Safety Glasses - where does the risk stop?

I wear safety glasses for running end mills on the mill, the lathe, the weed eater, the router, the planar, biking, chiseling concrete, spray painting, and target practice.

I do not wear safety glasses for the table saw, chiseling wood, pounding nails, the drill press, the band saw, reloading or hunting.

I was taken to the doctor when I was 14 for Lead I was pouring hitting a rain drop in a mould I made and then getting cast in the shape of my eyeball. The doctor removed the Lead, and I could see the shape of my eyeball. If were to pour Lead again, now 50 years later, I would wear safety glasses.
 
Like several here, I only wear them when priming brass.

Don't really see a need after that as nothing even comes near touching the primer.
 
Like I said earlier, living with just one eye (for a year) was no fun. And it made me think what life might be like if I lost the other one. That's when I got real protective of the one that was still working properly. And when I got the other one back in service, I stayed protective. Take them for granted at your risk.
 
DaleA
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I was taken to the doctor when I was 14---
Yikes! Did you recover fully?
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Yeah my eyes were unhurt. The Lead coating was very thin. I went to school the next day, and Mr Bonathan, the 8th grade shop teacher first period beginning of the class, looked at my blotched face and asked if molten Lead blew up in my face. He MUST have heard a rumor... no way he could have figured that out from looking at me.
 
I worked with a guy who caughed and his retIna detached he tried having surgery but his eye ended up over pressure and he lost his eyesight in that eye. I actually didn't know your retina could detach like that. I paid lots of money for lasik couple years ago I do wear saftey glasses for almost everything nowadays but not reloading or hunting.
 
stoopid

I will be very blunt,NOT wearing safety glasses while handloading OR shooting is stupid. Now I reserve the term stupid for anyone the knows there's danger but does something dangerous anyway. Ignorant, dumb, are all words that mean you simply don't know the danger yet., but will learn not to.

I can understand a person with really good vision not wanting to wear glasses of any kind. They think the odds are on their side, and doctors can fix most injuries to return them to the sight they once had. YES, glasses are uncomfortable. Especially if they are the cheap off-the-shelf-kind that are NOT fitted to your face. Vanity even creeps into the picture, people think one wearing glasses are dorky, calling them four eyes.

Make them shades, THEN it's cool??!

I have no choice but to wear glasses. I have very bad astigmatism in both eyes. Since I was 40 YO, they've been trifocals. Roll back 32 years ago, I was putting my sons baby carriage in the trunk of my firebird. Using a bungee cord to wrap around my hitch, the cord slipped from where it was hooked, the metal end smacked the left lens of my glasses. They were glass, not plastic. A chunk of the lens made a triangular cut dead center of the cornea. Penetrating clear through, letting the fluid out, collapsing the front of the eyeball.

The next morning an ophthalmologist did surgery to stitch the cut closed, IIRC there were 10 tiny stitches. I was in constant pain and agony. Felt like there was handful of gravel in my eye. A patch over the left eye for 3 days, then nothing. Recovery took 2 months. Removing 3 stitches every 10 days with the final four at 10 weeks. Finally no more repeatedly thinking there's something in my eye, um, yeah stitches!

End result is though my vision was saved, I can only see 20/100 on good days, worse most of the time with that left eye. The resulting scar is dead center of the focal point of the left eye. Light has to go through scar tissue instead of clear cornea.

Bottom line is; if not for that bungee hook hitting the lens it would have hit my eye. Little chance that I would have a left eye.
 
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Hard to fight, "In the name of love and safety".

When I was in the service, I never had to wear any safety equipment. After the service, I went into the industrial field and had to wear them most of the time. Whenever I laid them down, I lost track of them and often scrambled to locate some. Today, I have to wear prescription lenses and they are AO rated for safety. Oh, I still lose them from time to time but not often ..... ;)

I have found that whenever a person fights wearing personal protective equipment, they wind up losing more than glasses. I have shooting buddies who are deaf, missing toes and one had an accident and lost an eye. I would advise the younger folks not to fight PPE, that is if you are in this game, for the long haul. ;)


Protect yourselves and;
Be Safe !!!
 
What is high risk for one kind of person could be low risk for another kind of person.

We had to analyze this sentence in logic 105 in 1969. It is a quote from Huckleberry Finn:
“Jim said that bees won't sting idiots, but I didn't believe that, because I tried them lots of times myself and they wouldn't sting me

As an 18 year old, I used symbols for the statements and labeled "Huck is not an idiot" as Huck's assumption. Then I showed a logic error on the part of Huck, where he cannot conclude that the statement is not true, he has ignored the allowed possibility of him not being an idiot and not being stung.

25 years later I spoke with another engineer who had been teaching logic and calculus at the University of Washington. He said that Twain's joke is that "Huck is an idiot."

I don't buy that. I have thought of that joke many times, and that never occurred to me.
 
Get a face shield

I've been using face shields of one form or another in my other hobbies for so long that I just adopted the practice for reloading. When the powder or primers come out the shield goes on and stays on until things are put away.

I wear contacts and reading glasses for close up and would never put up with the hassle of safety glasses over the reading glasses. With the face shield it's not a problem and I often forget I'm wearing it to the point that I'll try to blow off some dust only to realize that the shield is in the way.
 
"Where does the risk stop?" If you're doing anything that can even remotely have a chance to send/shoot/spray something that will hurt/damage your eyes, then that's where you need safety glasses (ever had a spring fly outta the object you're working on?). Some are so "safety conscious" they'll tell you to wear a face shield when standing in front of a urinal, or to wear a full hazmat suit when casting bullets, but that's obvious fear and over reacting. Common sense is the most important factor to be used. I have not had a primer pop when priming on a press or by hand (30 years), but I have had it happen with my Lee Loader. Common sense says "wear safety glasses when priming brass" as it would only take one "pop" to blind an eye. Use that thing between yer ears and determine how risky an operation can be, and how bad the results of an OOPS! could be, then decide what precautions to take...

Have you ever seen a Dremel cut-off blade fly apart at 10,000 RPM?
 
A little common sense and realistic risk evaluation goes a long ways. I used to wear safety glasses when I primed in the days my vision was good. Now I wear drug store reading glasses through the entire operation and felt that on the slight chance that a primer wouold go off, and that I would foolishly have my face over the shell while priming it, that plastic lense reading glasses are adequate. Obviously, if I were casting lead, working with acids, or grinding and disk cutting, I would opt for much better protection.

I can think of scenario where you could injure or lose an eye doing just about anything, so that "it could happen" is not enough for me.

I wear safety glasses when I am spraying carb cleaner. I do not wear them to dust furnature with aerosol polish, or to apply deodorant.

I don't wear safty glases when I eat peanuts even though I once had a piece of shell fly into my eye when cracking them.

I do wear safety glasses when using a weedeater. I don't use them for running the lawnmower.

I once had a dog scratch my eye, but I don't wear safety glasses to pet the dog.

I once got an ash in my eye from a camp fire yet I don't wear safety glasses when I roast hot dogs and marshmellows.

I was just reading about some kind of kids activity that involved a water balloon fight, and ballons were limited to gold ball size, and all participants had to wear safety glasses.

Years ago I got spiked in the face with vollyball, yet I still play ball games without safety glasses.

Everything in life has risks. Its up to us to evaluate them and prepare accordingly. Whether you need a space helmet and 12 layers of bubble wrap to feel secure leaving the bedroom, or you're going to smoke a cigarettes whille putting gas in the lawn mower, that entirely up to you.
 
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Where I worked for 25 years, safety precautions/practices/equipment were mandatory. If you were seen using a grinder (either a bench grinder or a hand grinder) without a face shield you could get "written up". If you had a vehicle on a lift and didn't wear a "bump cap" while working underneath, you could get written up. If you were more than six feet off the shop floor, working on some equipment and did not wear a harness, you could get written up. And prolly 50 more "regulations". 90% of these were never enforced because the mechanics were conscious of what harm could come of not using certain safety equipment and most used them not because of regulations, but because pain hurts! (I was in a hurry when working on an articulated, wheeled loader, Cat 910, and instead of getting a ladder I was standing on the bucket edge working on the roof of the cab. Yep, fell off and removed about 1 3/4 lb. of skin off my shins. Need less to say for the next 17 years of working on construction equipment, I used a ladder).

So, it's fairly easy to see what dangers lurk when working with certain materials, and what precautions to choose. But the choice is still up to you to use them or not....
 
Coming out of lurkdom briefly to say, lots of good information and insights in this thread.

I wear safety glasses reloading, and often just working around the house or barn. Mine are just like my regular bifocals but with sideshields, so not a hassle or uncomfortable.

But - when I was young I didn't want anything to do with any kind of safety equipment, even refused to wear a crash helmet on a motorcycle until they made it illegal to ride without one. (Not intending to comment on laws and government intervention, just sayin').

You get old, you realize all the things that you got a way with, that could have gone so wrong... my wife calls me "mister safety" and ridicules some of what I do, but lately I've noticed her asking me to get her a taller ladder because she's less comfortable standing two steps above the one marked "do not stand on or above this step" than she was when we were younger.

Like carrying a pistol or revolver for self-defense - some people scornfully ask, "what are the odds you'll ever need it?" - and the answer is always, "what are the stakes?"

As my eyes get older my sights get fuzzier, so I want to protect whatever is left for as long as I can.
 
I don't need prescription glasses but when working close-up I have to use reading glasses to see what I'm doing. I went on a website that sells reading glasses and bought a set of safety glasses with 1.75 magnification reading lenses (full lenses, not bifocals). Best of both worlds for me since I have to wear them when reloading to see clear and they offer protection at the same time. They worked so well that I went back and ordered several pairs as spares.:)
 
I use a 21st Century Hand Priming Tool and point it away when priming. Not wearing any safety glasses. Only when shooting.

@Gravedigger56

Where did you order those glasses?
 
If you wear regular prescription glasses and the lenses are plastic you essentially are wearing safety glasses. The modern lens is a development of the space industry, strong shatter proof light weight optical plastic and super hard scratch resistant coatings are now the usual material in the optical lens , they were developed for the windows of space craft.
Mine are plastic and have been for the last 10 years or so, if you are not sure just call the place you got your glasses from , they will have a record and can tell you.
Gary
 
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