Knife accidents

S

Stainz

Joined
Jun 24, 2007
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It sure seems a bunch of us are getting hurt with our own knives. I know how my accidents over the years have happened. The vast majority were knives I was overly familiar with - like SAKs - but were in dire need of re-sharpening. Some, dull SAK or not, were just 'slips' from careless whittling or carving - and even involved gouges and chisels, too. It seems all of them were 'late in the day' - and/or in poor lighting conditions. The most recent worst was a defective (too stiff) Buck 110 lockback that got the top of my trigger finger when it finally closed - thankfully, it was just a severe 'paper cut'.

I guess my real question is simply what can we do to prevent such 'mistakes'? Keeping a knife sharp helps - being cognizant of one's level of awareness, the lighting, etc, will help. I keep thinking how the revolvers I collect and shoot, not to mention the homebrew ammo I make, requires even more diligence to prevent accidents. Of course, an accident there could be far more horrific. I am not suggesting we cut & carve only at approved areas - with protection (Kevlar mitts?), but certainly, something has to help. Any ideas?

Stainz

PS Don't look at the myriad of cuts and tiny punctures on my hands and feet now - I recently acquired a new kitten who thinks I am her 'plaything' in the middle of the night.
 
I just always plan out my cuts in my head before I make them. It's worked well so far!
 
I've had two in the last week! When handleing a knife or gun pay attention and don't be hasty if your not paying attention. If I had done this I wouldn't be out of a half a dozen bandaids!
 
I was just thinking how lucky I am - my family always makes fun of my being a knife nut, yet I've only cut myself and drawn blood once or twice... now that I've said that, I'll probably sever some major artery today...

Thankfully I learned it early on, but the big thing for me is working slowly and with care - thinking just a bit prior to cutting. I can still remember learning that lesson: cutting a sauce packet open and watching it in seeming slow motion as I thought, "I'm about to cut myself..." :D
 
http://i39.tinypic.com/2cmnoyu.jpg <Ck this picture out. I have a nice little cut on my thumb that I got when I was sharpening my sharpest knife for a demo. Why I did not cut my entire thumb off I'll never know, pure luck. It was close.
 
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FortyTwoBlades said:
I just always plan out my cuts in my head before I make them. It's worked well so far!
Click to expand...

"Left pinky... hardly ever use that!" :D

I've been lucky that pretty much all my accidental nicks have been wee ones during either sharpening or kitchen work. No khukuri/golok mishaps since adolescence, knock on wood!
 
just whacked myself 2 days ago with my SAK, 1st finger on left hand,Was talking to a friend and opening a package, the blade was razor sharp and took me across the top of my first knukle, just plain old carelessness.
 
Just the other day I made a good-sized gash in the tip of the middle finger on my left hand...I was carving a spoon with a Mora, and the blade slipped. :o This got me to thinking: When carving or whittling, if a specific cut is taking a lot of pressure, then it's time to rethink the cut, and maybe take off smaller shavings. If you are having to apply a lot of pressure to the knife to make the cut, then that means the blade is not really sharp enough to handle the cut and you need to do it differently. When you apply a lot of pressure, more often then not, the blade will suddenly make it through the material, and you will not be in control of the blade from this point on...that's what happened to me. Take it slow, and always be in control. :thumbup:
 
I have a rather painful cut on my lower leg right now.

Got home two days ago in the evening and wasn´t feeling well at all, cold or flu or something, so I just got out of my clothes and into my nice and warm bed right away and took some meds. In doing so, I dumped my pants somwhere on the floor without paying attention. I had my SOG TAC clipped to my pocket at the time.

As you can imagine, the next morning, I was still half asleep and a bit groggy from the meds, so I went to put on my pants. I needn´t tell you that I found out the hard way that autos CAN open in your pocket if you toss them around.

On the plus side, I was very awake after that. ;)
 
i made a big bowie back in 93 that cut me really bad. i was taping the edge up so i could polish the guard and got cut twice on my right hand bad enough to require 10 stitches total. the doctor thought i was cut by a razor blade at first since the cuts were clean. he freaked when i showed him the knife a few days later and how large it was. he compared the edge to a scalpel once he felt it.
 
knife-face-743274.JPG

safety first
 
Today my wife was cutting fat off a chicken and complaining to me that the kitchen knives were dull (she's spoiled by my Sharpmaker, but was right - I haven't had a chance lately to touch 'em up). Anyway, she likes to give me the business like that when the knives get dull.

So I head to the bedroom and come back with the sharpest knife I own: A Case yellow trapper with CV blades. The previous owner convexed the spey blade and I'm telling you guys, after a little time on the white rods of the Sharpmaker, this thing is astonishingly sharp. So I open the spey blade and hand her the trapper and say, "Here, try this. But be very very careful - it's sharp as hell."

Well, I should have just started counting down right then: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 ...

"Oh, f**k! I cut myself with this thing! Get me a Band-Aid!"

'Course I then got blamed for giving her a knife that's too sharp and "doesn't even have a point." ;) I finished up the chicken job, btw. The knife did GREAT.

Anyway, my general rule for safety with a knife (above the valuable lessons I learned years ago when earning my totin' chip in scouts), is to go slow and easy. When you start rushing and thinking too far ahead - that's when you get nipped.

I've also found that smaller blades are often easier to keep under control, even on big jobs. Yet another one of the reasons I've gone back to mostly totin' stuff like my Case peanut or soddie jr., my Buck 055, or an 84mm SAK.
 
I average about 4 cuts per year. Only had one that required stitches (8)but that was while using a Utility knive. It was worth it - I got 30 Vicodins.
 
Whenever I get cut, it's because I'm doing something stupid. So eventually, I just stopped doing stupid things. I get occasional nicks sometimes, though.
 
I got my worst cuts when I was young and not a teenager. One cut was on my left thumb with an old butcher knife I found somewhere and sharpened up. Another cut was from a penknife my Grandpa gave me. I cut it deep on my thumb. Took weeks to heal. And then I was in the celler using my Dad's vise to hold a piece of wood and I was using an old round file to make a hole in the wood larger. It was a slow process and I have no patience with things like that so I speeded up as fast as I could go and the handle on the file came off and the file stopped dead in the wood and the tang of the file went down along side of my thumb nail and kept going into the flesh and down to the bone and clear to the end of the knuckle. I am very careful with files and knives now. I still get my share of accidental cut tho. For me , nothing was worse than that file cut.
 
I scratched myself last week on a whittling project but it wasn't even enough to leak blood. First time in a long time I have come close.

I got a coworker that wanted me to sharpen up his fixed blade hunting knife for him. Cheap chinese steel thing that I didn't spend too much time on, just a nice working edge.

He called me a few days later. He was using it and gashed his hand open. Complained about it being too sharp.

It's a good thing it was bad steel and not something worth putting a good edge on or he wouldn't be able to clap now.
 
x-10 said:
http://i39.tinypic.com/2cmnoyu.jpg <Ck this picture out.
Click to expand...

:barf:

Honestly, I'm careful enough with my knives that I haven't cut myself in a looooong time. Probably about due though! :eek:

Whenever I cut myself it's on stupid stuff. The worst cut I got in a while was when I tried opening a toothbrush package with my hands. The packaging cracked and cut the back of my finger pretty deep...and then I spent the next three days for not just using my knife! :D :D :D
 
Mid last year, I got my trance and I reprofiled it to 10-12.5degrees per side, it was hair whittling sharp, then I started playing with the pivot and when I checked for blade play, I had the blade facing my hand:o, and the blade slipped and the tanto point went in my palm, it took about an hour to stop the bleeding, I had cut directly on a blood vessel, now I've learned my lesson, check blade play with the blade facing away from you.
 
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