ear protection!

I am in the process of adding a rear wing to my car. It will be supported by a tubular structure on each side, with a turnbuckle adjustment for angle of attack. The sections are steel and will be covered with a polyester fabric, like an early aircraft. As I was bandsawing the sections (a VERY noisy process) I grabbed my shooting earmuffs, which are extremely effective in eliminating noise. The bottom line is that the tiring and physically draining aspect of this job was GREATLY reduced by the noise reduction. I was surprised by the fact that I got through this process without being totally exhausted, as I would have without the benefit of the earmuffs. Of course I always use eye protection but never really considered the effect of the noise. I think I may start using ear protection for other shop jobs too. I suspect that many other people already knew this but it was news to me.

olpro wrote: I think I may start using ear protection for other shop jobs too.

It's a good idea. Besides the immediate benefits, hearing damage is cumulative...I wish I'd been more diligent about hearing protection when I was younger.

i use earplugs or muffs all the time, i learned from my dad's lack thereof when he was younger.

WHAT!

When my tinnitus got bad enough that it went from barely noticable to annoying, I realized that I should have started wearing hearing protection sooner.

Now, let's talk about padded gloves and tendonitis.

I bought this giant pack of ear plugs from Amazon for $14 since I could never find some when I needed some. It's just like sharpies, you can never find any until you saturate your area until they're everywhere.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I7LH8Y/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

30 years in a machine shop has affected my hearing. I've been plugging my ears for the past 10-15 of those years; should have been sooner.

from somebody working in theatre, always wear ear protection. Always. Having said that, at age 42 I had almost perfect hearing according to the doc they brought in at work to give us a baseline test. At 43, I came down with a nasty ear infection that burst before I could get to the doctor and now I have tinnitus

I have a big pair of earmuffs (not the winter kind, the -29dB kind) that I wear for everything. Impact wrench, lawn mower, grinding, string trimmer (mine's electric too), sawzall, circular saw... Everything. If I have to raise my voice, I put on the muffs. I work with too many guys who can't hear anything because they are stubborn. I also have a box of the 3m disposable ones for visitors or if I can't find my big pair. I wear the disposable ones at concerts and even some bars.

I spent too many hours of my early 20's standing in front of a 100W half-stack with a Les Paul, so tinnitis is part of my life. Not a terrible case, but I notice it at times.

The ex'g/f has a nice Jet 14" bandsaw that is so quiet it really didn't need hearing protection, but for other tools I definitely used it: router, back-pack leaf blower, etc.

bigev007 wrote: I have a big pair of earmuffs (not the winter kind, the -29dB kind) that I wear for everything. Impact wrench, lawn mower, grinding, string trimmer (mine's electric too), sawzall, circular saw... Everything. If I have to raise my voice, I put on the muffs. I work with too many guys who can't hear anything because they are stubborn. I also have a box of the 3m disposable ones for visitors or if I can't find my big pair. I wear the disposable ones at concerts and even some bars.

This.

these on low

With these over them

For everything. Particularly hammers. The short sharp blow of a hammer is one of the most damaging things to our ears but because it is so short we don't notice it like we do things like grinding.

I found that the short sharp blast of 155mm howitzers was distubing my sleep so I learned to wear ear protection all the time when noise could even possibly be a problem.

Hearing is still good for now.

I'm also an ear plug nerd--keep some in my backpack, on my desk, etc. For concerts, I just started wearing plugs from Earpeace.

After spending about 8 hours with my blast cabinet, so compressor blaring in one ear and shop vac screaming in the other, I bought some good ear muffs. Added bonus of plugging in to my iPod for some tunes.
It was nice not hearing the ringing in my ears for 3 hours after I was done.

I keep a big bag of the 3M disposables in my truck so they're handy. I should be better about them in the shop and should likely wear some while racing my RX7.

I'm not quite as dilligent as bigev007, but do try to protect my hearing. When I had a Miata I would wear earplugs when driving with the top down, I am always turning down my wife's radio when I get in her car, I wear my ear muffs almost all of the time when using power tools in the garage, and sometimes even wearing earmuffs if our new baby gets particularly upset.

It seems to be working so far too. While visiting my parents in their RV, they and my wife all thought I was crazy when I was disturbed by what I told them was a high pitched (and very annoying) squeak coming from the roof vent fan. A few weeks later they were watching one of our dogs, and as soon as he got in the RV he started barking like crazy...I was validated as soon as they turned off the fan and he calmed right down.

In reply to Driven5:

I figure if I wear them all the time it becomes habit, so I just grab them for everything. Somebody mentioned hammering, I forgot that. I also wear CSA rated (not sure what the US equivalent is)steel sole/toe shoes when doing any of that stuff. Especially good when trimming or mowing the lawn. Doesn't matter if a rock comes back and hits my foot, or if I catch my toe with the string trimmer. Or if I step on a random rusty nail in the back yard. Whenever I get a new pair for work, the old pair goes in the closet at home. And of course proper eye protection and a face shield depending on the task, including dust masks for sanding/grinding/etc..

Thinking about it, I bet the neighbours make fun of me. The other guys at work would. Oh well. Good hearing, both eyes, all my fingers. Like to do what I can to keep it that way. Anybody else that safety anal at home?

I've had tinnitus as long as I can remember. Worker's Compensation tests me every year due to the nature of my work. I have very good hearing (except at the frequency of the tinnitus, where I can't distinguish the testing beeps from the ringing).

I teach high school shop, and wear silicone form-fitted ear plugs all the time. Without them, even if it's not overly loud, noise exhaustion becomes a problem.

My metal shop is almost a perfect cube, and the acoustics are HORRIFIC. My mechanics shop is a long rectangle and it is nowhere near as bad for sound.

Ear plugs are also great because they fit under the welding mask, and prevent sparks from burrowing through your ear canal.

My Hideous Hardbody measured 102dB inside the cab at 60mph with the windows down and the stereo at a reasonable volume. I put A/C in that truck real soon so I could keep the windows up and the noise out.

My Lethal Locost is 119dB at 60mph. All wind noise. I wear ear plugs ALWAYS with that car, and an Elmer-Fudd ear-flap hat on long trips as well.

Anything into the 85dB range begins causing damage.

Comparison:

Wear the ear protection!

When I was working on The Crusty Chevy, I used a pneumatic needle-scaler to clean the rust off the frame and bottom of the box. HOLY CRAP those are loud. I wore my form-fitted ear plugs AND ear muffs and still couldn't believe how loud it was.

My hearing is already pretty jacked from playing my guitars at a far from reasonable volume. Still use ear protection when using tools to keep it from getting worse.

bigev007 wrote: Anybody else that safety anal at home?

I took my boys to pick out their own ear muffs when they were around 5 years old. If they are in the garage with me, they wear ear muffs as well. Eye protection as well if they working with me.

Cone_Junkie wrote: It was nice not hearing the ringing in my ears for 3 hours after I was done.

I one time helped someone cut some thin steel with a sawzall that made a hell of a racket. My ears rung for a lot longer then 3 hours. Ever since then I try to wear hearing protection. Mostly muffs when using power tools in my workshop or garage but ear plugs when mowing the lawn or at the race track.

Hearing loss runs in the family so I'm always putting on the muffs. When I'm shooting, I put in plugs with muffs over them. Most helmets doesn't do much for sound, so I put in plugs then too. Why does every club have to be so berkleyin' loud? I look like an idiot wearing plugs in there on the rare occasion that I go.(Though one place sold plugs at the bar!)

I was just reading an article in the Minneapolis newspaper about Starkey Labs - they're one of the big players in the hearing aid industry, and every year they hold a gala fundraiser ball with lots of celebrities and musicians. Anyway, the star act at this year's ball was Sammy Hagar, who had Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham playing in his band; ironically, a lot of the attendees had to leave the room during their performance because the music was so loud.

From the story: Sammy said he’d leave the speeches up to the experts, but at set’s end, he declared: “We’re all going to need hearing aids.”

SkinnyG wrote: Without them, even if it's not overly loud, noise exhaustion becomes a problem.

Around midnight local time, I was roughly 800 miles into a 950 mile return trip in the RX-7 and I was just done. I started calling anybody who I thought might answer the phone just to have something to concentrate on besides the giant wall of noise that had been battering me.

And this was after I put a quiet exhaust on the car.

Now, I have a big blanket that I line the back of the car with. Cuts down massively on the echo-chamber effect. It's illegal to drive with hearing protection on, though.