a bad week, but it's my own fault
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Last Sunday I was sweeping my bench clean and the lazy bit in me decided not to clear up my tools first. Result, my oil stone got knocked off the bench. I now have two 4″ stones. For many months now I have been saying I would a) buy a chisel roll or preferably b) make a box for my now very sharp chisels. I have done neither, instead I have wrapped them in a thick cloth and used a rubber band to keep them wrapped. Today the band slipped when I was putting the chisels away. Three hours later my finger was still bleeding. I could not face 4 hours in A&E, but I managed to get a couple of steristrips from a nurse I know. The ornamental joiners tool box I have been working on is now on hold for a couple of weeks.
27 April 2015 at 3:13 am #126755Oh, man, what a bummer. So we’re dying to know – what’s the first project after the finger heals? Continue with the joiner’s tool box or take care of the chisel box / chisel roll once and for all.
27 April 2015 at 6:15 am #126763I have hit my left thumb with chisels TWICE. First time I was very tired, inexperienced, and stupid. Trying to pare down a groove in a piece of jarrah, it was very hard, so to grip better I put my hand in front. That one hurt a lot. Got shots, had to go to hospital to get the wound disinfected and 3 stitches.
Second time I was chopping a mortise, caught my thumb on removing the chisel and sliced it open. Not quite so bad that time, just used steristrips and bandages.
Every time I talk about chiseling now, SWMBO winces.
That said the most painful work related injury I’ve had was cutting my hand open on a broken piece of laminate at tafe. Laminate is terrible stuff.
It will be the box first @mattmcgrane problem is the chisel went into the underside of the middle finger of my right hand, right into the middle section of the finger, where a lot of the control and pressure on saws, planes, hammers, etc. comes from.
Still it could have been worse, a planer thickneser, band/table saw or router would have probably reduced me to four and a half fingers. At least with hand tools you get to keep all your fingers when you are careless.
If the summer bonus is big enough I’m thinking of diamond plates to replace the oil stone 🙂
27 April 2015 at 6:19 pm #126778I had a board shatter as I was feeding it through the table saw. Apparently carbide is harder than human flesh. Luckily all I lost was a thumbnail and some time while things grew back.
28 April 2015 at 3:02 am #126787About 30 years ago I had a tablesaw accident. I was lucky in that I found a hand surgeon that performed what I consider a miricle in that he saved what was left of my right index finger. I had shortened my thumb by a quarter inch and that was the extent of the damage to my right hand. A moment of carelessness can cause a lifetime of anguish even if it’s a hand tool. In my case it took me a year to recover my confidence.
Not to lecture but learn from your accident, develop good habits that keep you safe. I still have moments to this day where I relive the mental anguish a moment of carelessness caused me and those who cared for me.28 April 2015 at 5:06 am #126788I think it was probably my father who taught me safety around machines. When working with a table saw, for example, I never wear loose clothing or long sleeves and never stand in line with the blade. Now that I am working almost exclusively with hand tools, I feel much safer.
But, because I am on anti-coagulants, even nicking myself slightly is a real drag. I did just that after sharpening the iron of an old skew rebate plane that I got on eBay. Being familiar with neither the plane nor the skew of the iron, I stupidly put my finger onto the sole of the plane right at the tip of the sharp iron. It did not hurt at all: such was how sharp the iron was. But it took quite a while and a lot of gauze to finally make it stop bleeding.
Life is one long improvisation, and we learn as we go. Well, hopefully we learn.
28 April 2015 at 5:14 am #126790It seems like every time I come back from the shop I spend a few hours finding little cuts I don’t remember getting. Often I will roughly set up the lateral adjustment on a freshly sharpened plane iron with my fingers, to feel the projection. It’s not till I’m preparing something acidic in the kitchen that I realise my mistake.
That said, I’m glad to be able to avoid the large majority of the machines commonly in use. It only takes a moment of carelessness with a machine to really hurt yourself, and I can’t guarantee that I won’t find myself in a hurry and make a mistake. At least with hand tools you usually stop before you hit bone.
One time I lined up my square to make a knife wall. I took my freshly sharpened knife and made the first cut, taking the tip of my index finger with it. Two weeks later, when it had finally healed, I managed to do the exact same thing on the exact same finger.
W.
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