I had something that happened to me last night that was hilarious and incredibly painful at the same time. I was working on my final project for CAD last night, the Belt Buckle Project. Anyway, we printed our pieces off in Cornstarch and then infiltrated them in paraffin wax so that they could be burned out and cast using the lost wax method. So after casting the pieces in bronze, I started cleaning them up (grinding off the sprues, cleaning the surface up. etc.). Took me a few hours and then the thing had to be assembled. I got it about 3/4 the way assembled and started to take the sprues off of the last loop like piece so that I could finish assembling it. I was using my bench grinder for the process and it has a tendency to like to grab things and throw them across my studio. The wheel is spinning at 3500 rpm so that would probably equate to something like 100+ mph. My studio chair happens to be a 39" swiveling bar stool that is really comfy and nice, but also happens to be the same height as the grinder. So the grinder does what it always likes to do and grabs my piece. I have the side guards taken off for ease of changeability, and usually this causes whatever I'm working on to skitter off to one side and miss me... NOT THIS TIME!!! the loop followed the wheel all the way around and back out the front at over 100 mph, RIGHT INTO MY NUTS!! Talk about the worst pain that I've ever felt! I've fallen off of cliffs and collapsed lungs and that didn't even compare to how bad this was! So after about a half hour of screaming and coming close to tears (and laughing my ass off at the same time cuz let's face it, this was pretty damn funny!), I finally felt good enough to stand back up off of the floor and try to work on it again. I found the piece on the ground and it actually hit my package so hard that it bent! I'm totally fine but the 2-1/2 ounce piece of cast bronze was bent! That's how I figured out that I've got balls of solid bronze! But I won't be trying to do that ever again! So now if i'm working on that side of the grinder I'm putting a book in front of my important parts!