Tool safety is not just for power tools

bowman

Board of Directors, Webmaster
Neal
Staff member
Corporate Member
Lesson learned...Did not "require" stitches, I am now paying better attention to hand position when cutting with a hand saw. I was cutting some tenons on a piece of maple and instead of repositioning it for better hand safety, I thought I would be just fine cutting, holding on at the short end. The saw jumped out of the kerf that was forming and came down on 1st joint of my left index finger. Grabbed a clean paper towel and held pressure until the bleeding slowed.

With my wife's assistance, we washed it out with peroxide, followed by alcohol, and then placed steri-strips across the cut, pulling the skin back together.

Just when you think you are making progress with hand tools, life reminds you that you do not know it all.
 

Graywolf

Board of Directors, President
Richard
Staff member
Corporate Member
Neal, I cut myself all the time. Nothing serious, and usually it's with chisels not handsaws, but I know exactly what you're talking about with your mishap. Speedy recovery.
 
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mdbuntyn

Matt
Staff member
Corporate Member
Saws seem to love jumping out of the kerf. Thankfully it wasn't too bad.
 

Mrfixit71

Board of Directors, Treasurer
Rich
Staff member
Corporate Member
Seems like every project I work on requires a bandaid or steri-strips at some point.
 

ScottM

Scott
Staff member
Corporate Member
If you have ever been to a Roy Underhill class he had band aids galore on his fingers. He cuts himself at just about every class.
 

JimD

Jim
Senior User
I tried some gloves in the shop last weekend and left them there, I may use them more. I loose feel and they could get caught in something but I get little paper cuts sometimes pushing wood against the fence. I am making a crib of hard maple right now and the edges of the wood sometimes get me. I put the gloves on due to a prior shallow cut that I am pretty sure was from the wood. A band aid would also have covered it but I get annoyed those take two hands to pen and apply. That would have been OK for the paper cut but when one hand is bleeding it can be challenging to get the band aide on.
 

Rwe2156

DrBob
Senior User
Boy you bring up a good point. Some of the nastiest cuts I've gotten can occur with a chisel, a slip, and a misplaced hand.

And there are the freak things like when I dropped the 1/4" iron from my Stanley 45 it went right through a dog hole and imbedded in my Croc sandal right next to my big toe. :p
 

mpholway

Board of Directors, Events Director
Matt
Staff member
Corporate Member
Dr Bobs post gets me going on a topic I think is often overlooked. Shop footwear! Whenever I go into the shop I put on my RedWing work boots and when I have visitors I insist on no sandals or open-toed shoes. On a number of occasions I have been saved from injury when I dropped a heavy piece of material or sharp tool on my foot.
 

Dreuxgrad

Ed
Senior User
Have a cousin that his first job was at a paper towel plant in Mehoopany, PA.
The towel was so absorbent that they instructed him absolutely do NOT use
the product to try and staunch the flow on an open injury, as it will not happen.
Wonder how they knew that??
Ed
 

Dreuxgrad

Ed
Senior User
Dr Bobs post gets me going on a topic I think is often overlooked. Shop footwear! Whenever I go into the shop I put on my RedWing work boots and when I have visitors I insist on no sandals or open-toed shoes. On a number of occasions I have been saved from injury when I dropped a heavy piece of material or sharp tool on my foot.
Yes Matt, shoes saved my left foot after a router bit grabbed and shot straight down, still spinning.
And then there was the time cutting new grooves in the soles and the band saw caught and went into the upper
leathers.
PS- foot wasn't in it at the time,lol; and I think it was the same pair!
 

Oka

Casey
Corporate Member
Almost ALL of my hand injuries are from hand tools, utility knives, screwdrivers, hand saws, craving tools ...... Or broken twist bits .......... some required stitches, most not. The last one I got on my hand I just superglued it shut, all depends where the cut is. BTW you can actually buy the hospital grade superglue for skin online, but TBH I have not seen it any better than the regular glue ........... just sayin' ......... reading this it sounds so hillbilly....... :rolleyes:
 

golfdad

Co-director of Outreach
Dirk
Corporate Member
Woodworking and hand cuts go together. We all need to be more carefull. MY shop first aid kit gets a fair amount of use
 

Hobbit

New User
Tony
I started wearing gloves a couple of years ago, mainly because of splinters. Now I feel naked without them.

The scariest hand tool injury I ever saw was when I was 19. Someone had given me some chisel blades, and an old Ukrainian guy I worked with offered to make some handles for me. He used a plane to roughly 'carve' a handle from some hardwood into a round shape. Then he drilled a hole in the end and hammered it onto the chisel tang. However it was crooked so he turned it upside down in his vise and used a screwdriver and mallet to knock it off. It gave way when he wasn't expecting it to, and as his hand came down the corner of the chisel blade (which had just been sharpened) sliced neatly across the back of his hand which was holding the screwdriver. If you look at the back of your hand you'll see how many veins are there. We put a towel around his hand and I drove him to hospital. By the time we got there the towel was dripping with blood. I have never forgotten that.

As a matter of interest I'm now 69 and I still have those chisels. The chisel in question is a Ward and sharpens to (and keeps) a very fine edge. I have since turned some new handles and as you can imagine I took extreme care in removing the old ones before fitting the replacements.
 
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