Angle Grinders

As I have previously posted, on the 4th February a Queensland Worker received fatal injuries while operating a 230mm (9 inch) angle grinder.  The worker was killed when part of a broken disc struck the worker’s chest at high impact.

Angle grinders are one of the most dangerous tools in any workplace.   The following is summary information that has been extracted from the Queensland Worksafe Division Safety Alert.

Contributing Factors with Angle Grinder Incidents

• Cutting discs that are too large for the angle grinder;
• Guards have been removed to fit larger disks (refer photo 1);
• Central disc hole size is too large for the spindle flange on the angle grinder (refer photo 2).  The disc can be off center resulting in excessive vibrating and lead to disc shattering.

Did you know

• Outside edge speed of a cutting disk is 250 kmph
• Fitting a 14 inch cut-off disk to a 9 inch angle grinder increases the edge speed to at least 430 kmph

Photo 1 – Unsafe 9 inch angle grinder fitted with 14 inch disc and the guard is removed 
Photo 2 – Unsafe excessive clearance for the central hole on 9 inch spindle flange.