Hard hat history 4

[MotorCity]

I enjoy watching engineering type programs on TV.....about constructing the tallest building, the longest bridge, the largest ship, or whatever. In watching these various programs, I have noticed that any construction that occurs outside of the USA, all of the construction workers are wearing hard hats with a chin strap. While intuitively it seems like a logical idea, I have never seen this practice in the USA. Is this a geographic thing, a cultural thing, both? It probably boils down to money like everything else, but it just seems for being as safety conscious as we are these days, our hard hats would have chin straps.

 

[msquared48]

Probably for the same reason you DO NOT wear the chin strap on hour helmet in the military.

If a projectile does strike the helmet, there is a chance that the force from the blow will cause the helmet to dislodge, taking your head with it if the chin strap is attached.

That would ruin your day.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[HamburgerHelper]

Make the chin strap out of something or connected to something that tears easily or stretches.

 

[JAE]

Connect it to your ear lobes?



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[jari001]

I'm in the US. I met an operator yesterday that told me he had done some work as a spotter during crane operations and when he worked on projects that were at a very great height (>10 stories lets say), he always worried about his hard hat falling off when he would look every which way. He said he got permission to run masking tape over the helmet and around his chin like a makeshift chin strap so that it wouldn't fall off. I usually just give the hardhat a couple extra clicks when I am afraid the helmet might fall off because I am looking in odd directions.

 

[Murec]

I noticed the chin straps used mostly in the Far East. In the Middle East even the hard hats are not always used.
However, chin straps were used in the military - it helps to have a heavy helmet kept in place when you are running and jumping around.

 

[Lomarandil]

Skanska just announced this as part of safety week:

http://blog.usa.skanska.com/why-were-piloting-a-new-hard-hat/

Our company is considering it.. although we're expecting some push-back when we make site visits (even though the ones we're looking at are ANSI rated).

----
The name is a long story -- just call me Lo.

 

[JAE]

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[msquared48]

Compliance is everything...

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[dik]

JAE... in the first photo, the taller guy will get hit first, hopefully...

Dik

 

[JohnRBaker]

Look again dik, there's only ONE person in that first photo.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[davidbeach]

Every hard hat I've had at my present job has come with a chin strap. I've even used it on occasion.

 

[MikeHalloran]

<tangent>
I can walk upright anywhere within a submarine and not hit anything with my head.
... unless I'm wearing a hard hat; then I hit every damn thing in the overhead.
One fine day I set my hard hat down on a torpedo rack or some other handy surface while I was tending to some problem not far away.
I came back not twenty minutes later, and somebody had done a beautiful job of painting an officer's 'scrambled eggs' on the brim, in aluminum paint. Not surprised that a random object got painted; there was _always_ a crew of painters on board while we built them. I was surprised at the detail work, because the painters weren't issued artists brushes, just a long handled 1" sash brush with a cranked ferrule.
I was actually quite proud of that hat, simple recognition of my rank as a young pushy asshole, which was sort of my job at the time.
I wish I'd kept it. Not the job; the hat.
</tangent>


Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JohnRBaker]

I think I've still got my old hard hat (it was more of 'bump hat') that we had to wear when we were on a job site, along with my 'greens' with the company name on the back and the steel-toed shoes we had to wear. I only went into the field a few times a year for start-ups and sometimes for an upgrade job. However, my last year with that company (1979) I was given the job of redesigning and rebuilding a machine in the field, without taking it out of production. Made 28 trips from Michigan to Connecticut before it was done, spending well over 100 days total (we could only get access to the machine on Saturday and then had to be there on Sunday to see to it that it started back-up again). Got to where I knew the airline schedule between Saginaw and Windsor Locks by heart. We had a crew there full-time while I would fly in every other week with more parts for the job.

That's where I heard the joke about the difference between an engineer and a millwright; An engineer washes his hands BEFORE he goes to the bathroom.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[dik]

JRB... I saw that... comment was for humour...

thanks, Dik

 

[msquared48]

Let's make sure no one loses their head over this issue.

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[waross]

I see more and more job sites requiring safety lanyards on hard hats. One end attaches to the ha and the other end has a clip that attaches to the lapel of your coveralls.
I wish my partner had been using one when he dropped his hard hat from the 200 foot level of a coker.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[MintJulep]

I especially love the safety departments that require the use of a hard hat even when there is nothing at all happening "over head".

Prettymuch every helmet other than hard hats has a chin-strap.

The Skanska design looks nice.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Ever bend over while looking at some machine's detail? This is why the hats that we wore when out in the field working on one of our pieces of machinery were called 'bump hats'. I've still got some scars, currently hidden by my hair (at least for a while yet) from when I wasn't wearing my 'bump hat' ;-)

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[EdStainless]

The only two that I have are both illegal now, one is Al and the other fiberglass.
Both had lightweight chin straps, barely enough to hold them on when you looked down.

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