3 Tips for Ensuring Your Sheet Metal Workers Always Stay Safe

Worker safety should be of utmost concern for any production facility owner or manager, and especially when working with sheet metal. Fabricating sheet metal can result in sharp pieces and edges that can be a hazard to workers. To ensure your sheet metal workers are always safe, note a few important safety tips you need to employ at your facility.

1. Clean often 

Metal shavings are often razor sharp and can be a hazard even if workers are wearing thick work boots and pants made of strong denim or cotton. This is why it's vital that you ensure your workplace is cleaned often when working with sheet metal. You should never allow shavings, shards, or even small bits of metal to collect in any area; remember that they can get embedded in work boots and clothing and then be tracked into any other area so they become a hazard to everyone in your workplace, not just those in the production area. Clean and sweep these shavings often; every week, every day, or even more than once per day if needed, for maximum safety.

2. Cover rough edges

When storing sheet metal that's been cut or fabricated in any way, you want to cover rough edges. You can do this with simple scraps of cardboard pieces that you bend over the edges and tape into place. Be sure you use thick cardboard and not thin pieces of plastic wrap or sheeting that the sheet metal can easily cut through. You can even make notes on the cardboard to warn your workers, such as "Sharp edges!" By covering over these rough edges, you're less likely to see workers get deep cuts and gashes when they reach for sheet metal that's stored and which they may not realize has been cut or fabricated.

3. Maintain tools

You may assume that if tools that are used to fabricate sheet metal work properly, then they must be safe. However, consider that if shears, saw blades, and other such tools are not maintained, a worker must use more force to cut the sheet metal and may wind up cutting themselves as they push a blade or pair of shears through the metal. Cutting with dull shears can mean rougher edges that cause a greater risk of cuts, and trying to saw through sheet metal with dull saw blades can also mean more burrs and rough edges. Note a proper schedule for maintaining tools and for how to keep them in good repair so they're always working optimally and this will contribute to worker safety.

About Me

Optimising Sheet Metal in Building Projects and Other Manufacturing Blogs

Welcome! My name is Fiona. I'm a designer who works in marketing, but in my youth, I dreamed of being an architect. I was especially interested in combining interesting materials into buildings. In this blog, I want to explore that old love. I plan to write about using sheet metal in building, and I may go into the equipment involved or write about other industrial concepts as well. I hope to help you with every aspect of the process from shopping to building. Thank you for reading, and if you like my posts, please share them with others!

Search

Tags