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I've done some reckless barehanded holds with a Dremel but have been lucky there so far..

However, 2 Days ago I finished my final infantry squad (for now) and started working on my HQ. It was the first resin kit I've worked with. I had a thick bit to cut through and should have used a modeling saw, but it was a bit late, I was tired, and decided to just push my way through with my exacto. If I had leaned down, literally within arms reach was my modeling saw. My exacto is a bit dull, and literally within 5 inches of where my hands were, was my pack of new blades.

I gripped firmly close to where I needed to cut and began to apply pressure.. the resin was tougher than I expected but I pressed hard and made ground... about 1/3 the way through I realized I should be using a sharper blade...

About 1/2 the way through, my overwhelming force snapped through the rest of the resin and sheered it clean off. My blade continued it's meteoric descent and I felt my hand punch my hobbying table. I looked down and noticed that it's path had carried the exacto well through my left pointer finger, that I was holding close to the point of cut to prevent snapping.

To use scientific terms, there was a cut in the shape of a U about half the size of a Rhino Door (I believe this is called Imperial Measurement) in my finger, to the bone, that created a pretty nasty skin flap (like a functional rhino door) that blood was pouring out of at what could have been considered a surprising rate

What happened next, well, I reacted as any true collector of Chaos. I didn't feel any pain, no, when I saw the wound, I became overwhelmed with blood lust, and much to the concern of my parents and pets, I began to yell aloud "HAAA HAAAA HAAAA" (yelling not laughing) Then will full volume I yelled "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" and began howling like a wolf "HAOOOOO HAOOOOOOOO HAOOOOOOOOO"


No, what really happened was I looked down after punching the table, saw the new rhino door on my finger, yelled in shock of what I had done (a night before a long day of work) and yelled AHH !!! (somehow, there was zero pain). I ran down to the sink and ran hot water on it while my mom retrieved me a bandaid. A gauze pad. What would I have done if I lived alone? Living with parents - saving money for house +1. Buying warhammer +1. Not dying of blood loss +1.

Well, now I have to work the rest of the week with this silly bandage and all of next week.

This comes literally days after I sealed my models with varnish from my AB and when I was unscrewing the caps I found them too tight to hand loosen. I looked on my desk for my pliers but they weren't there so I did what any sane, logical adult would do, I went to look for them. I mean, I actually put the cap in my teeth, bit down like I have on innumerable obstacles before, and I loosened them with my bone pliers. I mean, I actually grinded a nice chip into my tooth and need to see a dentist now. On the upside it isn't so bad and I'll probably just get it looked at and maybe filed down or whatever.

I've cut my hands loads of times durring converting/cleaning up models, but I'm getting more carefull

Stabbed myself in the thumb with my pin vise numerous times while drilling out gun barrels.

Made flaps of skin on my knuckles from spikes/protrusions on models.

Haven't done it in 10+ years, but I've had the luck multiple times that the X-acto knife cut along the wrinkles on my palms/fingers instead of perpendicular to them.

Temporarily removed portions of finger prints with various sanding apparatus, from emery boards to Dremel.

Trying to convert sisters models is pretty dangerous as it turns out. Had a piece of shrapnel embed itself in my bedroom wall so that was a near miss.

Other than that just a ton of hobby knife cuts on my fingers, and some pretty silly gluing mishaps. I have gotten superglue on my tongue before...

Hah love the 'blood for the blood god' cry

Personally, I've stabbed myself with the hunting knife I use to do conversions before (broke my scalpel).

Not a patch on the injuries I've sustained when working on cars though :S

Cut my finger to the bone....twice. Lost a lot of blood.

Involuntarily removed the finger prints and parts of my nails when sanding small parts.
Plenty of cuts with scalpel blades, but never deep.
But I have perforated fingers straight through when doing pinning. Damn "cutters" don't cut, they squeeze the wire and create razor sharp ends. Less blood than you would expect from it, but hurts like hell...

OJJ

My story involves an injury that was the "fault" of modelling, but modelling was not the "cause".

When i was at boarding school in my first couple of years, we had very little personal space. A captains bed (bed above desk) in a very small cubicle. Because of this, a lot of my modelling was done sat on my bed when i just had to clean mold lines or glue plastic models etc.

Well one Sunday I was sat on the aforementioned bed cleaning models with a basic £1 modelling knife. The type you slide out with your thumb and lock into place when i spied a golf ball sitting on the foot of my bed and before i could stop it, a thought popped into my head..."I wonder what is inside a golf ball to make it bounce as well as it does".

Before I knew what was happening the ball was resting in my palm (as there was no solid surface for me to rest it on) and the cheap modeling knife was being slowly forced into the hard shell with all of my brute strength, breaking it ever more slowly apart to reveal the goodies within. For those that aren't in the know, the inside of a golf ball is packed very very tightly with an elastic...the type of elastic that causes the ball to fly apart once the structural integrity is breached. Suffice to say, that is exactly what happened when the knife reached the core.

Ball splits into 2. 1 half flies across the room, the other half flies up and hits me hard on the nose (starting a nosebleed), the elastic unravels and flies in all directions and the knife continues to descend into my palm at the soft spot where the thumb and index finger meet, and out the other side. Not even thinking I yanked the blade back out of hand, which not only cut it more but also caused blood to spray over my half of the cubicle. Thankfully through some miracle, not a single drop landed on my cubicle mates side or possessions.

Moral of the Story: Golf Balls are happiest when left together!

The better question is... Is there someone out there that hasn't injured themselves in this hobby sooner or later? Almost everybody cut themselves with an exacto knife of a variation on it.

 The Grumpy Eldar wrote:
The better question is... Is there someone out there that hasn't injured themselves in this hobby sooner or later? Almost everybody cut themselves with an exacto knife of a variation on it.

When I was about 6 years old I cut the side of my finger off with my dad's Stanley knife. I was (coincidentally) trying to cut a green army man, but I wouldn't exactly call it modelling. Anyway, the knife slipped, sliced across my index finger, and went deep into my middle finger by the first knuckle, and out through the middle of my finger nail, which severed a large piece of my finger, and left it hanging on basically by the skin... and worst of all, my dad found out I'd been playing with his knife :(

However, since then I've always been very careful with knives, and I don't think I have ever injured myself with one while modelling. I always use my knives in grips where I can squeeze them to apply a lot of force with my hands, but never with my arms, so if they slip there is only a vary small range of movement (kind of like how you peel a potato). Even when I'm cutting straight down on a mat, I always roll my hands forward to apply force, never push with my arms. It's the big uncontrolled arm slips that cause injuries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xeanee wrote:
Moral of the Story: Golf Balls are happiest when left together!

Heh, apparently you're not alone, I read that disassembling golf balls is actually one of the most popular ways for people to sustain eye injuries. Some of them also have high pressure liquid cores, that are remarkably accurate at squirting people in the eye, when they try to see what's inside.

Nothing drastic, just a few cuts. A friend did slice his finger open with a dremel rotary saw, and a cousin bolted his hand to the table with a hobby knife.

Handful of x-actor cuts when younger. Nothing in the past 10-15 years.

Plenty of cuts. lots and lots of super glue in places they shouldnt be.

not as bad as one of my friends cutting clean through a tendon in his finger.

My worst was having the x-acto #1 handle (with #11 pointy blade in it) roll off my desk and ker-thunk into the top of my foot TO THE FERRULE (so about an inch of blade stuck into my foot).

Missed everything vital. Pulled it out and stuck a band-aid on it.

Otherwise, I've both grabbed my soldering iron by the wrong end, and (barefoot) trod on my soldering iron, resulting in amazing blisters.

The shallow cuts to the pads of both thumbs from modelling over almost 30 years don't count compared to that.
They did make the fingerprint recognition system at work (we used biometric id for work logins) have a conniption, though. Had to use middle finger (no scars) to get it to recognise it as a finger. Meant I was basically flipping the bird to anyone behind me.

My worst was probably a nasty cut to the eyelid back in the days of metal miniatures. Was cutting a tab with clippers and it flew off and hit me in the eye, could have been a lot more serious if I hadn't reacted fast and closed it

I have two tubes of superglue on my desk. One I use for gluing models, the other I use for gluing scalpel cuts on my fingers and thumbs closed. Works much better than a band aid...

 chromedog wrote:
off my desk and ker-thunk into the top of my foot ... Missed everything vital.

LOL, indeed, an inch either way and you might have punctured a lung!