View Single Post
Old December 2, 2004, 05:18 PM   #25
Barry in IN
Member
 
Join Date: October 14, 1999
Location: Indiana-west central
Posts: 99
The "watch pocket" on the right front of jeans is used for ring storage during work hours by my co-workers and I.

I grew up on a farm, and stories of fingers lost due to rings were common.

One guy I know had his on, jumped out of a wagon by putting his hand on the wooden sideboard and springing over. The ring caught on a splinter or something, and his finger stayed behind.

I became an aircraft mechanic, and often worked around moving machinery. Besides the risk of yanking a finger off, we have to be careful of electrical current. Wearing a metal ring or watch may provide a good enough current path.
I've seen enough safety films, and heard enough stories of "welded" rings and watches to scare me.
Besides our safety, we have to watch for Electrostatric Discharge, or ESD, damaging the airplane. In some cases, if you don't ground yourself to the plane with a wriststrap, your contact will cause an ESD and fry some of the more delicate "black boxes". The charges that can do this are tiny- millivolts and milliamps.

Despite this, some guys still wore jewelry. In 1988 or 89, one of my co-workers jumped out of a 747 cargo door. Just like the farm wagon incident, the ring caught and he traveled on. He did not completely lose his finger, but it was pretty mangled.

Regarding self-defense, an obvious negative is that jewelry draws theives. I got interested in watches a few years ago, as it seems a lot of gun people do. Must be a fascination with mechanisms.
Anyway, I started noticing that many Rolex watches had stretched bracelets (bands). The watch itself appeared well taken care of, but the band would look like it was used to pull cars out of the ditch.
I learned that this condition is often the result of theft attempts. The theif grabs the watch and runs, maybe twisting it also. If the band breaks- good for him. If the owner is getting hurt, maybe he'll fork it over. If it holds, and the owner won't give it up, then move on.

I suppose a watch can also provide a "handle" of sorts for immobilizing an arm, or doing takedowns.
Barry in IN is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03493 seconds with 8 queries