Anyone ever cut themselves with a axe or hatchet?

Splitting kindling one day with my hatchet, there was one piece that wouldn't stand up so I decided to hold it [insert forehead-slapping-smiley here]. Of course that cut glanced sideways and hit the base knuckle of my index finger (where it joins the hand). Cut to the bone, blood everywhere. Almost lost my finger that day, what a bone head move. Thing is, if I'd have seen someone else doing that I probably would have tried to stop them with a "are you nuts" approach.
 
just the other day, I was getting some stuff ready for scouts (fire building material to try out a fire bow). My rifleman hawk was way dull, so it made working with it more dangerous (you know the dull knife is more likely to injure thing) I had my leather gloves on, double thick, and put a small cut in the pointer finger of the left hand glove (but not my hand)

I have scratched and nicked my self with axes over the years, but a while back I actually hit one with my bare foot, sliced the toe really bad. It bled forever. I bumped this axe
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This was before I had my first kid, so there were all kinds of sharp pointy, dangerous things out and about. It was in the spare room behind the safe then, and was just peaking out enough for me to get my naked toe on it. (now it is in the safe, rather than out and about). Talk about dumb.
 
I keep my hatchets sharp. I seem to knick myself the most during sharpening sessions. I just had a friend of mine visiting recently. He was looking at several of my hatchets and was surprised at how sharp they were. Most people seem to have little experience with a truly sharp axe or hatchet, and I had to remind myself that the next time I hand one to someone that I will warn them about the edge. I keep an edge guard on all and a simple one can be made by slicing a piece of vacumn or fuel line and just slip it over the edge.
 
It gives me the chills thinking about all of these cuts! I've been a land surveyor in the south for over 30 years and, well, I've seen some bad ones. Here's a tale of one of mine. I had just sharpened my Bush Axe (Ditch Bank Blade, Bush Knife...) with a good mill bastard file and was in the woods working. It began to rain and we headed for the truck. I was carrying the transit (yes, the one with a 5 in. compass in the center and no batteries) and my ax in the other. I was carrying it blade forward when I tripped on a root and headed for the ground. I couldn't let go of the instrument and instinctively put my other hand out to catch myself. The ax blade went between my pointer finger and my middle finger. I filleted my middle finger, along the side, from the base of the nail to the connective web at the base of the finger, It stung real bad but all I saw at first was a line of blood along my finger but then I flipped my finger to sling off the blood and a slab of finger meat flopped open all the way over past my knuckle and while it was open I could see to white spots which were the different pieces of my sliced knuckle. Off to the emergency room holding my hand in a wad of paper towels over my head cause when I put my hand in my lap it would throb with pain. 22 stitches later (5 on the inside and 17 along the outside) I went back to the office where my boss had heard that I was hurt and asked, "Where'd you get cut?" I held up my heavily bandaged middle finger in a 'one finger salute' and said, "This one!" That was 30 or so years ago and the scar is still evident but it quit hurting or tingling about 15 years ago. The ER doctor said that he had never put that many stitches in a finger that wasn't completely cut off. Never had another real bad one from a bush ax but I still swing one on occasion so I always wear boots and try not to do anything stupid.
 
Myself, I've only had maybe three hatchet cuts worth mentioning. Two were while sharpening. I've discovered (because of this) that it really repays the extra effort to set up for sharpening in such a way that your hand will be blocked (by, say, the edge of your workbench) from cutting itself on the blade. (For example, if you can keep your fingers on the side of the file opposite the side that's filing the blade, rather than wrapped around the file--or you can set the blade up so that, if you slip, your knuckles will hit the side of the tree stump or whatever that you're resting the blade on, before your fingers hit the blade.)

The other memorable cut I've had I got when I was trying to use one of the edge-exposed tomahawk carries shown in Dwight McLemore's great book The Fighting Tomahawk. It worked for a while, then, probably predictably, one of my hands swung to the wrong place, and I ended up with a very curiously-irregular zig-zagged cut--fortunately pretty superficial--on the heel of one of my palms. Took a few days to heal completely. Nowadays I always use some kind of sheath when I'm carrying a tomahawk for any significant period of time.

Seems to me that as a camp medic I've seen some worse axe cuts. The best, most-detailed edged-tool-safety instruction I have ever seen is in Mors Kochanski's book Bushcraft; I commend this to anyone interested in edged tool use in the outdoors. (Or anywhere else, actually.)
 
I use hatchet for many years.Besides nicks when sharpening I`ve never cut myself.Some 24 years ago man that worked with me was making some kindlings for furnace in shop where I worked,someone called him,he turned his head,swung, and chopped his index finger off.Around top nuckle.So, I`m very careful from this day on,as I saw what can happen in the blink of the eye.Funny thing, man that had called him,was bringing the retirement papers,it was man`s last day on job.Doctors didn't sew finger back,had to cut down to middle as I remember.
 
Knock on wood, in 7 years of daily knife and hawk usage I've never gone beyond the occasional nick. A few punctures on points, but nothing serious whatsoever.
 
The only significant injury from an axe or hatchet occurred for me when I was about 12. I had been given a hand-axe of my very own and was chopping on a piece of firewood, just for the heck of it. I was bracing the wood on the chopping block with my left hand and somehow caught the tip of my thumb with the hatchet. Fortunately the cut didn't completely sever the tip of my thumb, although the scar is still visible under my nail to this day. Needless to say I've been extremely careful ever since and haven't made any more dumb mistakes.
 
All these posts seem really interesting, but it's those chainmail socks that have caught my attention. Where can i buy some and roughly how much are they?
--The kid with the fencepost hawk--
 
I ended up with about a dozen stitches in the back of my right thumb when I looked up from cleaning/polishing a 'hawk when my wife walked in the door a few years ago.

I glanced at my hand, said hello and told her that I had to run to the doctor's office (where I was promptly stitched back up).

Since then I don't look up when performing that task. ;)
 
giantlemon said:
All these posts seem really interesting, but it's those chainmail socks that have caught my attention. Where can i buy some and roughly how much are they?
--The kid with the fencepost hawk--
Click to expand...

A few different people sell them. The "regular" ones are now about $140, I think. You can also get them with stainless wire for the shin part for around $200. If people are still interested, I'll dig out contact info for the guy I know of that has them.

-Chuck
 
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