OSHA requirement drill press guard?

ed sautter

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238
Location
Cortland NY
I work for a countertop company in CNY and am the safety mgr here. We have about 18 months or so voluntary walk through's from the Department of Labor (DOL) where they look us over for any safety issues. We have been trying to do everything we can to make it better and more safe for all our employees. However we just had a recent walkthrough and one issues he found has me stumped. We don't have a need for a drill press much in my work as much of the countertops are cut with a CNC. So we have a small, old Delta bench model. It's been here as long as I have and more. It is this press that we need to have guarding on. I had never heard of guarding for a drill press. Guarding in saws, routers, CNC's and everything else but a drill press, never. I was sited for the missing guard and it was considered a serious offense. I use the press for drilling a hole in one piece of Corian left at the job site to be mounted in the sink base cabinet. One hole that's it. Large enough to hang with a drywall screw. I now have to either find a guard or buy another.

Has anyone else had this issue? What or how did you fix, get around, or other wise deal with it? As I said before we have had numerous walkthroughs here as voluntary and this is the first issue we have had with a drill press. Clearly the standard is there and has been there for some time. I just don't go looking for it if you know what I mean. I find less sometimes is more.
 
I think its just the stupid trying to look out for himself. By finding 'something' to put on paper and slap your hands about he looks good and is doing his job well. (reality is he's just being knit picky) but now that he has it on paper that There's a problem it will have to be corrected or next time he or anyone else with his paper from last time comes back they will be looking to see if it was fixed.
 
We had an old Delta bench drill press in the shop at school several years ago. One OSHA inspector complained that it needed a guard--didn't specify what needed to be guarded. I took a few metal coffee tins and some pop rivets and made a belt guard to fit on the top of the machine. Problem solved--that machine was not mentioned in any reports after that.
 
Did you ever have a drill press drill grab an item you were drill holes in and rip it out of you hands and smash it against the support bar. Also not a lot of fun if that item is sheet metal. It's happened o me on both occasions. once I ruined a very intricate scroll saw piece by trying to drill a big hole in it after all the work was done. Also with the sheet alunimumum and a couple of stitched. Oooops. Neither items were clamped down. I learned my lesson. Would a guard have helped. I don't know. Experience is a good teacher.
 
The commercial guards seem to focus on flying chips and work pieces. I bet you could make something that would satisfy an idiot inspector. At first I was afraid that they wanted the drill and quill to be enclosed.
 
As a home inspector I have heard people say it was that way when they bought it and their inspector didn't write it up. Didn't change the fact it was wrong.

This sounds rather dumb but sounds like you just got a better or more knowledgable inspector who is glad to have a job so he is doing his job.
 
Ed

My intention isn't to beat you up, I'm sure you do the best job possible to ensure the safety of the employees at the company where you work but......a safety manager shouldn't be trying to find a way to "get around" a safety standard. No matter who's safety standard it is it should be followed.

Now for a solution to the problem. Could you use a hand drill corded or cordless to drill the hole and then get rid of the press? I think if not then the only choice would be to mount a chip guard on the press and be done with it.

We have all sorts of guards like the Rockford ones where I work. They're mounted on drill presses and milling machines and lathes.

Jerry
 
Screw osha. Put it in a storage room or something.

I'd probably get flat out shut down if they came through my shop. Almost every guard, or safety has been disabled in my shop. Anything that impedes use is pitched.

Also, start a phone tree with other shops in the area so when the jack booted inspectors are around everyone knows it but the first shop.
 
Well I thank you all for your comments. I did further research and it is clear that is has been an OSHA requirement to have it guarded. However since there is no grand fathering in of old machines we will either need to rig up some sort of guard or purchase new with guard on it. Just because we have had prior OSHA inspections here and they didn't see it is still not an excuse for not having one. I just never heard or saw any other press with one on it before. I was more dumb founded that this standard has been on the books for years and yet many shops are still without. The main reason stated was for the need of the guard was drill breakage. Not the chips they would be guarded by your safety glasses. We have chosen to replace the press with new that has factory guard on it. I may give them a few bucks and take the old Delta home with me to my shop. It should serve me for many years.

On a side note the inspector did say that machine manufactures are not required to meet the standards of guarding when they manufacture equipment. They do so voluntary because people purchasing the equipment wouldn't buy it if they didn't have some or most of it on there. We as consumers believe they should but they don't have to. I though that rather strange that if we were required to have guarding in line with OSHA then we ought to be able to purchase equipment up to those standards. Maybe that doesn't mean anything to some of you but I find it rather interesting. That's my two cents.
 
Never saw that but that is funny. I see the point. There was a song out years ago about Noah building the ark in todays time. It is called "The Flood of 1997". In it the song stated that he didn't have the ark built when God came back and gave the excusses that caused it in todays time. In the end God didn't distroy the earth the goverement did it already. Kind of one of those songs that make you say ya right.
 
Just thought you all might like an update. Well we broke down and instead of replacing the press we bought the guard. Here are the pictures of the required guard.
IMG_0049.jpgIMG_0050.jpg
 
Looks to me like that will do little but interfere with getting the job done. I insist on using the safety guards on my table saw and router table (I've had some saves with those) but if someone told me I needed a drill press guard, I'd tell him to go fry his head. My drill press was made in this century, too, and doesn't have a guard.
 
Ed, we ran into this same issue about two years ago. The osha instector told us we had to have a guard on our drill press. We got one and it is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. It does however have a spring loaded front that will flip out of the way when changing bits. When using the guard it gives you a very small window to see what you are drilling. In my opinion it is the most UNSAFE device because it gets in the way of the user really seeing what is being drilled. In the two years of having it installed the only time it is down in place is....when the inspector is there.
 
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