Removing the guard from your angle grinder

[06wt]

I do wear a face shield when grinding. Another tip I picked up somewhere is to not put your face in the plane of rotation incase the wheel comes apart.

Chris

learned this the hard way, it happened about 7 years ago now and i still have the scar on my chin

 

[rasit]

If my 17 year old son needs to use one, I put the guard back on as I won’t let him use them without it. If I get hurt that’s my own fault but wouldn't forgive myself if he did.
Davo

That's typical crazy talk. It goes along with the people who say "I've been doing it like this for years and nothing has ever happened." If something were to happen to you, don't you think it's going to hurt your son? When things go bad, all of your loved ones will suffer. Would you forgive yourself for putting them through the anquish of watching you heal? How would it effect them if you couldn't get back to work for six months (or worse)?

I always try to work safe so that I can keep on working, both for myself and those that depend on me.

My 2cents, I'm done ranting now.........

 

[Merkava_4]

I had the guard off of mine forever but recently put it back on when someone I know had a wheel explode and cut his hand really bad. The doctors managed to put his hand back together, but he has movement issues in some fingers and cant feel some parts of his hand at all. I figure a little inconvenience is worth some piece of mind, besides, I'm not young enough to think I'm immortal anymore.

Chris

Been there done that.

 

[z28snksknr]

You just made me upgrade my signature. Congrats!!

Well, about half the time I use my angle grinder, I'm squatting at whatever it is I'm working on... giving whatever is directly in front of me a nice unobstructed shot at my nuts. I always figured that if one of those wheels comes apart for any reason at all, I'd like to have that guard between the exploding wheel pieces and my nuts. Oddly enough, I've had this opinion since I bought the thing when I was 17, and I'm 39 now.
And one time about 8 years ago, it paid off nicely. The wheel exploded, pieces went everywhere, including hitting me on the inside of the leg up toward my knee... but nothing came back and hit me in the nuts.

I was talking to my Lawson dealer about just this subject last week, and he said he always told on of his customers to buy quality USA-made grinding discs (Lawson, of course), and to keep the guard on his grinder. The customer didn't think either was that big a deal.

The Lawson guy saw his customer at the races one day, and he was kinda hobblin funny. He was grinding on his race car, squatting there, and the stone exploded and...anybody? YES, it hit him in the nuts. Actually, it hit him in the pecker, slicing through a pair of blue jeans. Several stitches on his pecker and a week later, he actually whipped it out to show the Lawson guy, and the Lawson guy said "It was yellow and green and black, had stitches on it, and was about the size of a football!" He made a comment about the guy's wife probably liking it, and the guy said he didn't even want to think about *** for a long time.

So ask yourself... what do you like better? Running without the guard on the grinder for some perceived benefit of increased field of view, or a normal-sized pecker without stitches that's always ready to go?

I find that many of my decisions are guided by a long-term view on the relative health of my pecker. So far, I'm batting 1.000.

-Brad

 

[toxicz28]

Of the 3 grinder scars I have, not one would have been prevented or minimized if a guard was present. Gloves, yes; guard, no. I do make a point of always wearing safety glasses and welding gloves, (I guess third time was a charm for that one)leathers, or some type of long sleeves. And I make a point of keeping as much of my body parts out of the rotational path of the grinding wheel, and position the grinder so if/when it does kick out, it goes away from me. For those tight spots, where I can't seem to keep my face out of the spark shower, I have a welding sheild with a large fixed window with double clear lenses in it( just in case) and safety glasses underneath. Not saying this is the right way of doing it, but it is how I do it.
And,as an old timer once told me, (one eye, three teeth, five complete fingers between both hands, and more scars than Frankenstein's monster. Went by the name of "Lucky") "Guards are for amateurs!"

FLAME ON!
Good thing I'm wearing my asbestos underwear.

 

[toxicz28]

As an added note, I will not use wheels that have gotten wet, or that are visibly damaged. As expensive as they are, it is not worth it.

 

[arkangel06]

I do not remove the guard for cutting disks or general grinding disks But i take it off for flap disks sometimes.

 

[slackadjuster]

I remove my guards. I just make sure to always wear glasses AND a full face shield.