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I dislike safety glasses but have to wear them at work. No requirement for steel toes. Thank God because they get cold. I leave the wheel tools covers in place. As much as they suck and block seeing what your working on. I even use the grinders guards when I build golf clubs in my home shop.
You are pretty fortunate with no lasting injury. A buddy of mine from a looong time ago caught a wire wheel wire in the white part of his eye. He had the presence of mind not to remove it and let the doctors do that. The fluid in your eye is not replaceable.
When I retired a couple of years ago, I left with some extra PPE. Always wear the stuff in the garage, workshop, etc. I've seen too many preventable
accidents. I just got new prescription lenses for my safety glasses. Now I can see.
Another aspect...I can't tell you how many times I set the frayed bottom of my pantleg on fire when welding. You don't know until you flip the hood up, or start feeling the heat. Sometimes it's frustrating when you feel it, but don't want to stop and interrupt a good bead. Time for new work jeans.
Any action on a grinder, you really should wear glasses, and a face shield...I had to go to the ER and have a piece of grinding-wheel removed from the white of my eye...and I was wearing safety glasses.
Another aspect...I can't tell you how many times I set the frayed bottom of my pantleg on fire when welding. You don't know until you flip the hood up, or start feeling the heat. Sometimes it's frustrating when you feel it, but don't want to stop and interrupt a good bead. Time for new work jeans.
Or working squatting down, and getting a nice band of 'sunburn' between your boot top and the bottom of your pants. Or everyone's favorite, the blob of slag down your boot top.
Wire wheels are the worst. I'll avoid using those unless there's no way around it. I've had several pieces of the wires enter my skin in various places over the years.
One memorable time was a few days after using a wire wheel on a hand held grinder. I found a white head "pimple" on my neck, right in the middle under my adams apple. I popped it and there was something black and hard in the middle. Got a pair of tweezers and out came a wire a little over an inch long. I was wearing a face shield, but it came in from underneath.
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