Battle Wounds from modeling?

Over  the years I have cut myself too many times to count .  But the one "war wound " I remember most was the time I  was cutting a small piece of brass wire and the small cut part flew into my eye!  Took me 20 min and a pair of tweesers to get it out.

Doctors???   We dont need no stinking doctors!!!

Those are some scary stories!!!

As a kid I did the fingertip thing.  Lately most of my wounds have been from dropping X-acto knife in my lap.  Have done the CA thing, of course, several times, gluing a finger to part of my face :-(  And yes, I have been hit in the eye with ends of clipped wires, but they either did not stick or hit the eyelid.  Couple of burns, too, from soldering iron or touching brass assembly- boy that stuff takes a long time to cool after soldering. I know dunk every assembly into the cup of water I keep on bench for wet sanding.

Sliced a small patch of the epidermal layer off a digit; relatively minor compared to you guys.

Various cuts over the years.

Perhaps FSM should initiate a Purple Heart award for forum members.........

Those are some scary stories indeed. Makes a guy think, and hopefully slow down.

My return to the hobby has been relatively personal injury free, but a quick one to share....

Before my recent and first adventure with PE, had read how sharp the stuff is and was careful. The other day, having finished all the PE work I was going to do, I moved the leftovers and spare frets to their original packaging for spares storage.

Later realized I had a rather nasty paper-cut like cut on my finger. I guess all the warnings are right.

Not very exciting compared to the above tales, and I hope to keep it that way. Hope we all do, in fact.

After 50+ years of this hobby, I have had most of it happen to me.  X-acto cuts, Saw blade cuts, super glued fingers, glued to parts and or project.  I once had to replace the shop light above my work desk, hung it a little lower than the one I was used to.  After a session I stood up and crashed my head into the light and all came crashing down on my work desk and project, tools ect. Expensive project.  I have also dropped my X-acto into my lap, bounced off and landed blade first in my sock foot.  Feet bleed a lot.  Pulled a rattle can of paint from the cabinet in my utility room.  Pulled the nozzle for cleaning and for some reason paint started spraying everywhere.  By the time I got it outside I had silver hands, cabinet, washer, dryer, wall and floor.  Glad there was no wife cause I am sure my hobby would have ended that day.  Oh yes, lets not forget drilling a finger or two with a pin vise!   Other than those minor problems, I have had a great time in this hobby!

Never attempt to catch a falling X-acto knife, especially with a No. 11 blade mounted!  Now my round knife handles have the "press on" rubber erasers mounted so the knife won't roll.

I once had the knife roll off the desk....point down.......  Now I keep both feet firmly UNDER my chair!

As a former EMT, I knew what to do....once I regained conciousness....  Took my Household-6 to see me performing "bathroon surgery" on my in-grown toe nails to get me to a podiatrist that used lasers.  Those blasted 4 shots (anesthetic) per toe about did me in, though.

thankfully, no self inflicted vasectomies listed  .....yet

Sane here with rollibg xactos. After coming close numerous times to severing a toe or two, I finally got the $10 "pro" xacto that has the rubber roll stopper on it. Took long enough for me to learn I have to say tho.

Everytime after I'm done working I always have glue and paint on my hands, fingers, arms.... Face... But a few times I get a small cut from my knife or sharp pieces of plastic. Once, I was trimming some plastic on a kit I was building, and the knife slipped and went straight into the fleshy bottom left portion of my left palm. It wasn't too too bad, definitely didn't require stiches, but it bled a bit... Once I almost cut the front segment, the Distal Phalanges, off. The blade cut down to the bone. My finger tip is still not straight, even 2 or more years after it happened.

Well my battle wounds seem pretty minor compared to some of the stories! I've only cut my self with my knife twice. Of course I've super glued my fingers more then I can count.

Worst wound I got was while rebuilding a Panzer II when I was thirteen. For whatever reason the turret was stuck to the hull glue maybe? Anyway I ended up breaking the turret in half trying to to get it undone with some much pressure. No big deal keep working trying to loosen the other half of the turret. It comes unloose only one problem the tank is covered in red! A jagged piece of turret went straight into my thumb  I've never seen so much blood in my life. Patched it up but put me off from wanting modeling for a few days.

Worst thing I've ever had was a bottle of superglue spewing out all over my hand. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to spread my fingers out, so nothing got glued together, but my hand got awfully warm, and it took a while for the glue to wear off my skin.

Talk of rolling X-acto knives and modified roll-resistant ones reminded me that I do still keep one of the old style plain old uncolored aluminum ones.  I ordinarily use fancier ones for most things (but keep several on bench with various blades).  That X-acto knive, and the square bottled Testors paints go way back, over half a century to when I got my first gift of an X-acto knife set (when my folks felt I was old enough to safely use it), and the Square bottled paints to when I added plastic kits to the balsa ones (I started modeling in the balsa wood era).  Those knife handles and the square bottles show you CAN GO HOME AGAIN, at least for some things.  Oh, the nostalgia!

My worst experience didn't involve me, but my 2-year old daughter.  She wandered into the basement to see me work and in a flash managed to grab my extra thin CA, spilled a pool on the table and placed her hand in it.  In an instant she was stuck to my table screaming bloody murder.  The lesson here is never, EVER, take your eyes off a toddler.

You brought back another memory for me DiscoStu. I have a son, now 5yrs old but when he was 3 he went into my office/modeling room while I was predisposed on the toilet. I had been painting and rushed out to use the restroom real fast. He was being loud playing so all was well. While in the restroom it grew to be very quiet. My dad alarms started going off saying something is wrong. I finished up quickly and rushed back into my office to find that I know had multicolor walls and carpet. No paint in the mouth or anything, not even a drop on him in fact, but two or three of my brushes were ruined as well as my walls and floor. Amazingly he didnt even touch or get a drop on the model I was working on which was right in front of him albeit I did have to scare up a new instructions manual which had so much paint on it that it was impossible to decipher.

I can relate,  the Xacto #11 blade and my right index finger have had love hate relationship for decades.

I've take off the left side of the knuckle as well as embedding the blade in the main part of that finger.  And I had a brand new #11 that poked into the finger tip and as I was trying to get it out of the tip it dragged itself all the way down to the first knuckle, thus opening up the end of my finger.

John

dang, when i think i could get hurt doing some cutting,..... I just have my 3 year old do it   lol jk

i dropped an xacto with a brand new blade and caught it by squeezing my legs together fast. unfortunialy it fell parallel to the floor and perpendicular to my thighs. stayed that way when i opened my legs. now i keep a towel across my lap to catch errant tools and parts.

My uncle was a butcher, and he taught me something very important when I was a kid-  "NEVER try to catch a falling knife!"  Wise words that I have always heeded!

Well , This should fall right in here:

  I was about thirteen .My very first NEW X-ACTO knife and a BIG model . The model , LIFE-LIKE'S STEAMER " NATCHEZ " .Dad got them mixed up .I really wanted the ROBT .E.LEE . I still was very thankful .That was an expensive model back then . Now , they went on vacation to FLORIDA leaving me to take care of the house and collect the tenant rents when they were put in the mailslot in the living room door . ( We owned an old fashioned boarding house at the time .Would you believe 1958 ?) I had the ability to call the police or the fire department if I had to . Try that today !

   Now , I am sitting at the kitchen table working on the model . I am trimming the deck where the sprue  , yup, that stuff( a real thick piece) was attached ) Knife slipped , went to the bone , right down the center of my thumb .Called our vet .YUP , I said the vet .Why? well I knew he was a responsible adult and a ship modeler . Followed his instructions and by the time MOM and DAD got home I didn't need even a band -aid anymore .. Mom said a month later , she figured what happened , by the way I used my pens and pencils .See , MOM'S even have eyes that see at long distance ! He ! He !  I still do knife things .You can believe that ! I am HUMAN after all , durned it !       Tanker-Builder

Let's see.  My worst was when I was seven.  I was using a jigsaw and somebody had not tightened the blade.  After a few strokes, a third of the way through my wrist.  I wrapped it up in paper towels and duct tape.  Many a time have I glued my fingers to things.  The worst was when I glued my index finger to my eye lid.  I was reaming a clogged ca bottle, with piano wire.  On one particular down stroke, the wire missed the hole and went through three of my fingers.  Didn't hurt a bit.  Took a good chunk out of my right thumb, while removing flash.  Fingers like to bleed.  And, several more that are erroneous.

Many years ago, I worked as a goldsmith for a manager who was generous enough to allow me to stay late after-hours and off the clock to use the company equipment for my modelling projects. During one Christmas season, we worked until well after midnight to get the shop work caught up and I clocked out at around 3:00 AM to solder together a Poste Militaire figure of a 90mm samurai mounted on horseback before heading home. My manager was struggling with a particularly challenging channel set ring and asked me to pass him a tube of wax which we used to lubricate drill bits and burrs while working metal. I stretched my arm out to pass him the wax and got lost in a conversation on how best to address the problem, chatting the whole time with arm still extended, then turned back to the figure. About ten minutes later, he asked if I could smell someone cooking bacon. Pretty odd considering that hour of the night and that the mall had been closed for many hours, but it certainly did smell of bacon. I finished soldering together the horse and my forearm was suddenly in a lot of pain - in passing the wax, I had apparently placed my left arm in the flame of his oxy-acetylene torch and left it there while we chatted, but did not see it because I had my Optivisor lowered over my eyes. To this day, I'm not certain if it was because I was so tired or because the flame ran so hot that I did not feel the burn. I'm pretty certain that was the last time I brought a kit to work with me...

DiscoStu

My worst experience didn't involve me, but my 2-year old daughter.  She wandered into the basement to see me work and in a flash managed to grab my extra thin CA, spilled a pool on the table and placed her hand in it.  In an instant she was stuck to my table screaming bloody murder.  The lesson here is never, EVER, take your eyes off a toddler.

 

ohhh, that sounds bad. How did you unstuck her? (I have a two year old running around the house, so I would like to know such things)

 

As for my own battle wounds, just a few small scars where I cut myself. Nothing major.

f8sader

Never attempt to catch a falling X-acto knife, especially with a No. 11 blade mounted!  Now my round knife handles have the "press on" rubber erasers mounted so the knife won't roll.

 

A couple of tips to reduce the potential for injury: I have a large workbench and when I put the knife down, I make sure it is perpendicular to the edge of the workbench facing me, so if it should roll, it can't fall off that edge. If I'm putting the knife down for more than a minute or so, I put the little plastic blade guard back on to prevent the knife from rolling at all.

I will never model without a full suit of armor after reading this.

Your not a real modeler until you have a few scars from hobby knives. All of mine happened when I was a teenager. My worst was when I cut my fingernail with a razor blade. Ended up going to the emergency room with that one. I'll spare everyone the rest of the details.

Well I guess my two worst ones would be, using a single sided razor blade to remove a part from a sprue, all because I was to lazy to grab a side cutter. And the entire time, as I am pulling the blade to ward the thumb on my opposite hand, thinking to myself, this is really a stupid move. Viola!!!! I was proven right, it was in fact a very stupid move, razor broke through the sprue at the end of the cut, and lodged nicely into the end of my thumb, nothing a half a box of band aids couldn't cure, but completely preventable. <homersimpsonvoice>DOH!</homersimpsonvoice>

Second one was accidental, using a Dremel with a cylinder shaped carbide cutting bit, cleaning up the edge of some plexi glass for a part, and the Dremel bit the edge of the plexi  and bounced out of my hand, landed inside my slipper, bit end down and got tangled into my sock (thank god for the sock!) I was left with a wound about the size of a dollar coin, that took about three weeks to fully heal up, and a mangled sock. But it was the sock that bought me a couple of seconds time to pull the plug and grab the Dremel, without the sock, it would of been straight into the skin.

Well so far knock wood nothing but the most minor cuts for me.  I use my Xacto like a paring knife a lot so my thumb gets pretty raw...

But I did once learn something the hard way that should go with out saying:

Never use your teeth to remove the cap on a tube of superglue!

:)