Please be vigilant!

E

elementfe

Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
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All day every day I work safely and carefully, making a hundred good decisions that keep me from getting hurt.
On Friday, I failed to properly secure a knife while using a hand held grinder and cut a finger badly enough that I had to get quick surgery to save it.
I hope one person reads this and works a little more carefully today!
God bless you all in your efforts.

Andy G.

Interesting that I've gone to the doctor three times in my twenty year metalworking career- all three accidents involved hand held grinders. (the other two were due to metal bits in my eye, once when I was wearing safety glasses)
 
Oh that is horrible.

Screw those hand grinders for knifemaking. More trouble then they are worth.
 
Sorry to hear about your injury. Yeah, grinders are dangerous. I have some horrible memories having seen and experienced firsthand what a grinder can do to a person.

Most of the time the lack of PPE is the problem. Doing something "carefully" instead of safely. :( :o

How's your prospects for full range of motion? Hope it doesn't hurt too badly. It's amazing when you injure a finger, it seems you learn quickly, the tasks that specific finger does well, the other 7 fingers and two thumbs have no clue how to do them. :D

Thanks for the reminder!
 
Looks like it'll be just fine, I cut through the bottom of the fingernail so it's just the last joint, there was enough tissue left that circulation and sensation are good. Still, cutting through a bone is traumatic and painful, and it was a very small, light knife that did it.
I feel silly even telling you guys, since it was totally preventable, but as my retired doctor friend put it, "Power tools are very patient- they'll wait thirty or forty years for you to make a mistake."
Already back to playing the Dobro, though not particularly well til the splint is off! :o
 
I spent most of the last 2 years trying to save my finger, I just finished my last appointment around November time. It got infected because of a cut to the back of a knuckle, aparently infections to your hands and joints do not behave at all like typical infections do. Too many appointments, too many and too strong of drug, with strange drug class rules for delivery and such.

Experience is such a good teacher eh?
 
Ain't that the truth, Ron. Here's wishing you the best of luck and a good end to that long story!

I have one of those on the other hand- most of a year ago I nicked a knuckle with the edge of one of those 3m microfinishing belts and it still acts like it's infected off and on, I guess it's trying to get some contamination out or something.

The drugs are about the worst part- still taking Hydro to sleep but feeling seasick most of the next day- can't believe people take that stuff for fun! Still- very grateful for the sleep and recovery, don't want to complain.
 
Handheld grinders are for large objects that cannot be brought to a fixed grinder, people grinding knives with angle grinders are in my mind simply using the wrong tool

-Page
 
Sunshadow.
I was using a cutting wheel to enlarge a slot in the tang. Hard, thin steel, out of O2 so couldn't torch it as usual.
The issue was that it wasn't clamped solidly. My dumb.
Perhaps there's a better tool for that in your shop, I don't think there's one in mine.
Agreed if you mean grinding bevels and profiles with a hand held- waste of time in most but not all cases.
 
elementfe said:
Sunshadow.
I was using a cutting wheel to enlarge a slot in the tang. Hard, thin steel, out of O2 so couldn't torch it as usual.
The issue was that it wasn't clamped solidly. My dumb.
Perhaps there's a better tool for that in your shop, I don't think there's one in mine.
Agreed if you mean grinding bevels and profiles with a hand held- waste of time in most but not all cases.
Click to expand...

If Pre heat treat which is when I do all of that kind of work and it's something I can't do on my milling machine which is often the case due to my milling machine being in Syracuse and my shop being in Ithaca, I will use a sharp bimetal hacksaw blade to get things roughed out, chisel out the waste if it is wide enough and finish with a sharp file. If it is a tang on a heat treated knife I will spheroidize anneal the tang and use the previously mentioned procedure. If for some strange reason I can't work the area in anything but a hardened state (poor planning) I will use 1 inch dremel abrasive discs on the flex shaft or diamond abrasive bits followed by cleanup with a diamond file. Thankfully I haven't planned that poorly in about 15 years.

-Page
 
My hope is that you and everyone else in this forum will read this and continue to plan well and make nothing but good decisions and every day avoid getting hurt.
That said, all of the best craftsmen I know occasionally have a brain fart and regret it.
I could give you a detailed rundown of all the specs and circumstances that led to an angle grinder being a fairly good choice of tool for that particular problem, but that's beside the point.

Diamond file may very well have been the best tool for that job, good thought.
 
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