Federation Commander

Wear it.

Seriously.

I just had a much-too-close call. I was switching to a new can of air for my airbrush and had a jet of liquid propellant shoot out the side and catch me in the right eye.

I *should've* had my safety glasses on. They were right inside in my work backpack. I didn't and very nearly had a really "bad day".

I lucked out and only got the tiniest amount of butane in my eye and not enough to freeze any tissue. Stung pretty good though. Got it flushed out and washed my eye out with saline so I'm OK, but I'm very, very lucky.

Wear. Safety. Glasses.
Anytime you are working with cutting, filing, paints, etc. Your eyes are irreplaceable.

Ditto to what Will just said. I've had to go to the hospital before with metal shavings in my eye (lousy Dremel tool and those low-down, dirty-rotten, methane-breathing, trashcan-looking Hydrans - and if I'd just waited a bit I could have bought a Monarch instead of making my own!!!)

The doctors were able to flush the metal out of my eye and the scratches weren't too bad. I had to spend a week in an eye-patch, but I learned my lesson. I never work with anything that could harm my eyes without wearing the proper protection.

Oh yeah. Definitely get something over your eyes when working with anything sharp. I've gone to catch something that I dropped by reflex and still had an exacto knife in my other hand. It didn't hit my glasses, but it could have.