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My Weekender Fought Back.............OUCH


Denis Goyette

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What do you know weather is nice again; time the get working on my boat.

(I really want to put in the water this summer..Going on 3 years .way too long.) I have the rafter up for the cabin roof all my top stringers are cut to shape. I did not want to leave them like that, I decided to use the router to round f the edges......You know what's coming......... I had that all done, I figure I should round of the rafter chuck before attaching them ......

I was just about done, the piece flew off the router table ......Three finger meet high velocity spinning router bit ......OUCH .... Trip to Hospital ......fingers are all there (well most of them) one look like hamburger...Stitches.....Back home.....Building will have to wait a few days ........Maybe :)

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Sorry to hear that Denis. I'm curious about something- did it hurt?

Reason I asked is when I stuck MY finger into a router bit it felt like a "thump" but there was no pain whatsoever. Blood, yes, Gallons of that, but it never hurt. I suppose the bit took the tip off so fast that the nerve endings never had a chance to react.

I can still see the scar on my index finger tip- fortunately the finger is all still there, save for the router bit shaped scar.

I've learned to be much more careful- I'm sure you just did also.

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Ouch! Fortunately my weekender building mishaps were less damaging. While wrapping the cord around my (unplugged) jigsaw the blade caught my forearm and made a nice deep gash. i still have the scar 3 years later.

Plenty of 2 inch splinters buried deep, a mishap with a handsaw which slipped out during the stroke, and a few scars on my head from working in the cabin.

Finger into spinning router blade. It makes me sick just thinking about it. Fortunately it wasn't a table saw. My shop teacher in high school was missing part of his thumb.

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I work as a construction carpenter, self employed these last 20 years. On the first day that I started for my first boss as a green horn the old carpenter, I use the term carpenter loosely did the following.

On the previous day he removed his little finger from the last knukle by passing it throught the jointer. On the day that I started he had that throbing bandaged finger stuck out like a socialite drinking tea, he proceeded to forceably jamb a razor sharp chisle right into the end of that little finger while using the chisle as a scraper. Needless to say my first day was a short one. The old man was a SOB and treated the crew like dirt but I still cringe when I think about it.

Jim

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I gashed the back of my thumb with a utility knife while cutting drywall. Electrical tape and paper towels weren't working so we went and bought curved mattress needles and dental floss and sewed it up on spot with a soak in peroxide/water.It didnt hurt to stitch it but the string being pulled through it was rather crude feeling. Went to the doc two days later and he said I had done a fine job and gave me a tetanus shot. He left the stitches in.

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Denis, OUCH! Sorry to hear about the mishap. I have been relatively lucky with my power tools, but of all the ones I have used, the router in a router table is my least favorite. It just looks absolutely menacing, with that bit spinning around at 20 million miles an hour. I'm really careful with it, but I've been "this close" several times.

Charlie, do you have any nerve pain in that finger? I have only one injury that continues to bother me ... I have a tingly feeling in my left index finger due to a hungry chisel (it had to bite, my bad technique was teasing it). Sometimes its stiff, like it has arthritis.

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I think most of us that play with woodworking have some horror story. I took off part of the end of my finger and nail on a router table. Continued to work for a couple hours wishing it would stop bleeding. Had to go to the hospital and have them stop it. Like Charlie it didn't hurt at the time, but now the nerves are all rewired and it feels funny a lot.

Two days ago my son took off part of his index finger on a bisket joiner. Same problem as me working too close to cutting parts with small pieces. He's about as dumb as his father, he won't go see a doctor even though it still bleeds. He says "What's he going to do, want me to pay him to tell me I hurt my finger?" :roll:

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Frank- the finger I routed feels fine- it came back totally ok other than a faint scar.

On the OTHER hand (literally) I sliced the whole side off of my left index finger cutting fiberglass cloth strips against a steel straight edge. Using a Leatherman Wave serrated blade. Had the finger stuck out past the edge and sliced it off. About a 1/4 inch thick slab, from the nail back aft for about 3/4 inch. Didn't even know I had done it til I saw the piece of finger laying there. That one was tough to stop bleeding too, and again, no stitches- no doctor even- no point going- wasn't anything he could do and there wasn't enough missing to warrant trying to put it back.

THAT finger still feels strange sometimes. I can feel things with it, but they feel "different". And it's still got a flat spot on the side. :?

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Last saturday I removed the pad of my left middle finger sheering some metal. Like an Idiot I moved my too small material to a spot where there was no clamp to hold down the metal. The piece rotated up and caught the pad of the first joint of the finger and tore a dime sized hunk right off. It hurt twice...when I went to wash it in the bathroom...the tap is full on or full off, no middle ground...and soaking it in Iodine at the hospital before bandaging. It cost me a week on mind numbing light duty at work which thankfully ends tomorrow. Sunday night I'm back to full duty (yipee!).

Steve

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No - You didn't kill anything... It's just that after reading all this my fingers hurt too much to type. :lol:

BTW - I worked on my boat a bit today and I managed not to slice anything off... Of course I was just sanding and epoxying. You folks have me too scared to go near sharp objects.

This whole thread - Ouch! :wink:

Wait! I've got one too! Once I was working in a shop that made custom picture frames and I managed to slice a perfect 90 degree chunk out of the pinky-side of my right hand using a device that looked like a guillotine for cutting miter joints. Of course I did it at 4:50 pm so I had to drive to the doctor in rush-hour traffic. When I finally got there I was given a STACK of paperwork to fill out and I got about halfway through the first page before I had to go back for a fresh stack of papers because the blood had ruined the first stack (my field-dressings had come undone on the commute). I said "Excuse me, I think I need another clipboard" or something like that and the nurse replied (wide-eyed) "You've cut your hand!". Um, yeah... Hee hee.

I'm not sure why I find that so funny.

(And Charlie - There was ZERO pain. It was a VERY sharp blade).

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Frank- the finger I routed feels fine- it came back totally ok other than a faint scar.

On the OTHER hand (literally) I sliced the whole side off of my left index finger cutting fiberglass cloth strips against a steel straight edge. Using a Leatherman Wave serrated blade. Had the finger stuck out past the edge and sliced it off. About a 1/4 inch thick slab' date=' from the nail back aft for about 3/4 inch. Didn't even know I had done it til I saw the piece of finger laying there. That one was tough to stop bleeding too, and again, no stitches- no doctor even- no point going- wasn't anything he could do and there wasn't enough missing to warrant trying to put it back.

THAT finger still feels strange sometimes. I can feel things with it, but they feel "different". And it's still got a flat spot on the side. :?[/quote']

Well, I guess if you ever cut it completely off, at least it won't roll away. :?

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It's funny how careful a person can get. I've seen bad things happen to somebody who didn't give a table saw it's due but it wasn't until my first real kick-back that I learned real respect for horsepower. I always thought I was being reasonably careful but ever since my wrist was slammed hard (but not quite broken) by a supersonic piece of wood I've been absolutely scared...

I guess I was expecting to be cut by a blade but I hadn't thought of the possibility of being beaten senseless by a piece of airborne ash and now I'm wondering what other bad event I may not be predicting :)

Ah well, forge ahead - That's why we've got two of each limb, right? :lol:

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So far I've been "lucky". No serious injuries, close calls but those close calls have got me paying attention again when I was getting lacks.

I was talking to a gentleman at a yard sell a while back about tools and woodworking (we were both looking at some old tool), after a while he said "be careful and held up his left hand. All that remained was the thumb and most of the index finger. The other three fingers were just short stubs! Did it on his jointer! I say OUCH!!! He said didn't hurt much but sure humiliating!

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