[ChevLoRay]

I have a cordless one and a corded one. I prefer the corded one.

Having worked in a machine shop, I can tell you that in using a 25,000RPM electric tool, you get to eat a bunch of metal. That stuff looks like pepper in your mouth. I know, because I chewed gum and the metal particle would stick in the gum. Best to keep your mouth shut and use a dust mask when you're a-grindin'.

The shop I worked at would not issue dust masks. They kept ONE hanging by the buffer. It was a cheap version, that used gauze in an aluminum retainer. If you wanted to use a dust mask, it was there for you. Oh, you couldn't wear an apron, either. It might get caught in the buffer wheel. But, you could use a 4,500RPM die grinder, with a worn-down Carborundum grinding wheel, and no guard, without having to do a "ring check". When I asked, the boss said, "What ring check? Those wheels don't blow up!" So, two weeks later, a lady was working on some big valve bodies for the Alyeska Oil Pipeline job we were doing, and as the wheel cleared the back side of the body, it disintegrated....looked like someone took a 50-cal machine gun to the concrete walls in there. Oh, and don't ask for ear plugs, either, unless you get 'em from the welding shop foreman on A-shift. Othewise, you did with out. No safety toed shoes. No dust masks. No safety goggles. No problems with OSHA. The federal gummint wanted those valves done so the Alaskan Oil Pipeline could be put into use. There were no OSHA laws that would be enforced. Since we were in the midst of a recession (almost said depression), jobs were scarce.

That employer had broken a machinists union in Tulsa, before moving to Little Rock, in 1962. Any mention of unions was dealt with by the management who walked and talked very gingerly around the subject without ever saying anything that could get them in trouble with the NLRB. As a laid-off Steelworker, I had to have a job and they needed a body. They let me go after my 90 day probationary period was up, because I was a "troublemaker".

I felt sorry for those who had no choice but to work in that environment. If they couldn't tell they were being sacrificed for the sake of profit, there was nothing I could do to convince them that their safety environment was non-existant.