Playing It Safe
10/18/2007
Adapted from Mark Clark’s article in Body Shop Business
When you leave the school and enter the shop – establish a “culture of safety” for yourself and wear (and properly use) safety equipment. Your family will thank you.
In researching this article, I conducted a personal, not-even-slightly-scientific shop survey to see if today’s body shop techs are taking better care of themselves than they did more than 12 years ago.
I’m pleased to report that it does appear they’re more often wearing safety gear of all kinds. Consistently in my recent shop visits, techs were doing a good job of preserving their personal health and well-being.
Unfortunately, not every body shop and not every technician dresses for success.
Sadly, the “manly man doesn’t need any safety protection” attitude is still alive in some body shops. The shops that practiced poor safety habits (or no safety habits) told me they didn’t have time to fool with “it,” whichever safety gear “it” was. They were too busy fixing cars and anyway, real men go to the hospital to have something dug out of their eye every couple of months anyway. Right?
WRONG!!!
The positive results I observed were in shops that exhibited a “culture of safety.” By that I mean those body shops that both expected and required their employees to wear the safety gear the shop provided. These shops were also focused on fixing cars. However, they realized that keeping everyone healthy and at work produced more completed repairs at year end. The moments spent donning the safety glasses or ear muffs were insignificant. Not to mention, being in compliance with those humorless federal inspectors.
I’m pleased to say that I also saw many individual techs who wisely chose to protect their own health by wearing appropriate gear even in shops where other techs didn’t. Good for those folks.
Hey, at the end of the day, it isn’t about complying with federal workplace laws — it’s about staying healthy enough to one day play with your grandkids.
Curious about what I observed in the most productive and prosperous shops I visited? Here we go ...
The Greatest Safety Hazard: Fire
It still looks to me like the greatest safety hazard body and paint shops face is fire. In my experience, clean production areas are the mark of a well-run body shop. Not that you can’t do quality work in a pigpen (I’ve seen it done), but clean, well-lit and regularly maintained work areas are a win all around. The customer is impressed with your careful housekeeping (and is reassured about leaving his car with you), the employees can find what they’re looking for quickly and there’s little chance of setting a big pile of solvent-soaked masking paper on fire.
That said, let’s take a look at how you can reduce your chances of a serious shop fire:
• Properly placed fire extinguishers and fire drills — Do you think it’s more likely that any given body shop will catch fire (they all weld and spray) or your district’s grade school (very few arc welders or electric grinders) will burn up? And yet the grade school has a drill every few months to establish exactly what will happen in the unlikely event of a fire. Most body shops have never had a meeting about what happens in the event of a fire.
The model shops in my informal survey all had properly located (local fire department regulations) and fully charged and tagged fire extinguishers. In many cases, the fire extinguisher service company had trained the shop’s employees on how to properly aim and discharge the fire extinguishers. But seldom did I find anyone who had held an actual shop fire drill. Perhaps that might be a good action item for your shop today. If everyone knew what to do in a fire or explosion emergency before the actual emergency, it would be a good thing.
• No-smoking policies — There’s no shortage of sources of ignition in a body shop. Sparks from any number of operations will work just fine. However, I believe the fire inspector will tell you that smokers still set off the majority of fires. Follow an enforced smoking policy and eliminate the most likely source of ignition.
• Think ... and be careful — Take extra precautions when welding or cutting since the spark from molten metal (that’s hot!) is just itching to combine with collected flammable vapors and start a toasty fire. An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure!
• Don’t become the shop “idiot” — Safety conscious shops try to avoid having a “designated idiot.” This person used to be standard fare in body shops; every shop had a guy with little common sense and a warped sense of humor. You know the guy. He’s the one forever filling balloons or rubber gloves from one of the welding tanksand exploding it in the washroom, or he’s blowing cigar smoke into the intake of the oil-less air supply compressor. Ha ha.
Other Things Safety-Conscious Shops Do
My favorite shops practiced safety as a matter of course. Lifts were locked solid, jack stands were employed, floors were kept clear and dry. Sloppy housekeeping causes lots of falls and sprains. Safety-conscious shops also:
• Invest in lighting — Good shops worked hard to keep walkways clear and all areas well-lit. In some of the less careful shops, I saw painters mixing paint in the virtual dark as the one bulb in their mixing room dimly lit their scale. Plentiful lighting is not only a safety issue, but a work quality one as well. If you can’t see well throughout the repair process, prior uncaught mistakes show up too late to be fixed easily, causing expensive re-dos and lost production. Any money you spend on better lighting is well spent.
• Dress appropriately — You can do body work in shorts and a T-shirt, but it doesn’t make it safe. The best shops I saw had technicians dressed like they worked in a body shop. They weren’t wearing tennis shoes or flip flops (yes, I’ve seen that) – they were wearing work shoes or boots. Few painters need steel-toed boots, but heavy collision guys would be foolish not to wear them. Dress like you could get hurt at work.
You’ll find long pants, work boots, gloves, respirators and eye protection a must to protect yourself. The best shops had techs dressed like they meant it.
• Wear safety glasses — Compliant safety glasses for our industry must meet federal standard Z87, which sets performance criteria for impact resistance, among other things. Aren’t you glad someone tested and approved the pair you’ll wear? Wouldn’t you be sorry if the lens shattered on impact? Wouldn’t you be sorrier still if you weren’t wearing them?
This is the most likely injury you’ll receive while at work. All you have to do is wear safety glasses all the time. Choose a pair that’s not only compliant, but comfortable to wear. Options like side panels and UV protection make the glasses even safer.
Note that when wearing both a respirator and eye protection (glasses, goggles, face shield), the respirator must fit first. There must be no obstructions between you and the respirator seal. Glasses, goggles, spray socks or hoods must fit over the respirator straps, never under them.
• Wear noise protection when necessary — Workplace noise levels are exactly defined in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). When the decibel level in your shop exceeds the established limits, the employer must provide ear protection. Whether ear plugs or ear muffs, they won’t protect you if you don’t wear them. Some body shop operations are inherently noisy, an air chisel being the most obvious but a whining, too high rpm D/A makes a lot of noise too. No doubt many bodymen and painters have had their hearing ruined willingly at various rock concerts over the years. Save what you have.
• Wear protective gear when welding and cutting — Common sense suggests that wearing leather welding capes and heat-resistant gloves with gauntlet cuffs would keep you from being burned while welding or cutting. Evidently not if you don’t wear them, as I saw from the many welding-scarred arms various techs showed me. In the best shops, I saw techs remind each other to dress right if they saw coworkers without proper gear. The uncovered tech usually said something like, “What are you, my mother?” but I watched them stop and protect themselves several times in my travels. That’s the kind of shop culture I’m talking about.
• Keep hands clean — Inhaling solvent isn’t the only way to get it into your bloodstream. Many chemicals used in autobody repair will be absorbed through your skin on contact and can enter easily through any cuts or scrapes. Disposable gloves of one material or another have become common in every shop I visited. Not only is that good news on the health front, but good news on the production front, too. It’s faster to peel off a glove than to scrub your hands in lacquer thinner.
I also saw lots of bodymen wearing mechanics gloves; grippy palms and abrasion-resistant backs both seem like good ideas to me.
• Suit up — Paint suits were employed at most of the shops I visited — although there did seem to be a falling off on the hottest summer days (duh). Either paper or plastic suits will keep the harmful chemicals off your sensitive body.
But the best reason to use paint suits in my book isn’t painter safety but job quality. The painter can wear jeans, a long-sleeved tee, rubber gloves, a respirator, eye protection and a spray sock and be safe. But the painter in the clean suit will get a cleaner paint job every time. Keeping the dirt stuck to the painter from falling into the paint work is reason enough to wear clean, cover-all paint suits. And throw them away or wash them frequently. The buck you save by wearing it one more time will soon be gone at $0.70 per minute additional buffing time.
• Always use the right respirator for the job — Three types of respirators are commonly prescribed for collision repair: 1. Dust mask, which protects against the hazards from sanding dust. 2. Negative pressure, cartridge-type air-purifying respirator, which protects against the hazards from vapors and spray mists. 3. Positive pressure, air-supply respirator, which protects from isocyanate catalyzed paints.
Horseplay from a Jackass
I remember visiting a shop years back, and the new guy was unbolting a gigantic chrome bumper on a Desoto. Unknown to him, the shop prankster had already unbolted one end so that when the new tech pulled his first bolt on his end, the whole bumper fell off and pinned him to the ground. In genuine pain, he lay writhing on the floor while the rest of the shop stood around laughing. His broken ribs slowed him down the rest of the summer, but hey, it was funny right? Hopefully, that same designated boltpullin’ idiot is no longer part of the team at your shop.