CMU School of Drama


Friday, October 12, 2012

Keeping Dents Out of Co-workers Noggins

Theatre Safety Blog: Ty-Flot, makers of tool restraint lanyards, has introduced a new way to work with drop prevention equipped tools and tool belts. The Quick-Switch system allows the use of a short lanyard that fits between the tool and the worker's wrist so that long floppy lanyards are eliminated.

10 comments:

ZoeW said...

Well it seems like this tool is for sure "the cat's meow". But while that movie was pretty cheesy the sentiment seems to be good, the tool is very useful and is very different than everything else on the market. The switching from wrist to belt seems a little harder then it should be and the closeness to the wrist seems to be the advantage. Getting rid of the giant loop is a pretty good idea. Whenever I'm using a wrench with a cord I always end up tripping over it or trailing it along. This tool seems pretty nifty! Also lighting designers love new tools and so I'm sure any of them would love to test this out!

Unknown said...

This tool definitely seems like it would make things drastically easier. It also is nice because it just is on your wrist not on a tool belt etc. The article brought up a good point about how it can loop over something and then hit you or another person.( I feel like that is one of those things where you don't think of it until it happens.) The video did demonstrate the ease of shifting it around and repositioning it so I am definitely interested. I went through the process of "getting a quote" interested to see how much it is.

seangroves71 said...

Im definitly a fan of the concept of it, i dont think i will be using it anytime soon or really see lighting technicians using it in the near future as lighting technicians like to be able to just grab their wrench use it on one bolt then put it away. this requires hook on grab wrench use wrench put wrench down hook off. this is of course without personally trying it out, if the hook and release action to put it away works well enough id definitely consider it but i would have to play with it for a little while. I definitly think it is a step in the right direction.

Robert said...

This safety tool seems really cool. I have a few of the lanyards that are long and hard to work with. It took me a few different ones to find one that I like and continue to work with. The one thing that is really cool is that it is always locked off safe. The one thing that I wonder is does it require to always be clipped on something or can’t it come off or clipped on locations. Also the other thing that I don’t like is that you have to wear the wrist bands that look like they would be uncomfortable to work with and you would sweat like nuts. I hope to see one of these at a store, see how well it works and see if it would work for me.

Tyler Jacobson said...

I'd be interesting to see this in action. It seems like an interesting idea but I don't think I can be sold on it until I've actually used on. Unfortunately I don't really see this becoming common practice in our community. I'm glad that people are trying to make safety and easier process.

Unknown said...

I was pretty doubtful when I was looking at the picture, and after the video I was still a little doubtful. i can't really tell from the video or the picture but I feel like it would make a lot of jobs that involve multiple tools pretty annoying. It may be quick but I bet if you are working for a few hours it is nowhere near as quick as shoving one tool in your belt and grabbing the next. It seems cool, but I feel like most people will want to stick to the lanyards until the next version of this comes out, because there could easily be improvement. They have a concept now they just need to work with it until they have something a little easier and less intrusive.

april said...

This seems like a great idea. Not only is it much safter because it drasiclaly decreases the lenght the object can fall. decreses the swing and also lessens the likely hood of the person getting snaged on something, but it is also much more user friendly and less restrictive. I would be interested to try it out for myself however. It looks so easy to switch back and fourth between tools from your belt to your wrist but it also looks like someting that might not really work as great as it appears to on TV. For one thing it seems like it has the potential to become even more of a hassle with having to hook and unhook everytime, than being slightly restricted was. also it seems like it would be very easy to miss and end up knocking the out of the holster on your belt before you could hook it to your wrist and then the tool would end up falling as if it werent restrained at all.
Overall though it seems like a really good concept and with a few tweaks could be the future of tool safty.

kerryhennessy said...

Safety is always an important issue that many people think is just a hassle. When on the job most people don’t want to worry about a lot of extra requirement that may keep them safe but makes their job more difficult. I think that people are going to be the safest when it is easy to be safe. I am glad that there are people out there who are developing ways that people are able to stay safe more easily. This seems like it would be a useful and simple to use product.

Akiva said...

The Quick-Switch seems like a good idea on the surface. And this artical really does a great job of telling that side of the story. But before we all go running out to the store to by a set of Quick-Switches we should take a moment and think about the cons. The major problem I see with the Quick-Switch system is that the orange clip piece is being clipped and re-clipped a lot. This means that the user is more likely to use it wrong and have the clip not be fastened safely. The other problem I see with this is that for people with small wrists (like me) the wrist bands might slip off when the lines gets pulled.

The only real way to find out the true quality of this product is to see how it does in real peoples hands (and out of them).

Hunter said...

This seems like it Could be a good idea and could really improve safety conditions in construction sites as well as in the theater. We could use it while focusing lights in the theater to allow for the flexibility necessary to reach the lights but also keep the wrench secure so that if it falls it won't injure anyone below. Although it does seem like the clipping mechanism could run into some issues. When switching the clip it seems like it Could be really easy to think you had clipped it to yourself when you hadn't actually and then let go of the wrench. Either way I think we should always be looking for new ways to improve safety and this is a step in the right direction.