The Most Dangerous Thing in MY Shop...

CDHumiston

CDHumiston

Well-Known Member
You read a lot about how dangerous many of the tools we use in knife making are.

The top of the list usually goes to the buffer because it can snatch a blade out of your hand and throw it into your body or across the room.

I've never had a big issue with the buffer or any other tool so far. A minor burn here or a small scuff on my hand from the grinder.

The MOST dangerous thing in my shop, the one that has given me the most and worst injuries is the Stainless-Steel wrapping foil! That stuff is sharper than a razor blade and if I just barely bump into it or graze it with my hand or fingers, I have a seriously bad cut. I've cut myself on that foil at least half a dozen times. A few times I could have gotten stitches, but I just used superglue and butterfly Band-Aids.

I am so careful when handling it, but I still manage to cut myself at least once a month it seems...I just did it this weekend. I had a spare piece that I had laid in the top shelf of my toolbox and forgot about. I reached in pretty fast and bam! I cut the ring finger on my right hand to the bone...much blood was seen to flow, and it scared my wife to death. Out came the superglue...

Anything get you guys more often than it should?
 
John, you wrote what I was thinking as I was reading Chris's post - I KNOW I'm the most dangerous thing in my shop. AND, as I get older (75 now) I can tell it's easier for me to make a dumb move without thinking it thru. I really do try to be safe, but sometimes it just happens. That was one of the BIG factors in my selling my Goldwing a couple years ago.
 
Buffer is the most scary thing I own. I was buffing a blade years ago and it grabbed it and threw it down right through my boot and broke the tip off on the concrete. Just missed my big toe, just a tiny cut, but I have a pretty good respect for that machine. Ive cut myself on that foil too, that stuff gets me more than it should.
 
Yea that foil has got me more than a few times. I’ve always said the most dangerous machine in the shop is what’s ever running at the time but I’d have to say my wood cutting band saw is at the top of the list, like all machines you have to have all your concentration on what your doing in front of you. My saw with a course blade can take a finger off in the blink of an eye
 
Yep, I agree a bandsaw running around 3,000 to 4,000 SFPM with 6 TPI is a scary thing, it some ways even more scary than a tablesaw.

My buffer doesn't worry me much - it's only 1/4hp at 1800 rpm with soft buffs - it won't grab anything, the buff just collapses. I'm still careful with it. Now, one of those 1hp 3600 RPM buffers with a nice heavy buffing wheel, those are scary and dangerous. That's what is needed for "cutting" metal when polishing sidegrinder ground metal. But for the scales I polish, and even if polishing a blade that's already sanded to 1,000+ grit it doesn't take much power at all.
 
Do you guys wear gloves when folding foil? Haven't ever cut myself too badly, so I don't. The thing I'm most worried about is dust in the lungs, not a specific tool. Don't own a buffer yet.
 
I've concluded the most dangerous thing in my shop is ME! That's me doing stupid shit and knowing better.
In my later years I've found that most any worthy project has one consistent feature... there is usually a trail of blood and bandages involved. My first aid kit mostly consists of a roll of shop towels and electrical tape.
 
I have a friend that's pretty dangerous when he comes over, mostly to himself...got to kind of keep an eye on him.
 
MTBob said:
I've concluded the most dangerous thing in my shop is ME! That's me doing stupid shit and knowing better.
In my later years I've found that most any worthy project has one consistent feature... there is usually a trail of blood and bandages involved. My first aid kit mostly consists of a roll of shop towels and electrical tape.
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My first aid kit is superglue and butterfly Band-Aids! I don't mess around when I cut myself!

Almost every blade nicks me for the required blood sacrifice....
 
bladegrinder said:
I have a friend that's pretty dangerous when he comes over, mostly to himself...got to kind of keep an eye on him.
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I have a lifelong friend that I've known since we were two years old. He was always getting hurt. Good thing was, whenever I was with him I knew it would be him and not me!

I have at least a dozen stories of him getting hurt. Sometimes pretty bad.

Two quick ones.

He was riding on the back of my bike, got his big toe caught in the chain and off it came! Doc sewed it back on with no issues.

Another time we were playing Batman and sliding down an engine hoist chain his dad had hanging in a tree. He got his nut sack caught between two links and it got him 17 stitches! OUCH!

...okay, one more. My grandpa had a double blade axe we were forbidden to use. He kept it super sharp. My buddy decided he was going to take it out with us to chop wood. He decided to carry it over his shoulder. As we were walking in the woods he tripped on a vine and the axe hit him in the head. Off to the doctor for 10 stitches!
 
CDHumiston said:
I have a lifelong friend that I've known since we were two years old. He was always getting hurt. Good thing was, whenever I was with him I knew it would be him and not me!

I have at least a dozen stories of him getting hurt. Sometimes pretty bad.

Two quick ones.

He was riding on the back of my bike, got his big toe caught in the chain and off it came! Doc sewed it back on with no issues.

Another time we were playing Batman and sliding down an engine hoist chain his dad had hanging in a tree. He got his nut sack caught between two links and it got him 17 stitches! OUCH!

...okay, one more. My grandpa had a double blade axe we were forbidden to use. He kept it super sharp. My buddy decided he was going to take it out with us to chop wood. He decided to carry it over his shoulder. As we were walking in the woods he tripped on a vine and the axe hit him in the head. Off to the doctor for 10 stitches!
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Growing up my brother was like this. One time he almost took off his thumb with my wood carving set. Then another he ended with about 7 stitches on the top of his head from trying to run under a barbed wire fence. He didn't make it.

I waited until I was in my thirties to start crunching my body in various ways. And as others have said, that's when I learned I'm the most dangerous thing in the shop.
 
I take a blood thinner. You can tell how much or little I've been in the shop by how many purple bleed spots are on my arms. Makes for interesting cogitating trying to figure out how the hell you got the latest crop, like yesterday's. Must have twenty new spots after putting together a welding table, cart, and grinder stand. You lean on something to reach something else to put in a bolt and voila, a damned new spot from just the little pressure.

I love butterflies. I've never had a stitch from a shop accident, but I've had some dandy cuts. Thank goodness for cloth surgical tape.LOL
 
Well, after assembling a cart, welding table, benchgrinder stand and hanging some LED lights in the old garage, I believe I have it ready to go. Typical the last couple years, worse now with the blood thinner crap, worse too because years of steroid cream have thinned the skin to tissue paper.


image.jpg

When the heat or humidity break a little, the welder is ready to go. I’m a bit nervous but excited. I remember being this way about Gas and then MIG, too.
 
fitzo said:
Well, after assembling a cart, welding table, benchgrinder stand and hanging some LED lights in the old garage, I believe I have it ready to go. Typical the last couple years, worse now with the blood thinner crap, worse too because years of steroid cream have thinned the skin to tissue paper.


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When the heat or humidity break a little, the welder is ready to go. I’m a bit nervous but excited. I remember being this way about Gas and then MIG, too.
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Is that bruising and bleeding from blood thinners?
 
CDHumiston said:
Is that bruising and bleeding from blood thinners?
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Blood thinners and skin damage from steroid cream for psoriasis. Steroids destroy the collagen that holds skin together. All the white spots are the collected scars. Some is from forging days, some is from raising puppies and or getting scored today by a paw/nail, and nowadays all I have to do is lean into something and there’s a spot, or hit it a glancing blow and there’s a tear. My hands were clear last Monday, and I’m not a real clumsy guy. This is just ordinary little touches or brushes against things that any of us do every day. I tear and bleed, however.
I see the hands are swollen and shiny. Arthritis acts up when I use them. Ugly image, all told, eh?
Oh, well. I am not going back to sitting in that chair as long as I am able and I won’t die from scraped arms.
 
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fitzo said:
Blood thinners and skin damage from steroid cream for psoriasis. Steroids destroy the collagen that holds skin together. All the white spots are the collected scars. Some is from forging days, some is from raising puppies and or getting scored today by a paw/nail, and nowadays all I have to do is lean into something and there’s a spot, or hit it a glancing blow and there’s a tear. My hands were clear last Monday, and I’m not a real clumsy guy. This is just ordinary little touches or brushes against things that any of us do every day. I tear and bleed, however.
I see the hands are swollen and shiny. Arthritis acts up when I use them. Ugly image, all told, eh?
Oh, well. I am not going back to sitting in that chair as long as I am able and I won’t die from scraped arms.
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Wow, that is a bummer, but I love the attitude about not sitting around in a chair!

My skin is starting to get thin and age spots are setting in. I've had pretty bad arthritis for some time. Some days I wake up with my fingers curled up and I have to run hot water on them to loosen up. But like you I'll never sit still until they bury me!
 
CDHumiston said:
Wow, that is a bummer, but I love the attitude about not sitting around in a chair!

My skin is starting to get thin and age spots are setting in. I've had pretty bad arthritis for some time. Some days I wake up with my fingers curled up and I have to run hot water on them to loosen up. But like you I'll never sit still until they bury me!
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I was afflicted with an inherited ( genetic flaw) autoimmune disease that in me expressed as psoriatic arthritis. It flared in earnest about 30 years ago. Unfortunately, those first ten years were before the modern biologic drugs you see on the tube. It pretty much ravaged most every joint in my body before they got me on a biologic. That really changed things, but coupled with “co-morbidities“ I was failing and I was medically retired 20 years ago. And I was on oxygen at the time (ex smoker) and just sat down in my chair and waited to die like the doctor had told me I was going to do. Being a stress eater, it took advantage of all that stress and by August 2019 I looked like this:
7FBCB653-99AA-4879-98FD-ABF7761B2491.jpeg

One day I stepped on the scale after a long spell and I’d gained yet another 25 and hit 388. I went on a diet. Then illness helped. Covid, Long Haul, serious food poisoning, poisoned by the vaccine, yada yada. Through it all I stayed on that 1000 calorie diet and eventually I looked like this at 195
C0FD117D-1EE2-4D25-BFEA-C42177AD3036.jpeg

And I got out of that chair and fired up my shop after a dozen years and I am neither gaining weight nor sitting in that chair full time again.
I have no real goals, can’t do a lot but can do a little almost every day. Sure, there’s bad days. Suffer through it and move on. And now this AFib crap. Slower yet, but still moving, bumping, bleeding.
The box around my neck is a TENS for my lowest back, in case anyone wonders. I use it on Interferential mode. It allows me to move.
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

For those who feel it’s “ too much info”, well, you should’a stopped reading. ;)
 
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