Alan Hitchcox

Testing Hydraulic Cylinder Goes Wrong – Fire Erupts The lack of standardized component test methods in the fluid power industry has left maintenance personnel devising their own techniques for testing hydraulic components. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that a maintenance technician, with no formal training in hydraulics, caused a fiery inferno that burned […]

The Penalty of Making an Incorrect Assumption A mill maintenance technician who had some hydraulic training was badly injured in an accident at a sawmill. He was trying to remove a hydraulic cylinder from a production machine so he could replace the rod seal, which was leaking. The cylinder was mounted vertically, and its piston […]

When you install hydraulic cylinder onto a machine, how do you bleed air out of the cylinder? Do you repeatedly extend and retract the cylinder’s piston rod under no load, a technique commonly referred to as free travel? This common practice is unsafe, and you must be aware of and understand the safety problems inherent […]

At Rest Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Safe Those not properly trained to work on mobile hydraulic systems often assume that if a machine is not running, the hydraulic system can be worked safely. Some may even realize that even if a machine is shut down, it should not be worked on if it is still supporting […]

Students at a technical college were going to learn how to disassemble a hydraulic cylinder. In this case, the cylinder was a round, welded design with the rod gland retained on the ID of the cylinder tube. Students removed the gland retaining ring, then laid the cylinder on the floor. They then tried to pull […]

A Routine Procedure Gone Horribly Wrong One of the most effective ways of learning is learning from your mistakes. What’s even better is learning from someone else’s mistakes. That’s why I go back to Rory McLaren again and again. Rory is an instructor and expert on fluid power safety, and director of the Fluid Power […]