Be Careful!

[hsherzfeld]

...when closing your knives, especially one-hand-opening knives. I was closing the blade of my original Leatherman Wave without looking what I was doing. My index finger pushed the blade closed before my thumb had moved out of the way after releasing the lock. Net result: a small, but rather deep, bit of skin sliced off the tip of my thumb. Not a big deal, except that a) it's tricky to keep a bandage in place on a fingertip, and b) it's both difficult and uncomfortable to open my Wave using my thumb at the moment.

In summary: it never hurts (puns!) to visually verify the positions of one's important bits when operating sharp things. Don't rely on muscle memory alone to keep you safe.

 

[jmh33]

I think we have all been there a time or 2.
John

 

[hsherzfeld]

I think we have all been there a time or 2.
John

I've certainly been bitten by closing knife blades before, but this was the first time I was bitten by one without spring tension pulling it closed.

 

[Yo Mama]

I wish you a fast recovery!

I have always closed any folding knife with 2 hands as a practice. Just make it routine and you don't think about it.

 

[tejasandre]

Buy fingertip bandages

 

[Storm 8593]

Bugger ! Heal up quick

 

[hsherzfeld]

It did! All better now.

 

[hsherzfeld]

I wish you a fast recovery!

I have always closed any folding knife with 2 hands as a practice. Just make it routine and you don't think about it.

Thank you!

While that is a great practice to adopt (and I probably will use it with my Wave from now on), I'm not sure it would have prevented this particular injury.

It occurred because my index finger, which was pushing the blade closed, and my thumb, which was disengaging the lock (and thus in the blade's path) didn't coordinate properly. My finger was just a bit faster than my thumb in performing an action that I've performed many times. My finger pushed the blade closed onto my thumb. If two fingers on the same hand can be off on their timing, I'm not sure that using both hands would be any better in this situation.

I guess this is a danger common to any liner-lock knife. You just have to move your darn thumb out of the way!

 

[hsherzfeld]

Darn it, I just closed a blade on my thumb AGAIN! It was a Leatherman again, but my new Curl this time (for some variety!). Clearly I didn't learn my lesson wlel enough last time.

I'm having to type all of ths without using my right thumb, so apologies for any typos.