Awesome modelling injuries

[paulson games]

There's times when I just need to call it quits for the day and today was one of them. I was making some mold plates so that I could copy one of my molds and was having an abnormally difficult time. First I dropped the lego box twice and it completely fell apart both times, then I couldn't get my pressure pot to seal. Somehow a chunk of resin got under the gasket ring and prevented it from sealing on two attempts, which caused the resin not to set right as it'd gone up to pressure twice but then de-aired.

Already frustrated I should have called it quits and just stopped but I decided to clean some caked on resin off one of the lego mold boxes with a square uility razor blade. Something slipped and the entire corner of the blade vanished on it's way through my left thumb. I only felt the bite at the very end so I knew it was pretty deep and there was a white line running from my fingertip all the way to the knuckle joint. White is always a bad sign as the circulation hasn't caught up yet.

I let out a Mother F***er! that would have done Samuel Jackson proud just before the side of my thumb exploded like a Toho movie samurai getting cleaved in half.




It's the first time I've ever cut myself deep enough to see blood actually spurt from a wound. Left a pretty nice trail behind me as I ran upstairs for the super glue and a towel. For extra gross factor I noticed my dog happily licking up the mess as I was busy squeezing my thumb back together.

Then I got to drive myself to the hospital at 1 am with a throbbing thumb that was slowly turning purple. That led to stitches, which of course feel awesome when you're cut to the bone.

It's my second worst hobby injury to date, and I probably won't be doing much moddeling work over the next couple of days. Somedays you just need to quit while you're ahead....

[Anvils Hammer]

OUCH!!

that sounds brutal, and worse than anything Ive ever managed, pleanty of small cuts but never anything that needed hospital. Im sure my time will come though..

I LOVE that you go for the superglue, I would have done the same, but 99% of people would look at us like we are crazy for super gluing wounds shut, even though thats what it was created for!

I wish you a speedy recovery!

AH

[Deadmeat30]

Jeez, That sounds like some messy stuff there mate! Hope you have a speedy recovery!! Best do, as i want to see more robotech goodness .

Put your feet up john, and rest easy!

[mangozac]

You know you're a hard core hobbyist when superglue is used as temporary stitches

Seriously though, the fact that it needed stitches means it's a pretty nasty cut. Utility razor blades are pretty mean and I'd be hesitant to play with one outside of its use in my Chopper II.

All the best for your thumb's recovery!

[Xeones]

[paulson games]

Thanks guys.

Outside the swelling and the stitches feeling tight as heck I don't think there's going to be any long term damage. I can touch stuff lightly without any problem, but if I apply pressure enough that causes the side to flex that's when it hurts.

The nurse thought it was funny that I knew to use super glue, the downside was that they needed to open the wound up to clean it before the stitches. At that point it was already feeling really raw and probably would have saved myself some pain if I'd just gone without the glue. Would have made a lot bigger mess though.

It's nowhere near as bad as some of the dremmel tool horror stories I've heard and my brother in law basically lost one of his eyes due to a dremmel accident. So I've seen at least one major life altering accident firsthand and it always has me wearing glasses. The hands, they're not so lucky.

There's the guy on the Tau forum that had his hand get caught in a printing press of some sort and had it permanantly disabled. Not only did it get crushed and mangled he was trapped in it for something like 40 minutes as they had to partially disassemble the machine to free him. That one gave me nightmares when I read about it.

[Joey]

Ages ago, a buddy of mine opened up a 7-cm gash in his index finger when his scalpel slipped while trimming a white metal model.
All we saw was him clutching his hand and saying "Guys; I'm gonna pass out for a while -check the wound will ya?" -and then he was flat on the floor. It required some 20 stitches IIRC.

To add insult to injury; when he showed the scar to our good buddy who was also a GW store manager, the manager was sensible enough to call over all the kids in the shop to teach them a lesson:
"Hey kids -come over here and check out this moron!"
(All the kids looked up at a 195cm ex-navy seal with a messed up finger)
"Now that's why I always tell you to cut away from yourself. You don't want to end up looking like this guy here, do you?"
None of the kids dared say a thing but I think they got the point

[Arkangel]

Ok so I'm not sure I can 'beat' that but I can come close. So Several years ago I was doing a bit of mold line clean up as you you, sat in-front of the TV watching Aliens, great moving for doing anything geek to I was however in a state on some-what 'undress'. It was summer I was hot, so I was just wearing a pair on Cargo style shorts and flip-flops. I place the scalpel down on the couch went to the bathroom then returned and sat down........

Now those of you laughing/cringeing about what I'm going to say next, you WAY OFF

Luckily I had NOT sat on my scalpel, however as I relaxed I realised, engrosed in the film - it was the bit on the special edition with the sentry guns , two things.

1. I was minus a scalpel.
2. There was a sharp pain in my forarm.

I lifted my arm up and to my surprise there was my scalpel, blade deep to the hilt hanging out of my arm.
Luckily for me I use brand new blades wherever possible, and a Swann 12 blade it was. For those not in the know that's a straight angular blade similar to those on the GW hobby knife(I think) NOT the large 24/10 blade your average Surgeon uses. Thank God!

I very calmly, removed the scalpel, lifted my arm over shoulder height, applied pressure, and thought, F$£% what do I do now?
Blood was slowly oozing from the wound through my clamped hand and down both arms.

Instinct and training kicked in.

So I grabbed a pair off military issue black socks easily thrown away after, as best i could, tied 1 off over the wound then the other loosely over that and calmly walked to the other end of the block I lived in, knocked on my buddy, and asked him to drive me to the medical centre to get one of the medics to take a look.
At this point there was a fair bit of blood. Luckily it had only been around 9pm another hr or two later, and they would have been off duty and it's have been a trip to A&E 17 miles away.

Luckily for me the 2 female medics were both amused and very understanding. I said I'd done it cutting a picture frame Glue, dressing, no stitches and an invitation for drinks later was how it all ended.

Lesson learnt.

No semi-naked modeling without placing the scalpel on a table or well out of the way

Oh and Joey when it comes to Knives, a SEAL should know better

And I concur with the superglue thing, good skills. I hope you heal up soon mate, nothing worse than a self inflicted hobby injury to dampen the spirits.

[paulson games]

lol, for a minute I thought you were about to say you'd taken a hobby knife to the back side which would have sucked. While the arm impaling certainly would be painful it's much better than sitting on a knife with your full body weight, particuarly if it had managed to stand up right somehow. :::shudder:::


The reson my new injury is still only number two on my list of self inflicted injuries is back when I was in high school I was sitting on the edge of my bed trying to remove the tail piece on a helicopter model. As I wasn't working at a table like a sane person I couldn't apply much pressure so I was using my hobby knife in an overhanded grip like a knife murderer stabbing motion.

The tail was being really stubborn so I was putting a ton of pressure into it and not making any progress until it gave way all at once. That sent the knife straight down into my knee, impaling it all the way up to the handle. It hit about two inches above the knee cap.

It was sticking striaght out of my leg, it'd impaled me through one of my tendons and was twitching slightly from side to side while I looked at it like oh crap! I went to pull it out and the handle pulled off leaving the blade in my leg. Not only did it stab through the tendon but it'd lodged in the bone which is why it didn't pull free.

Fortunately I had a pair of needle nose pliers within reach on my nightstand as I'd been using them to hold pins while heating them over a candle to make battle damge. There was enough of the blade poking out that I could get a grip on the back end and pry it out, but a small piece broke off the tip which to this day is still imbedded in my leg. (in the bone)

By the time I walked form my bedrom to my living room which is maybe 20 feet my whole shin down to my sock was covered in blood. The cut was so clean that al I needed was a single butterfly bandage to keep it shut, and it healed shut amazingly fast. The problem was that my tendon hurt for weeks afterwards and the timing was totally horrible as it was the day before I went on a month long class trip to France where all we did was walk everywhere.

It's not advertised in the travel magazine but I swear that everywhere you go in France it's magically always going uphill. It looks like nice flat country but man do they have a lot of hills, and when you are suffering from self inflicted gimp status it's not where you want to walk

I'm an accident magnet, if I can do something painfully wrong you can count on me to find a way.

[Lane]

Had a very close call once.

Cat jumps up on desk and refuses to get down.
As I pick him up he grabs the cutting mat.
Fresh Xacto knife rolls off mat and falls about 2' into my lap.
I feel a slight sting in a place I would rather not.
The knife is standing straight up in my lap.
I had penetrated my shirt, the seam on my fly and the layers under it (for a total of five layers of denim) and extended about 1/8" past the jeans and into my flesh.
The cut was less than 1/6 long and itched more than hurt, however it had been 1/2" to the side there would have only been one layer of jeans.

[mangozac]

This is turning into quite the amusing thread

[chromedog]

Had my X-acto #1 handle roll off my desk and go thunk - straight into the top of my foot - and embed itself to the ferrule (fresh blade). So about a 1" deep and 10mm long cut. Missed bone, ligaments, anything vital. Pressure and a bandaid were sufficient for the task.

Slipped whilst cutting a model from its sprue back in 1989 (Airfix spitfire).
X-acto blade nicked me from base of thumb (not ball) and left a 2" long laceration requiring 7 stitches. Bisected nerve to thumb and to this day I don't have full feeling in it (left thumb - I'm left handed and used to play guitar.).

As a 13 year old, accidentally stood on my soldering iron. Smelt burning rubber (was wearing thongs) and then felt heat and wondered what was burning. Turns out it was me.

[Lane]

Oh, soldering irons is it.

My soldering iron stand was not heavy enough to support the iron and the cord that ran under the table so I placed the iron on the corner of the table. The cord runs from under the table, between the legs on the left side then around the front and up to the iron which has the handle hanging off the front left edge. As I hold a component in place with my left hand and keeping my on on the part to be soldered I reach over to grab the soldering iron handle with my right hand. Near perfect execution of a complex maneuver to grab the handle between thumb and index finger without looking. As I hear the sizzle I look over and see that the weight of the cord has caused the iron to rotate 180 deg. around the corner, placing the hot tip exactly where the handle should have been. The result was a blister about 1cm wide from index finger tip to palm (about 5cm long) and a matching blister covering the entire pad of my thumb.

[mangozac]

Touch wood I've really been lucky and avoided any noteworthy injuries - despite prolific use of both hobby knives and a soldering iron growing up! I still use both almost every day and can't remember the last time I hurt myself with either one!

Of course now that I said that the cruel universe will cause me to both cut and burn myself tomorrow!

[Commissar-Krad]

You can always just hope that as you cut yourself withy the knife that the soldering gun falls onto the wound and cauterizes it.
I've been luck too, no stitches yet. Worst I have had is when my xacto rolled off the table and I decided to catch it instead of just getting the hell out of the way. The thing came down blade fist straight into my palm and I started closed my fingers around it. All in all the blade went halfway into my hand.