chucked a match in. He didn't lose any beard,. but he did find himself on the other side of the room and shifted a lot of soot!

Same guy punched a plasterboard wall and made a hole. He was so surprised he tried again, only harder. This time he found a joist and broke his wrist.

Neil

It's the silly stuff that makes the profession lose credibility

Some silly wee lassie from my local council forced a local garage chap I know to buy new tools for his workshop

To say that this guy knew what he was doing would be understatement of the year, most garages wouldn't touch the cars he worked on

But his tools were more than 3 or 5 years old ( or whatever random number these government morons pick) so he had to buy new gear and chuck his "old" tooling

He wouldn't ever employ an apprentice either, too much red tape and interference(I asked him why he wasn't passing on his huge levels of experience)

The car he did for me was fabulous, which was lucky for me when I was in the Republic of Ireland, after about a week of touring round the country I realised that I had the only one around, if it broke down it was a case of abandon it or tow it back at my own expense

Back at Duxford, a fellow volunteer and I were given the task of checking and inflating any tyres on the aircraft exhibits, we took the compressed air trolley around every aircraft topping up where necessary until we got the the BAC Lightning, we connected the bottles to one of the main undercarriage wheels and to our surprise the pressure of the bottles increased, back to our crew chief to report and his response was oop's should have told you to leave them they are much higher pressure than everything else.

Martin P

OUBallie Councils are the new UK Clergy holding Britain back

Send a muppet on a course or two, give 'em a few handouts and they magically become "experts" backed by the unlimited financial and legal powers of the council clergy

The biggest problem is when you tell the council to stuff off other departments will magically appear at your business premises. The highways dept will suddenly appear and give you grief over parked vehicles, environmental health would suddenly be hanging about waiting for a waste bin to search through etc

Things are slowly improving now though, as our society becomes poorer there's less money for the council morons to play at god. One of the biggest problems for businesses was that there were fewer and fewer of them so they got more and more visits from the clergy

I am with ady1 on this…
Too many h and s “inspectors” are two week course veterans.
( and risk assessment is often done by non specialists…with a consequence of “any “risk being too much)..unfortunately the result is often staggeringly over the top.
The result?… well we all have a laugh at these “jobsworths” and the very real contribution of the hse is undermined and ridiculed.

> Her response floored me "Oh no, H&S prevents the bin men from lifting and throwing them into the cart!"

For two weeks after Christmas our bin-men are a suddenly able to lift bin bags, up to three per house.

I've known a couple of bin-men, the worst thing about wheelie bins is they no longer got to sort through the rubbish. One found me my Mamod Roadster, he ended up having a foot crushed by a bin lorry (not by an overweight bin bag), but is sanguine about it as he can now afford to concentrate on his hobby of model boats.

> ff anyone starts quoting EU law, I would demand to be shown the original,

The EU makes a directive, it's our governments that turn them into laws, usually with more zeal than the rest of Europe.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 06/01/2015 16:17:56

We had the Bradbury service rep come to check our 4 poster vehicle ramp for the insurance recently, and he was telling us how he went to do a service on another ramp somewhere else, forgot his ladder , so went to borrow one and had a telling off from the manager because he wasnt properly trained to use it !. So he ended up standing on an oil drum, to do the job !!.

Heard about a bloke went to see his kids at the school sports day, went to take some pictures of them, and was told in no uncertain terms, to put the camera away or have it confiscated !. Later went to get a cup of tea from a machine in the school, only to be told that tea had been banned because it wasnt nutrtional enough. He retorted, " since when has tea ever been nutritional ". ( or words to that effect !! ).

A couple of years back, a bloke gave his camera to one of his kids in a shopping precinct , outside a shop, and told him to take a picture of himself and an old friend who he hadnt seen in years, and had just met in the shop. A security bloke stopped the photo session instantly, causing so much distress, that they all left the precinctin in a terrible state. The chap didnt get a picture of his friend, who died a short while later from cancer. Not H&S I know, but similar. Worlds gone mad !.

I went on a course to be 'acquainted' with the construction regs – can't remember the full title (CDM Regs?) – when they came out in the early 90's. Half way through the course the tutor said to us "well, I've been in the safety business for 25 years and I don't know about you but it's my impression that the most important bit of all this is to get the paperwork right. If in doing so an accident is prevented, then that is a bonus". We all agreed!

Also told by a jobsworth 'safety expert' that it was essential to do a Risk Assessment. If there was then an accident then that was alright (really, convince the person the accident has happened to) because something had obviously occurred that hadn't been thought of when the Risk Assessment was done. So now the risk assesment could be re-done with this added knowledge and everything would be wonderful. Yeah – Right. PYA rules!

We, rightly or wrongly, are in the EU where everything is supposed to be harmonised. So you would think all the same H & S rules would apply.  Level playing field and all that.  You would be wrong.  I have seen enough in France and Holland to known that re H & S they abide by a whole lot of less strenuous rules and have a more relaxed way of doing things that would have factory inspectors and the like here have heart attacks, yet life goes on and there would appear to be no accident issues there. But they do use common sense, and are allowed to think for themselves, both of which is largely absent here it would appear!

Chris

Edited By ChrisH on 06/01/2015 19:44:26

Last two posts have mentioned common sense but I was told, by a guy on my side, that because common sense cannot be defined you cannot use the term.

The case in question was a range of ink mixing machines we used to make. Basically a food mixer on steroids, large motor VDF drive paddle goes into a tub of ink and lathers it up. These had to gain CE to be sold in this country so we contacted the Derby Small Business Bureau for help as we were a member.

Guy comes round to help us, nice guy, very knowledgeable and in no way a jobs worth.

Asked how they worked, showed him and they had a spring cover went on the top of the tub to stop ink splashing.

He asked what stops you lifting the cover and putting your fingers in whilst running. My answer was common sense as the slightest dab of this stuff on your fingers and the missus would be walking round with green drawers for 3 months.

Was told we couldn't use common sense in the handbook as could not be defined.

Then knocked off and went into the house for a cup of coffee, ironically earlier that morning been down to Argos and bought a new kettle as the old one had packed in. So brand new Argos special complete with highly visable CE sticker sat there.

So filled it with cold water, called him to look at this and lifter the lid and stuck my hand in saying "Ouch". Then proceeded to poor said cold water all over by other hand in the sink, saying "ouch" again. then pointed to the CE sticker.

He looked at me, I looked at him, he said "Point taken, so if we change common sense in the handbook proof to "Do not stick fingers in the tub " I think we tick all the boxes and you can have your CE certificate.