They're fun to play with, but they're NOT toys!

OwenM

OwenM

Joined
Oct 26, 2000
Messages
6,104
Performed an act of random stupidity, this time.
For years, I've had this thing about slicing paper in half. I pinch it between my index finger and thumb, and Whack!. Sometimes I slice the same piece into thin ribbons, and come within 1/8" of my fingertips. Never been a problem.
Last night, I was fooling around with my Emerson Commander (which I've reground to a V grind) and the Sharpmaker.
I snatched up a piece of paper, like a thousand times before, and Whack!. Somehow managed to cut an inch long, 1/8" deep piece off my left index finger, not to mention cutting a chunk out of my thumb, including about 20% of the fingernail. Blood flew everywhere. I ran in the bathroom and ran water over my hand to see the damage (did I mention there was blood everywhere?). It was a pain trying to get direct pressure on both fingers at once. Finally got them bandaged up, and spent the night sleeping in the floor with my arm propped up in the air on a pillow against the wall.
This morning, I went to the doctor, and got the fingers rebandaged, and got some more gauze and stuff. The index finger will be scarred, and I doubt the thumb (took the tip off) will ever grow back right, and a drummer has taken up residence in there, who keeps a tune with my heartbeat.
Just playing around, but I got bit for not paying attention.
Maybe my Commander was getting revenge for my negative remarks about its QC, or maybe going two days on a few hours sleep just isn't that great for your concentration.

Either way, it showed me that playing with knives all the time has made me take them for granted. They're made to cut, and cut they will. I've always been a safety nut regarding firearms, and I'll be alot more careful with my knives from now on, too.

btw, a piece of my thumb was still lying in the floor when I came back in the room, right alongside a bloodied piece of paper-sliced neatly in half
smile.gif


They're not kidding when they say that most accidents happen in the home.
 
Owen, I really feel for you. A couple of days ago, I was fixing dinner, and did the same thing: I took it for granted that a quick slice would never actually hit my finger. Well, I slashed the thumb-side of my left index finger. Fortunately, the nail actually saved me from cutting the tip off. It was a deep cut, but I bandaged it fast and it looks like it's healing clean. I think we're both listening to the same drummer, too.

It was a Cold Steel twistmaster. But I should blame Sal Glesser, too. It had just come off the Sharpmaker.
 
Bummer, Owen. Hope it heals well. I have to say though... been there, done that, got the bloody T-shirt.
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It's certainly true that if you play with knives a lot, you eventually forget how dangerous they are. It's also weird how you start to assume that you won't get cut, even when you do something stupid. {shrug} I guess it's like how that saying goes: "Make a path for the blade, or it will make its own path."

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Cerulean

"We cut things to create things" - J.K.M.
 
Funny thing, I also cut myself yesterday. I bought a new bed and after unpacking it with my Puma Cub I was going to fold the knife with one hand, as I usually do. However, the knife is not designed to work that way.

To make the story short, I now have a chunk of my thumb removed
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and bloody clothes everywhere. It still hurts and I can feel my heart pumping blood into the thumb.

Guess the Sharpmaker works great !!

Regards!
 
That's why they put that warning on the back of liquor bottles. Not the one about pregnant women, but the other one, about operating machinery.
 
Owwww! I bet that hurt!

Like the time when drunk I fast folded My Vaq Grande right onto my thumb, luckily it was not going very fast. Done it a thousand times with my Endura, only I could not put my thumb in the way of the...whats it called? The choil? Before the edge starts? I let it and not the edge fall onto my thumb, and them move hand to close knife the rest of the way. One handed open and closeing with a lockback! Well on the V G my hand was in the wrong place! DOH!!!!

W.A.

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"To strive to seek to find and not to yield"
Tennyson
Ranger motto

A few useful details on UK laws and some nice reviews!
http://members.aol.com/knivesuk/
Certified steel snob!
 
This of course is nothing new, but a while back, I was resheathing a kat, but was holding the saya wrong. Edge just kinda smoothly carved into the webbing between my index finger and thumb. It's not really painful until you realize you're bleeding and there's cyoji oil all over it. Healed up relatively nicely even though it is an easy place to tear accidentally while healing over.

Yuck. But things like that happen when ya screw up or are not careful.

Good luck with the healing process.

Shinryû.
 
I'll join the "I cut myself yesterday club" too
frown.gif

I was visiting a friend and playing with his LCC DA. I was chatting with him as I forcefully closed the blade ONTO THE TIP OF MY THUMB
frown.gif

I'll be sporting a band-aid and keeping my thumb stiff for quite some time.

Brent...
eek.gif

 
and never, ever let a novice play with your knives....my friend was play-swinging(yes, she's insane) my cold steel large tanto voyager at me(!!) and i couldn't get out of the way, because i was against a wall.(reverse grip, btw) well, i stopped her hand once....but she did it again, and i went to stop her hand again...well, i missed, and found that the serrations on that knife can very cleanly slice through the flesh of the human hand...didn't really hurt much, though. bandaged it up, and it healed fine...

i haven't let her touch a knife since.
 
oww Oww OWWW! I feel for you
frown.gif
I've got a scar along the length of my left thumb from a moment's inattention with a (then) new BM Sentinel a few years ago (same kinda situation, too, just slicing up paper). First reaction, looking at what I'd done wasn't pain (nice sharp edge did its job very well), but "damn, I'm not gonna be able to fix this with bandaids this time..." Still makes me flinch when I read posts like yours
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Ever since then, one of my maxims to friends when I turn them on to knives is, "Remember, knives demand respect, and if you don't give it to them ... they'll remind you."

(Another one is, "if you're flipping a knife open and closed, and it starts to get away from you, LET IT GO -- retract your hands and feet, and just let it fall to the floor, for heaven's sake, don't try to hang on or grab it on the way down -- no knife is worth a trip to the ER.")

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Carl /\/\/\ AKTI #A000921 /\/\/\ San Diego, California

Think this through with me ... Let me know your mind
Wo-oah, what I want to know ... is are you kind?
-- Hunter/Garcia, "Uncle John's Band"
 
Man that sounds like it really hurt. I guess you have to be careful around sharp things.
I hope you feel a whole lot better soon. I am sure you will be more careful in the future.

Keith.
 
For some reason this sounds very fimiliar to me. I have had to keep my arm propped in the air more than once. If you play with knives you are going to get cut. I'm sure we all know that too well.
Matthew
 
As a former pistol shooter in the UK and certifiable KnifeKnut here is a bit of advice!

Unlike a gun a knife is always loaded always ready and always eager to cut something.

They are dear friends, but forget who and what they are and pow! they give you a right telling off for being dumb!

We get so used to testing edges with thumbs we forget JUST HOW SHARP a KnifeKnuts blade really is!

W.A.

------------------
"To strive to seek to find and not to yield"
Tennyson
Ranger motto

A few useful details on UK laws and some nice reviews!
http://members.aol.com/knivesuk/
Certified steel snob!
 
Familiarity can breed complacency and inattention...no doubt.

Good thing you aren't familiar with chainsaws or 12 ga shotguns! Kidding.

I have tiny-self-infliced-battle scars also.

I love 8" Chef's knives. Makes such quick work or chopping veggies....and THUMBS! Ever wonder why right handed chefs curl their left hand fingers under, in a sort of awkward way, while chopping veggies and advancing the knife forward? Not me.

I gave my parents a ChefsChoice motorized diamond kitchen knife sharpener for Christmas. Dad never got dedicated enough to get a good edge on the kitchen knives, and always wanted one. I showed Dad the routine, the whole thing about burr and stropping with the machine, all the knives in kitchen now very sharp.

My Dear Momma is not the most attentive or relaxed cook. She sliced some ham AND her left pinky finger. There ain't much depth of flesh on the pinky, and it went to the bone. 3 stitches later, and I felt better but still kinda bad. Her dull kitchen knives might not have even cut her. She'll learn.

We've all done it, with knives.

I can say that handguns and long guns somehow cause me more pause and caution and diligence in handling, mercifully, than do my folders, etc, which often get opened/closed/opened/closed while talking on the phone at work. Good thing I'm not overly familiar with Cyanide.
 
Owen, thanks for the reminder. I won't bother to recount my experience with whittling bamboo with my Cub Scout pocket knife when I was 8.
 
Sounds painful. Reminds me of my pumpkin carving experience when I was 10. I had a Victornix SAK, the smallest one I think. Anyways, I was cutting the lid for the jack-o-lantern with my right hand and holding the pumpkin with my left. When I pulled the knife out, it also cut through the middle joint of my left ringfinger. It didn't bleed at first, but when I rinsed it and saw bone.. then it was gushing. I put pressure on it and went to the doctor who put 5 stitches in it. The fun part was going to school the next day. I was having a hell of a time grossing girls out.

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See you in hell, Liquid. That takes care of the cremation.
*Walks away from the scene of the battle, Hind gunship in flames. Lights a Marlboro.*
 
<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by rdangerer:
Good thing you aren't familiar with chainsaws or 12 ga shotguns! Kidding.</font>
Click to expand...

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I do, excuse me, used to do, the paper thing with my Becker Brute, too. Glad it was "just" a Commander shudder!

My coworkers are having a ball poking fun at me over this. I think my pride's hurting worse than my hand.
Funny, I play with knives so much, sometimes not even realizing I've pulled one out and am twirling it between my fingers, that noone was surprised this happened except me.
Duh!
 
I just wouldn't know which cut to tell about!God Bless!

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AKTI Member #A000934
"Always just one knife short of perfection!"
 
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