Yesterday I had a blonde day and today I am giving the model a wide berth -

While drilling holes in the Chieftains side skirts I broke my 15thou drill. This only a week after my 12thou drill took a high velocity, low trajectory flight into the middle distance.

I dropped a 3/32 square of styrene en route from the superglue tube to the sideskirt. While looking for it the sideskirt became superglued to my left index finger. After carefully removing sideskirt from digit with only minor damage to the epidermis I spotted the missing styrene glued to the fingernail of my right index finger!

Using my favourite needle nose tweezers I had a moment of brain fade, dropped the tweezers and, as they plummetted earthwards, involuntarily jerked my right arm toward my chest to catch them. After pulling them out of my arm there was surprisingly little blood, but the two neat, needle like, holes on my forearm mean I will be wearing long sleeves for a while lest people think I have advanced beyond just sniffing my styrene cement.

And then I noticed it was the 13th of the month!

Regards Dave

Hi Dave

Wow!! the gremlins were after you BIG TIME!! Sometimes it really is safest to take break...

What always bugs me is the way I can often see an accident coming... you know the sort of thing: "If I'm not careful I'll cut myself on that..." or "... I'll spill that on the model and b*gger everything up..."

Call it 6th sense or whatever, I still carry on - and manage to have exactly the accident I predicted!! I NEVER learn

Take care (literally!)

Rowan

Dave,
It sounds like you had better head for the bunker until the 14th, mate!!!!! #:-)

Hi. We all seem to have those days where we take one step forward and two back. Or maybe even three back, depending on just how stubborn we are to keep plowing ahead anyway. And when we are having one of these days it's best if we can recognize it at the beginning and just quit while we are ahead, or maybe behind. But usually most of us don't quit till we mess up another thing to two before finally 'seeing the light', so to speak, and move on to other things. I'm pointing the proverbial "fickle finger of fate" right at me at the moment as I have a real nice little cut on one of my fingers and every time I hit a key with it on this Infernal Machine it tells me about it.

It seems I always have a tad bit of a cut or slice on one of my digits from my modeling knife, kind of on a regular basis anymore. You would think that after almost 54 years I would learn how to use a knife, but apparently not. Luckily none are ever deep, but they are still quite painful sometimes.



good luck and take care, sgirty

jesus,
dave unlucky or what look mate just don't go near your 1/1 scale toys and tools
for a bit might turn out to be driller killer part deux!

I work in a foundry, and I NEVER walk the shop floor without safety glasses. (Flying molten iron and all that.) But I am amazed how stubborn I am about not wearing safety glasses at home when I am running the Dremel tool, cutting PE, etc. I am pretty sure that if I lose an eye, it will be at home, the "safe" place, not at work. What's up with that? I am trying to get in the habit.

Shaun

Try having a whole bottle of super glue blow up in you hand. I am glad someone invented the debonder. I still carry a scar on hand when a drill bit broke. I was drilling out cannon tube for a diorama. it took a some work to get it out of my hand. then there were stiches.

My problem is that when I see the accident coming, it is usually more than an x-acto knife or super glue. Like the 450 degree coolant bursting forth from the blown radiator hose (10 inch diameter, 3rd degree burn to the stomach) or the truck frame slipping off the hoist (6 inch gash across the top of my head that went to the skull). And thats just in the last month. I hate being a mechanic. I am glad I can't do things like this when I am working on a model. I can only cut things off or glue them together.

rob

I took a header into a bookcase and then bounced my ribcage off my workbench a few weeks ago. The ribs finally recovered. If I press where I smacked my head, it still hurts

Me? Sometimes I leave a cut on my finger. The hardest part that I ever experience was chest pains, maybe caused by paint fumes and the like.

I have had my fair share of accidents, I managed to stab/slice/dice and all but amputate my finger (the same finger) 5 times in one day. Or the day I was using a razor saw to cut the pour blocks from resin pieces and managed to put quite the gash in the tip of my finger. When I have days like that I know to put down the tools and step away from the workbench. I figure I'll either end up ruining a model (i.e. the turret on my M3A3) or doing severe bodily harm to myself. My wife winces now when I bust out the dremmel!

I think we all have a bad day once in a while. An xacto knife with a new #11blade rolls off the table and makes a perfect point down landing on a big toe ! The bottle of aluminum paint with the stuck cap slips from the hand just as the cap comes loose, you forget to tighten the lid on the bottle of glue and knock it over reaching for something else. The list goes on and on.

Now the Xacto knife is fitted with the triangular anti-roll piece, I don't open paint bottles over the table, and the glue bottle sits in a 3" x 3" base.

Not to worry, there are plenty more accidents waiting to happen. After all, Murphy was an optimist.

Lovely accidents all. (Ouch!)

I once had an Exacto roll off the bench -- of course, landing point down -- sticking right in my thigh, right up to the hilt. I probably should have gotten a stitch or two, but I super-glued it shut and it healed OK. I still have a little scar. I just wrap a piece of sprue onto each knife handle with tape to keep them from rolling.

The best one was when someone gave me an old five-gallon aquarium that no longer held water, but the frame and glass were all good. I wanted to use it for a diorama case, but thought it would look better if I took it apart, cleaned off all the old tar-like adhesive, and rebuilt it with clear silicone. I slipped while scraping off the tar-crap, and nearly cut off the end of my right index finger from just above the joint on the stainless steel frame. When the hausfrau brought me back from the emergency room, I went back into my modeling room (also our spare bedroom) and saw that I had spattered blood all over the wall, ceiling and floor as I shook my wounded finger. Ended up repainting the room and the old aquarium went to the trash.

How many of you out there have been working on a small widget either sanding or filing it, and it slips from your fingers? What is the natural response? To bring your legs together quickly to try and catch it in your lap, so you don't lose it on the floor. Am I right? Of course I am.

Well that knee jerk response (literally) caused me quite a bit of pain when instead of a small plastic part, I dropped a double ended needle scriber. Like an idiot, I quicky brought my legs together, only to have about 1/4 inch of one end go into my right inner thigh, and an 1/8 inch go into the left. I actually just sat there for a moment and looked at it in awe as I came to realize the stupidity of what I just did. Then I ever so gently pulled that sucker out.

Man...puncture wounds sure hurt!!!

Be careful out there folks....it's a dangerous arena to be playing in :-) :-)

John

When I was about 9 (thirty-mumble years ago) I nearly sliced off the last 1/2" of my index finger. Lucky (?) me, the bone stopped the knife. For those who haven't experienced this, you feel the bone touch up into your shoulder. Owww.

My parents had warned me that if I cut myself again, they would take the knife away (no modelling!). So, I washed it off, squeezed it together, wrapped it in paper towel and clear tape (no superglue back then...), and soldiered on. I managed to keep my finger out of sight from my parents for a while. My mother just shook her head when she found out about it several weeks later.

Part of my fingertip is still a little numb, and I have a dent in my finger. I guess I didn't get the two sides of the cut quite lined up right! I should have gotten an infection or gangrene, but God watches out for fools and animals, I guess.

This is not just a hobby for me...I have bled for my art!

We are men... We are supposed to be klutzes... *L*

More then onceI've been trimming a part with a shiny new #11 blade only to slip and open the end of my finger....Then just to make sure it STILL hurts, I seem to knock the same finger tip a few times over the next day or two....

We've all been yacking about Exacto blades, but what about razor saws? I've been working on the Formations M4A1 resin kit this week and have nicked myself a few times with the razor saw as I have been removing parts from the sprues. Ow.

So far, nothing serious, but I keep the superglue handy in case I have to re-attach a thumb.

I got myself good in the crease of an index finger once and that doggone razor saw cut such a ragged hole it took weeks to heal.

One other disaster: a few months ago I was working on a modified car body for a wrecked car in a diorama. I had everything aligned the way I wanted and clamped in one hand. I picked up the superglue in the other and tried to "flow" it into the seam .... well, I "flowed" it all right, right down to my hand and between all my fingers. I couldn't find any de-bonder or fingernail polish remover, so I tried to shave them apart with an Exacto. Dumb, dumb, dumb ... Then the seam pulled apart on the car model ...