Soldering Iron memory OUCH!

[UncleJoe]

Recently there was a thread about a large soldering iron. It brought back one of my strongest memories about tools.

54 years ago, (Man I feel old writing that) our family had a small farm near Shelbyville Indiana. My Father was an Engineer at the local GE plant and the farm was his "part time" job. I was only 4 years old at the time but if Dad was working on something I was there to help. Most of my help consisted of go get him a wrench or a cup of coffee or the ever familiar holding the trouble light. As you can imagine a four year old holding one of those old metal cased trouble lights my mind would wander and the light would be pointing everywhere but where it needed to be and I would hear that phrase "hold the D@mn light still and point it at where I am working not in my eyes" Good times for sure.

Well one day he was working on the tractor and he needed a screw driver. So off I went to get one in the shed. Well there it was, boy was my dad gonna be happy with me because I guess I found the electric screw driver, hell, I didn't even know such a thing existed but there it was plain as day. It sure looked like a screwdriver and it had an electrical cord coming out of the handle and I never noticed that it was plugged in so I grabbed the business end of that "screwdriver" . WOW it sure didn't take me long to inspect that "screwdriver". I let out a scream and my dad came running. Looking back I know he was upset with himself for leaving that thing plugged in with a curious 4 year old running around.

Anyways, I am no worse for the ware and now dad is 87 and can't get out to the shop to work on things much anymore with his arthritis.

I can't express how great it had been to have a dad work with me all the time on cars, boats, tractors and a bunch of other things. I will always cherish the memories. I think this incident with the soldering iron is my first tool memory.

 

[Syberia]

My wife still has the scar on her knee from when she dropped a soldering iron on it. I've never done that, but I did drill a hole into my palm

 

[PelicanPines]

I stabbed my hand with an xacto blade... it was not in its handle. I spurt blood up the wall... panicked and slapped the wound with my other hand to stop the bleeding.... wait for it... yes... I pushed the blade thru my hand.

I learned to not look for a dropped blade in a **** carpet on my hands and knees. I was about 8.

 

[Flivver250]

Get even, go hand him a hot soldering iron. Never too late for revenge.

 

[Mohawk Dave]

Get even, go hand him a hot soldering iron. Never too late for revenge.

I lol'd.

 

[Lhead]

#1 Rule in soldering class: Know which end to pick the iron up by.

#2 Rule: A hot soldering iron is the same color as a cold one...

 

[UncleJoe]

Get even, go hand him a hot soldering iron. Never too late for revenge.

LOL, With all the pain meds he is on I am not sure he would notice.

 

[ezzzzzzz]

I worked in the electronics code at a naval shipyard years ago. Everyone smoked in the buildings in the 70's. I watched a guy raise his soldering iron up to light a cigarette only he didn't have a cigarette in his mouth. He laid that iron up to his lips and pulled it away with the skin adhered to the element. The scream and tears were hard to watch. On another occasion I watched a girl lay her arm onto an iron and it sank into her forearm. She learned to the hard way to use the soldering station.

 

[Ridwaan Gallow]

I burnt my arm with a,soldering iron cos i was trying to open the front door to our house while holding a bunch of tools.. 14 year olds can be clever at times..

Drilled my hand while redoing the roof of my dads toyota hiace super 10.. drilled right through cos i was checking out the chick next door as she hung the laundry in a pair o' hot pants,and a tank top.. didnt even realise it until i tried to take my hand away from the metal roof.. ***** 16 year olds need to be more focussed when using power tools..

Used a cutting disc on a grinder and tried to shift the gaurd on the grinder so as to reach a better angle while the machine was still running.. yes, pemanent line down the thumb.. earned myself the nick name of "backslash'' cos thats what it still resembles today.. dont smoke dunhill cigs and think you are Rambo in a panel shop.. cos you can still scream like mariah carey on a stage when that grinder leaves its mark..

 

[Ridwaan Gallow]

I burnt my arm with a,soldering iron cos i was trying to open the front door to our house while holding a bunch of tools.. 14 year olds can be clever at times..

Drilled my hand while redoing the roof of my dads toyota hiace super 10.. drilled right through cos i was checking out the chick next door as she hung the laundry in a pair o' hot pants,and a tank top.. didnt even realise it until i tried to take my hand away from the metal roof.. ***** 16 year olds need to be more focussed when using power tools..

Used a cutting disc on a grinder and tried to shift the gaurd on the grinder so as to reach a better angle while the machine was still running.. yes, pemanent line down the thumb.. earned myself the nick name of "backslash'' cos thats what it still resembles today.. dont smoke dunhill cigs and think you are Rambo in a panel shop.. cos you can still scream like mariah carey on a stage when that grinder leaves its mark..

 

[CJM8515]

I did something VERY stupid as a 10 year old kid. I needed to solder something but the soldering iron wasnt working right-wouldnt heat up at all (who knows why it was old as dirt and cheap anyways). So I get this bright idea Im gonna take my dads torch and heat up a finishing nail and use that. I mean to my 10 year old brain it seemed perfectly logical-its similar in size to a pencil soldering iron, will heat up and should melt the solder..right???

Im holding the nail with some, made it red hot and then promptly dropped it on the cement floor. Where upon I decided to pick it up with my fingers. My index finger and thumb had a scar on them for years...

 

[Buckgnarly]

My buddy who teaches shop class had a kid grab a chisel that was set in a vise....only problem is another kid had just taken the chisel out of the forge and put it in the vise just AFTER it cooled down from glowing. Kid never saw it coming, thought it was room temp....3rd degree burns across his palm.

 

[crerus75]

I dripped hot solder into my shoe once while tinning a soldering iron. I was a kid and wearing high-top sneakers. A blob of solder dripped behind the tongue of the shoe and onto the front of my ankle. It sucked, but what hurt even worse was my dad disinfecting it with alcohol a few minutes later.

I also had hot solder fly at my face due to failure to engage brain. I was soldering loose contacts in a GM headlight switch. I was holding the contacts together with a pair of pliers while heating them, trying to reflow the cold solder between them. The solder melted and the pressure from the pliers caused it to squirt out at high speed. I wasn't wearing safety glasses EVEN THOUGH I KNEW BETTER. The solder cooled enough in mid air to smack my eyelid without splashing into my eye. My stupidity and dumb luck had a fight that day, and dumb luck won by decision. I wish I could say that I've quit being stupid since then, but all I've done is space the time between injuries apart a little wider.

Good times...

 

[Bruce Lancaster]

#3 Rule...if you smell burning bacon or hear screaming while soldering, you are probably doing something wrong...

 

[ScottsGT]

Know of a guy that uses his jeans to wipe the tip of his iron on while repairing electronics. He found the stitched seam was perfect for this.
One day he went to lunch, had a beer and was wearing shorts.
Old habits die hard. Until it's burned into your leg.

 

[Todd1803]

Most of my help consisted of go get him a wrench or a cup of coffee or the ever familiar holding the trouble light. As you can imagine a four year old holding one of those old metal cased trouble lights my mind would wander and the light would be pointing everywhere but where it needed to be and I would hear that phrase "hold the D@mn light still and point it at where I am working not in my eyes" Good times for sure.

.

Thank you for this bit of the story, as it is EXACTLY how much of the time spent in the garage went with my father. I remember always thinking how I wished I could do some of the "real" work.

Im holding the nail with some, made it red hot and then promptly dropped it on the cement floor. Where upon I decided to pick it up with my fingers. My index finger and thumb had a scar on them for years...

Reminds me of the first time as a teen that I used my dad's oxy-acetelene torch without him around to help. I had some all-thread that I heated cherry red to bend into a hook. After bending it, I turned around to hang the torch head back on the cart. Apparently I totally forgot what I was doing because I turned back and grabbed my part I was so proud to have done on my own. I had the imprint of the threads as a scar for several years.

 

[DenisG]

Your story reminds me of one a co-worker told me. As a kid he tried to remove the lid from a tomato sauce can so he could re-use the can. The contents of the can were emptied when the lid was cut, but the lid was still attached to the can by a small piece of uncut metal and it was pushed into the can. He got his finger caught trying to remove the cut lid and got sliced pretty badly. He learned never to leave those hanging lids on cans (as well as when to use tools).

 

[WVBrady]

When I was working for Westinghouse for the summer, many years ago, an engineer worked all night trying to get a cabinet wired up for delivery. When we got there the next morning he was telling us how he was inside this cabinet, lost his balance and fell out of it onto the floor. He wasn't hurt except that he had grabbed onto the hot end of a soldering iron on his way down. He said that the worst part was that he couldn't let go of it until he hit the floor.