All thanks to a brand new #2 blade and watching Dredd on the tv. About an inch and a half long and to the bone. They didn't stitch up my thumb, just 4 butterflies, a tetanus shot and a roll of gauze to immobilize it for a couple of days.

Good thing it was a brand new blade and not a an old dull and dirty one
That is why I switched to using side cutters for all the tasks where it can be used. Saves on blades, thumbs and fingers.
A fret saw or coping saw can take over some of the jobs from the scalpel/knife.
I hope you didn't get blood all over the place, fingers bleed a lot ....

/ Robin

I learned in cub scouts that getting cut by a sharp blade hurts less than a dull one. I was cleaning the sprue gates off a Dragon road wheel carefully cutting it by sliding the blade thru the stub using my thumb to stop the knife at the knurled part of the handle just below the blade. Just a tiny little bit of residue when something happened on the movie and I looked up and the knife went thru my thumb. Sliced down the inside from the end of my thumb to past the joint. Didn't realize I was cut at first but then is started to bleed. Usually it's wash out the cut then a bandaid or two or three but this was pretty bad. I've been cut worse, should tell you about the chainsaw incident that really made my mother slightly irritated (I left a bloody mess in her clean kitchen) but I didn't even feel this one. Really sharp blade, non xacto brand that I got from Ace hardware. Going to get some more of those. You really need to have sharp blades.

Patrick,
Glad you got it fixed. A year or so ago, there was a posting here about modeling "accidents", and there were several "pages" of comments. Seems we've all been there!! Some of us multiple times!! Hopefully no permanent damage has been done, and you can get back to modeling soon. Cyanoacrylate works great for sealing up cuts-- (don't ask me how I know). I have a "funny" story about that too. When I worked in a LHS, the business manager used old boxes cut down with an Xacto knife to do the daily shipping. He was cutting down some boxes to size and cut his thumb. He remembered me telling him I used Cyanoacrylate to seal up wounds. He applied the glue, but it wasn't drying fast enough for him, so he grabbed a bottle of accelerator and sprayed it over his thumb (accelerator will heat up above 400 degrees F. when it reacts with the glue). He had an interesting time explaining to the ER Doc why he needed both stitches and treatment for a 3rd degree burn.
VR, Russ

I remember that thread. It's amazing that modellers live to old age.

Alright, I ain't lying but you folks are not gonna believe me but I did it again. Same knife, same blade, same damn Dragon panther. Middle finger thru side halfway thru the nail and into the bone. Didn't even realize I'd did it until I saw red on the hull and I wasn't painting. Not going to the doc this time since my tetanus is current.

I'm 'bout tempted to shelve this build. It's jinxed.

Sounds like it might be a little possessed.


Cheers

That's what happens when you start with eight good fingers and two thumbs, then slice up a thumb, and try to go back to work with only nine functioning digits. You were bound to end up cutting another one, which means you're down to eight serviceable digits. Exponentially, if you continue to try and work with only eight functioning digits, you should be cutting up another one every fourth road wheel (if I did my math right) which means you'll run out of digits long before you finish this model. It might be time to take a break, at least until those two damaged digits heal up. Of course you could find another method, like chucking them in a drill and using a piece of sandpaper to trim them down, but then again, given your luck with sharp items, you may not want to move to power tools, which seem to be living, writhing snakes with nasty fangs (on my workbench anyway). I have an image in my brain of you holding this model in both severely bandaged hands, trying to stick on some really gouged up roadwheels!! Sorry, didn't mean to laugh at your misfortune. Try to heal up before going further. The weather seems to be perfect now in the NW, maybe you could switch temporarily to fly fishing?? Oh wait, there are some pretty sharp hooks there too.....
VR, Russ

I should have posted it was the same dang hand. I still have two of the butterflies on the deepest part of the wound on my thumb and I bandaged up the new cut all nice and pretty. I've got lots of experience with that for some reason . The nice thing about cuts with sharp blades it they close up fast if you don't muck with them for a while but I cut thru the nail so that is going to have to be repaired when the skin heals.

I'm building Dragons Panther II 6027 and it's not a bad build for being an old Dragon kit. Everything fits well, no sink marks, detail is soft for todays kits but it must be jinxed. It was one of a few kits that were in the house when it burned downed that wasn't destroyed. Even the box was undamaged even with the water from the firefighters.

I'm going to finish it. Just not right now. Going to wait until the bandages come off.

House burned down!?! Cut up fingers!?! Man you're having a tough time! In all seriousness now, I've rebuilt my thumb nail with super glue, after putting a Phillips head screwdriver bit through the nail to the bone (non-modeling power tool incident). So cyanoacrylate can be a great "first aid" item too ( just don't use accelerator!!!). You might want to try it on that fingernail. My brother in law was a surgeon (and a modeler too, but he's passed on now). He used to tell me that cyanoacrylate is used frequently in surgery applications, as it's pretty benign, so I figure if the Docs use it to mend things back together, so can we! In my case, I just created a new thumb nail every few days for a few months while the old one was coming back-- used sanding sticks to "shape" the nail, and put my "modeling skills" to practical use! My wife thought I was nuts though, until I told her it really wasn't much different than getting those artificial nails at the "nail salon"!
VR, Russ

The house blew up and burned back in 07 caused a bit of excitement as I was running out the door when it went. About 8 years ago I had a run in with a very sharp hatchet that partially severed my other thumb between the knuckle and nail. The nail grows in two parts now that sometimes will stay together but most time is split into two parts. When it does separate I use clear fingernail polish to repair the split. That's how I'm going repair my finger in a few days until the nail grows out. My former stepfather had dentures and he had one tooth that kept breaking off. It can take a while to make new dentures so while they were being made he used superglue to hold the broken tooth in. It would last a few days then fall out and he'd have to do it again. One time he was a bit rushed and the glue wasn't completely dried and when he put his teeth back in the glue stuck to the inside of his lip. It was really funny because he was trying to tell what happened so I could help him and everytime he spoke or moved his lip it'd pull his teeth out and they would be hanging there off of his lip. I couldn't help him because I was laughing so hard, my mom had almost died laughing and the younger sibs were literally on the floor. He got mad and just ripped them out tearing a big piece of flesh off of his lip.

Hope you heal quickly and cleanly. I am assuming you know this not the last time you will have a booboo.

A word of caution, medical superglue is not the same formula as the stuff you get from a hardware/hobby store. The medical stuff doesn't create as much heat during cure.

Some cheap hobby superglue can create a lot of heat even without accelerator as I once learned.

Edit to add- medical superglue also doesn't produce formaldehyde as curing byproduct, which can be toxic to skin.

... and all on Friday the 13th!!

Dude!! I didn't even realize that! Now that's just freaky. If I was superstitious (knocks on wood) I'd be concerned that the kit IS jinxed.

I think it is time for you to switch to side cutters and fine files for cleaning sprue gates
We can't have one of the valued members of this forum cutting himself to pieces can we?

I switched to side cutters when I my thumb started to feel like the edge of a book from all the "almost cuts" and the band aids were preventing precision work.

/ Robin