cuts

Evidently you are using the tool as a weapon. I manage to nick myself every once in a while, but nothing worse than a paper type cut. Did slice and dice myself as a kid building models...learned how to properly use the knife to avoid serious lacerations. First rule...use a light touch...better to make several light passes than one deep "to the bone" cut. The knife is for slicing...not cutting, not chopping. I learned from a surgeon who built models...he was the one that stitched me up after one such 'to the bone' incident.

I ran one of those curved wood carving tools btwn my fingers once. have a nice half moon scar there.

Craig

i was cleaning some plastic cutting away from myself. summabitch jumped over and hit my hand. somebody playing with a gravity generator? (g)

so far i have a sliced knuckle and lacerated mid thumb. the knuckle scar is cool. don't know how i missed the nerves, veins, muscles but who's complaining?

e offered me a plate of cheese and whispered:

If you could see bone then I seriously recommend that you get it looked at by a doctor or by your local casualty unit.

Be sure your tetanus shot is current, too.

I once had an Xacto knife roll off the workbench right onto my thigh, pointy end first of course! Too busy keeping parts in alignment as the glue set to catch the knife.

I hardly EVER pick up an X-Acto any more - I usually use a single edged razor blade, or just an X-Acto blade without the handle.

About the stupidest thing I ever did with an X-Acto was when I was in

3rd or 4th grade - I found one walking home from school...and as my folks wouldn't let me have one at the time, I picked it up and put it in my coat pocket.

As I continued walking, I became aware of "stabbing pains" in the right side of my stomach. Opened my coat to find that I HAD litterally been stabbing myself in the stomach with every step (after I wiped the blood away)...about a half mile's worth. Took the thing out of my pocket and returned it the ground. I don't think I picked one up again until I was in my mid-teens.

I carried those scars on my belly into my early 20's...

2 stitches, clean out and antibodys. but thanks.

ouch, ouch, ouch....hurt just reading that one.

I gave up counting the modeling wounds long ago. The worst offender has been the X-Acto or Zona razor saw, they can do some real damage!

No modeling accident can compare with a deli meat slicer, though. I was a butcher for a few years and there were many stitches during those years. I also discovered at age twelve that a sliding glass door had to be opened before one walks through. That was good for six weeks in the hospital and six month learning how to walk again. My right foot still cants outward about 20 degrees.

I can second the many-slices-for-one-cut theory. That seems to be innefficient, but it makes all the difference in the world safety-wise and there is more control of the results.

Good luck,

Tom

No bad Xacto stories I can remember, but I did have a run-in with a chef's knife (the big ones you see in the horror films) last year. I was doing something simple like chopping celery or onions. While I always curl the three middle fingers of my left hand under and rest the flat of the knife against the knuckles, I have the bad habit of not doing the same with my pinkie (and it juts out just past the knuckles). I caught it with the tip of the knife and sustained a deep cut from the side of the finger right to the edge of the fingernail. I put pressure on it for a good half hour but it still bled; only after holding my arm up over my head for another half hour did it finally stop bleeding.

Keep those knuckles bent under... ALL of them!

Ok...in keeping with the "I hate it when that happens" thread...

1) My Junior High shop class - one of the older kids was turning a baseball bat on a lathe in the back of the class...was bearing down a bit too hard, when the thing kicked out of the lathe, spun around and clubbed him upside the head...dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

2) Same Junior High shop class - kid lost his fingertips in the Uniplane...'nuff said.

3) More horrors from the same Junior High shop class - another kid managed to saw his finger half off on the band saw. Ran over to the sink to wash out the wound...the water from the faucet flushed his finger down the drain. Scratch one finger.

4) My dad - a shop teacher - lost the end of his middle finger reaching under a Skill saw during a remodeling job. My mother and I came home to the ringing phone, and a conversation that went something like this:

Dad: "Hey." Me: "Where are you?" Dad: "I'm in the hospital." Me: "The hospital? (Ma nearly faints...) What happened?" (car wreck?) Dad: "I sawed my damn finger off..." Me: (laughing) "But you're a SHOP TEACHER!!!" Dad: (laughing) "Yeah...ain't that some stuff?...better not mess up my golf swing." (by this time, Ma is ready to kill the both of us.)

5) More observations of adult life stupidity: Some co-workers come into work one day to find an officemate with a reputation for doing dumb things missing a finger...what gives? "Well I was mowing the lawn, and decided to trim the hedges"...the guy had picked up the running lawnmover to "mow" the hedges - and the mower "trimmed" his dangling finger. So now (trying REAL hard not to bust out laughing) comes the question: so why didn't you pick it up and go to the hospital to have it reattached? "Well...I leaned over to pick it up...and the dog got it. By the time finished chasing him around the yard and I got it back from him, it was too chewed up to do anything with." Laugh now.

i worked deli for a while, so the slicer/killer is an old nemesis. still have all the limbs and those white puckers are chick magnets.....yeah, right. but i'm ok today, and a lot more careful....

was his name cltus, goober or clem?

Mostly just minor slices with the Xacto, you know, a drop of super glue and back to work. But I've done other things like knocking an open lockback knife off the desk and having it land point first on my bare foot. Luckily no serious damage. The time I used a flat cheese slicer to remove the top of my thumb knuckle taught me to wait for the cheese to come to room temp and to not hold the cheese that way when trying to slice it. For some reason nobody wanted any of that cheese after that... Then there was the time my son went to look for the elusive "small part" that dropped from his modeling bench and caught the tweezers he had in his hand on the carpet and drove about an inch and a half of the tweezer into his hand. Ah yes, that was a scream I'll never forget. Lots of other stupid mistakes but those are some of the more memorable ones.

my parents were sure i'd never live to 12. then i started riding motorcycles and they KNEW i wouldn't reach 12.

Aren't you glad it was a sharp new #11? ;)

Bill Banaszak, MFE sr.

One day when I got to my favourite deli the place was closed because of a medical emergency. Knowing the shopowner my first thought was heart trouble. Not so, he'd sliced a finger in the slicer. I think he's been in the business since I was in diapers. That was good for a couple jokes about adding to the meat inventory cheaply during the next week's visit. :)

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.