If I'm not Bleeding I'm Not Working

[ken hatch]

Damn chisels are sharp, or at least they should be. The good is unless the cut is really deep you usually don't know it has happened until there is blood everywhere. Some of it is old age, if I bump something the skin breaks and I bleed. Then you add in the anti-coagulants I take for AFib and you really can spread some DNA around the shop.

Needless to say I left a trail of evidence a couple of minutes ago. I was moving a piece of wood from the paring stop to position it for chopping the waste from a tail with one hand and holding the chisel in the other (BTW, fresh off the stones) and there was a light brush of my left thumb. Not bad, I didn't know I'd touched the chisel until the blood started showing up. Had to take a break to stem the flow.

Well back to chopping waste....Be careful out there, hear.

ken

[Steve Voigt]

One of the guys who writes for Chris Schwarz took his finger off with a chisel and had to have it reattached. I don't know how it turned out. 15 years ago, my most serious woodworking injury happened when I was using a chisel to take dried glue off a glue bottle (and I'd had a couple bottles of beer myself). I spent an entire night in the emergency room and surgery was a definite possibility--thankfully, I didn't have to. It's easy to think of hand tools as much safer than power tools, and mostly they are, but chisels in particular can be really dangerous. Be careful!

[Frederick Skelly]

Many times I get nicked just using my chisels. Even more frequently when sharpening either a chisel or plane iron. I keep a box of bandaids right above my bench.
Fred

[ken hatch]

One of the guys who writes for Chris Schwarz took his finger off with a chisel and had to have it reattached. I don't know how it turned out. 15 years ago, my most serious woodworking injury happened when I was using a chisel to take dried glue off a glue bottle (and I'd had a couple bottles of beer myself). I spent an entire night in the emergency room and surgery was a definite possibility--thankfully, I didn't have to. It's easy to think of hand tools as much safer than power tools, and mostly they are, but chisels in particular can be really dangerous. Be careful!

Steve,

I'm pretty careful when using 'em, I use a vise or stops to hold the work piece and keep my off hand behind the cutting edge. Where most of my cuts come from is just like today, brushing against the edge through inattention. The worst was one time taking a chisel out of the lower rack and brushing against one in the upper rack, it was just a light brush but it split my thumb nail down the middle....That one hurt, needless to say I changed the way I racked the chisels.

ken

[ken hatch]

Many times I get nicked just using my chisels. Even more frequently when sharpening either a chisel or plane iron. I keep a box of bandaids right above my bench.
Fred

Fred,

Yep, been there done that. Most the time if I'm really working in the shop, not just piddling like I have been this morning (I have to give a couple of Type Check Rides this afternoon) I will have the glue pot on. A couple of dabs of hot hide glue with some pressure from a paper towel will take care of most cuts.

ken

[Tony Shea]

I've never got it too bad from chisels but my sloyd knives I use for spoon carving are where my nasty's come from. It's amazing how quick just a tiny slip can get you really bad with these knives. I keep these knives sharper than any tools I own and it really shows. If they are dull at all they start leaving marks behind, especially on the finish cuts. So they are absolutely straight razor sharp and I have felt the wrath of this many times. The worst was in the web of my left hand between my index and thumb, it took 12 stitches to repair that one and it still bothers me to this day.

[Steve Meliza]

It doesn't help that fingers bleed worse than most other places on your body. I learned this lesson while stropping a #4 blade and being too lazy to secure the strop properly. For some reason I decided I could hold the strop with my left hand and the iron with my right. It was working ok till I brought the iron back for another pass and felt it brush my left thumb. It was like striking oil in the movies.

[bridger berdel]

When I was a kid woodworker I knew an old guy missing two fingers on his left hand. Middle and ring fingers. He buried a chisel in his palm, severed the tendons for those fingers. Today they would reattach the tendons, but back then it wasn't an option so they took the fingers off. Otherwise they would have been dangling around in the way. Sure made an impression on me....

[Brian Holcombe]

Worst one for me, so far, has been from a dozuki and that was a good one.

[Bill White]

Ahh, the joys of Warfarin.
Bill

[James Pallas]

Worst one for me came from a coping saw of all things. I've had so many from carving chisels, all those little nicks you don't see but bleed on the work. I started wearing a glove on the off hand. Then I saw this quote "Wearing a glove provides a place to keep the parts while your wife drives you to the ER." I laugh every time I put on the glove.
Jim

[Nicholas Lawrence]

The worst cut I have had was with a freshly sharpened rip saw. I was ripping a small piece and just did not have it held securely enough. Somehow I caught the top of my thumb, and it went right through the nail with no problem and kept going. Now small pieces like that go in the vice.

I have been pretty lucky with chisels I guess. I do always clamp whatever I need to work on, and then both hands stay well behind the edge.

[Frederick Skelly]

Fred,

Yep, been there done that. Most the time if I'm really working in the shop, not just piddling like I have been this morning (I have to give a couple of Type Check Rides this afternoon) I will have the glue pot on. A couple of dabs of hot hide glue with some pressure from a paper towel will take care of most cuts.

ken

Thanks Ken!

[Niels Cosman]

A day without blood, is like a day without shavings.

[Clay Parrish]

Worst one for me came from a coping saw of all things. I've had so many from carving chisels, all those little nicks you don't see but bleed on the work. I started wearing a glove on the off hand. Then I saw this quote "Wearing a glove provides a place to keep the parts while your wife drives you to the ER." I laugh every time I put on the glove.
Jim

My best woodworking scar also came from a dinky little coping saw. You can see four or five teeth marks scarred into in my off hand. My biggest bleeder came from a pin holding a hand drill together. I tapped it back in then stupidly ran my thumb over the back side to see if the pin was flush. Tapping it in raised a razor sharp burr and I sliced my thumb so deep I probably should have gotten stitches (I glued it shut myself instead.)