We Have a Winner! - Dumbest things you have done as a knife maker?

Making first knife, heat treated and let it sit for about 2 hours before temper.. It was cracked when I set it down.....
 
I decided to buff out a knife on a converted grinder. which of course spins at too high a speed.
After the buffer snatched it out my hand and threw it at my feet. :eek: I decided to have another go at it and this time to my surprise the buffer/grinder threw it clear across the room and up under a bench.:mad:

Needless to say I quit using the high speed grinder as a buffer! :o
 
Using lawn mower blades to make knives. I'm new at this and have since bought some 1080.

Decided my blade needed more sanding after I sharpened it. It only took a few minutes before I sliced my thumb open :thumbup: - dumb!
 
I have to say the dumbest thing to date is grinding 3 knives with no respirator. The stupid part is, I owned since I went to school for auto body. It just never occurred to me that breathing metal and bone and fiberglass dust may be bad for me. Now I wear a respirator every time I put a knife to the grinder.
 
I have done many dumb things, too many in fact and not all related to knife making. Like continuing to ride my bike for another 14hrs after falling 20+ off a ledge on to some rocks and breaking 3 ribs, sliding down an icy hill on a ottoman with downhill skis bolted to it. Resulting in a broke, dislocated shoulder, badly torn rotator cuff, and frayed clavicle. Working through the pain, 12-16hr days only to find out that the pain was a torn tendon in my elbow.

What all that goes to prove is that the things I have done so far while making knives are nothing and the worst is yet to come. So far the worst I have done is wet forming a sheath with a sharp knife. When you take them back out of that tight fitting sheath they tend to bite deeply:o
 
Dovetailed a bolster at 45 degrees and then noticed I never countersunk the screw holes. Since it was late and I was tired and in a hurry I decided to hold it by hand while countersinking it on the drill press. About 2 weeks later I was back in the shop.

Lesson learned. Holding a sharp piece of metal hooked up to a 1 hp motor is painful and causes the wife to yell at you when you bleed on the kitchen floor.
 
Is this good enough? An 80-grit disc, turning rapidly, cannot be stopped with a finger!

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I didn't think to take a picture of the time I was beveling a blank and ran the tip up under my fingernail. It's amazing how the pain waits a few minutes to arrive. You just get to thinking that you're somehow superhuman and then, boom, here comes the pain train barreling down the tracks!
 
not enough ventilation using the Oxy Acetylene torch with a rosebud tip fabbing a large curly iron bit, when the world turns yellow it's time to get the heck into the open air

-Page
 
Oh boy it seems to have all been covered already but drilling an unclamped blade is sure up on my list and of course starting fires is right in there.

But the topper is making my first knife in a 1x42 out of 52100 and tried to do a full convex grind on 1/4" stock and I still kept making knives!
 
Not listening to the little voice in my head that said,
"Pay attention, stupid, what you're doing is really going to hurt!"
Dammit, it did hurt. Several times.:D

Bill
 
sunshadow said:
not enough ventilation using the Oxy Acetylene torch with a rosebud tip fabbing a large curly iron bit, when the world turns yellow it's time to get the heck into the open air

-Page
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I haven't seen any yellow haze yet, but I find if I'm sweating far too much it's time to get some fresh air.
 
Is this good enough? An 80-grit disc, turning rapidly, cannot be stopped with a finger!
Click to expand...

same thing happened to ME! it was more of an acccedent I was grinding and my brother came up so I put the blade down on the little table next to the disc and shaved of the pad of my finger. a tetanus shot and 3 prescriptions latter I was good. been 2.5 weeks and there is still a purple splotch and no finger prints, or much skin to speak of
 
Wire wheeled all the old lead based paint off a trip hammer, never once thinking to put on my respirator because I wasn't doing anything dangerous like "making knives." Black boogers should have been my first wake up call.

Matt Matlock
 
Grinding without my respirator was probably the dumbest thing I've ever done. Setting my shirt on fire several times while grinding is probably second.
 
Ok this is #2 and I wasn't making a knife but I well could have been.

I was cutting a piece of sheet silver with a foot operated shear.

I was at the left hand side of the shear trying to cut just a sliver off the sheet, had my right hand on the shear table and brought the blade down real slow to the silver piece slowly with the foot peddle cutting the tip of my right hand little finger off before I got to the silver sheet.

I immediately looked at my finger to see a perfectly flat ended finger. It didn't hit the bone and the piece wasn't big enough to sew on so i had to scrub it every day to prevent a scab from forming that way the new skin would grow back to cover the tip of my finger.
 
I am not even entering the contest but some of these stories gave me the heeebee jeeebees... :eek::eek::eek:

wow.
 
Profiled, beveled and tried to HT a piece of mild steel ON PURPOSE, even though I knew better. Just stubborn, I guess. I still wonder what the neighbors thought about the weird dude next door in his driveway with a glowing hibachi, can of compressed air to make it hotter and a coffee-can full of olive oil. Guess what, it didn't work :o ;)

Nasty scars on both forearms from reaching across a running belt to dunk a hot blade in the water-can. Both oopses happened within 24 hours... idiot, move the dunk-can! Or maybe pay attention... Those kind of abrasions take less than a second to happen, and weeks to heal.

Grinding wood, then steel without cleaning up behind the grinder... yup, done that too. The stench set off the smoke-alarm and woke up my then-girlfriend. I got chewed-out big-time.

Left the tip of a nearly-finished blade protruding ever-so-slightly from the narrow board it was clamped to... walked away to get a beverage or answer the phone... walked back and yup, you guessed it, another scar. Worst part is, this has happened at least three times.

Tasting steel on my own breath the morning after grinding. Joining the black-booger-club. AHEM respirators are much cheaper than lungs.

I've never ground a blade with gloves on, because I once watched my glove disappear into a wood-chipper I was operating; it got snagged on a branch. Thank God the glove was loose and didn't take my hand with it. You'd be calling me "Stumpy" now if that glove had been tight.

Burl Source said:
I am getting the impression that lighting yourself on fire and stabbing yourself are just a normal part of knife making.
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Yeah, pretty much! :D
 
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