Trials & Tribulations of knifemaking

NickWheeler said:
I cut my head off once.... Hmmm....

Dave my friend, I believe the saying is this:


"Women, can't live with 'em, can't have heterosexual sex without 'em"

HEHEHE HAHAHAHA... just kidding, but I do think it's funny ;)

-Nick-
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Well we can see it wasn't the one on your shoulders.
:eek: :eek: No wonder people call you STUBBY. HEHEHE!!!!! :p
 
OH!! I did a Peter Nap (Don) right in between the eyes when taping a blade. :eek: Thank god I had glasses on.
 
Havent anyone burnt himself. Its my best of best event. You should try to drop two litres of preheated lineseed oil right into the coal forge while trying to HT a blade... :o :)
 
Well lets see, stabbed 2 or 3 times in the leg (1 requiring stitches ) while buffing handles, can't remember how many burns from forging, soldering and brazing. 1 cute little tattoo on my left index finger from coarse carborundum grit getting stuck inside the cut in a sharpening accident. I always figured if I didn't get a small cut at least once a week I probably wasn't working hard enough :D The best one was real early in my career and happened because I was using the wrong tool for the job. I was trying to polish a brass trigger guard (for a muzzle loader I was building) on a glued up emery wheel on a grinder. I was using too much pressure on the wheel and not holding the piece tight enough. Sure enough, it slipped out of my hands, the wheel grabbed it and threw it right into my head. I almost passed out. The trigger guard had the semi-circular shape of my forehead impressed into it. I was working in a production knife shop at the time and the sadistic so&so's I was working with found it too be hilarious ( after they made sure I wasn't going to die).
Lesson learned? A soft wheel, whether a muslin buffer or ScotchBrite or whatever, when turning at 3600 RPM can snatch a workpiece out of your hands and throw it thru the air quicker than you can blink. If the first thing it encounters is you it can do some serious bodily harm, especially if it is sharp!! Use the proper tool, hold the workpiece firmly pay attention to what your doing.

Dwight
 
lost count twenty years ago!!!! :eek:


after a while, you make every mistake that is possible to make.........

then you start over!!!! :p :( :p
 
tom mayo said:
lost count twenty years ago!!!! :eek:
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Tom: I still remember that pic of you in Blade grinding in your shorts with those funning legs. You never caught them hairy suckers on fire?????? :eek: :p :D
 
That reminds me, sometimes I forge in my birkenstocks, (hey, I live in Florida for a reason , okay?) and I'll tell you, barefoot would be better as far as the burns go, but I've got too many copper splinters lying in the (sand) floor to do that anymore.:)

Also had a blade stick into the flesh of my hand once, right between my thumb, and pointer finger on the left hand, went in about 1.5 inches acording to the doc who taped me up. (I hate stitches) But that was while working on a sports car, so it doesn't count.

Tony
 
Lets see, I already talked about sucking a blade into my disc sander... Definitely the worst was, in my former basement workshop (versus my current) the lightswitch was on the back wall, above the workbench. So in my infinite wisdom, I placed my benchvise directly in front of it. One night, striding confidently into the shop to flick on the lights and eyeball a freshly file sharp and VERY pointy 12'' blade bowie that I had left in the vice (pointing away from the workbench, you see) I proceeded to impale myself to a depth of only an inch or so just under my sternum. Also I was drunk once and made a knife at a party just to prove I could do it with a vacuum and a charcoal grill and a smooth face claw hammer. I pounded it out, then threw it in the ashes of the fire to let it cool slow. Then almost immediatly picked it back up barehanded God I dont know why. My wife didnt know me back then but, here we go again. :) Respectfully Levi Sinclair Farster

P.S. I have two switches in my current workshop, both are ON THE CEILING!!
 
Getting hurt, major or minor is part of the stretch to become better.....it also gave me an instant appreciation for the makers of superglue... ;)
 
OK I hate to tell this on myself but here goes. :footinmou
It’s been really cold here and I’ve been working in the shop with a lot of clothes on. Long sleeve shirts and a jacket are the norm. I generally wear light gloves when I'm grinding but with the cold weather I put on the insulated gloves and headed out to the shop.
I had 3 blades that I was grinding down to 400 grit. I would grind on one, set it down when I thought it was getting hot and grab another and repeat. Well I lot track of which blade was hot. Instead of pulling off a glove to feel which one was hot I picked one up and touched it to my cheek. :o
The first one I checked was the hot one. I knew this by the sizzling sound that it made when in contact with my skin. :eek: :eek: :eek: I wore that tattoo around for a couple of weeks.

Joe Foster
 
Wow
I guess that being a a knife maker means that your around 500- 1700 degree steel- sharp spinning power tool, lots of knives, epoxy (in my case), electricity, and so, I gues there's a solid chance of almost anything happening.
 
When I first started forging blades I only had one set to tongs. I was forging a blade out of an old file and I was working on the tang when all of a sudden something hit me in the chin. So I walked over to the pickup and looked in the mirror, nothing on the chin, but half of a top tooth was gone. I finished forging the blade and then decided I might as well go in and face the wife. All she could say was "every time you go out to the garage something happens". Well I latter finshed the knife and sold it for enough to pay the dentist bill.

BobG
 
I saw a good one on the news last night. Some guy went to the doctor complaining of a toothache, only to find that he had a 16 penny nail going up through his palate and into his brain an inch or so. That was when he remembered that a week earlier his nailgun had backfired and he though it had just hit him in the chin. :eek: I would'a thought you'd have noticed it at that point in time. Dang!!
 
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