Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So at this time of increased hobby activity and enforced isolation for many of us I think its time to share some tales of danger, excitement and terror that is our accidents whilst hobbying! Not just for the humour of all the antics and near calls we get, but also because sometimes there's a few grains of warning/truth that might help others stave off repeating the same accidents.



Myself my worst accident was when I had my scalpel on the table in front of me. It's the old GW one with the chunky triangular padded handle. However because its ergonomic the handle has very rounded edges, it won't roll perfectly but it can roll with a bit of a nudge. Such as an arm pushing it by accident. The scalpel slid over the desk, over the edge and upturned itself toward its heaviest point, which is the whole metal assembly that holds the blade in place. The blade fell down, struck my leg and sunk all the way in. It then ran out of blade, the metal ring that holds it in place bumped my leg; the whole thing then pulled back out as it pivoted and then continued on its merry way to the ground.

This left me with quite a deep but not wide (thankfully) cut. It hurt, but not as much as one might think. It also welled up with blood pretty fast. I pressed a cloth over it and thankfully it clotted up very fast. The worst part was that after whilst it was healing, I could "feel" roughness in the wound as my leg moved. It felt "wrong" because it had sliced through a fair chunk not just the surface. Took a while to heel up and I took it a bit steadier with that leg at the time.



Other than that most of my hobby blood comes from slips and jabs on my fingers whilst working. Just all the normal small and shallow cuts that are a pain, but not dangerous or anything. Plus the ever popular pain of holding spiky metal models together whilst waiting for glue to dry.

Most of mine are always pretty minor, usually my thumb stops the scalpel or saw.

Only bad one I’ve really had was an old surgical scalpel I used to use.
Had a heavy handle on it to weight it properly and I’d left it on my desk.
Knocked a paint over while not paying attention and in my panic to grab the pot I knocked the scalpel off the desk, leaving it stood upright in the top of my foot.

Hurt like hell but barely bled.
A few stitches and it was fine though.
Missed anything major so small graces and all that.

Knife slip cut a finger pretty deep. Wouldn't stop bleeding and thought I might need stitches. While waiting in the ER, a guy wandered in with a massive chunk of his scalp missing, waltzed up to the desk, said he hit a tree and ski patrol said he should have it looked at. Felt pretty dumb about my little owie. Left a scar as a good reminder to be more careful.

Trying to reach over a unit of Macedonian pikeman.

That was a dumb idea.....

I've had a few, mostly slips of the knife or pin vice, but nothing too bad. Most of them are my own fault for getting somewhat complacent and disregarding the usual 'always cut away from you' etc, just because it was inconvenient in the moment. The most amusing injury recently was when I was drilling a 0.8mm hole with my Archimedes drill. On the up-motion the drill bit jumped out of the piece, and on the down motion it plunged a good way into my finger. Not right in, but kind of burrowed under my skin. So from a distance it looked like a cut, but actually aside from the hole at one end it was all under the skin. It didn't hurt so much as I felt like an idiot for letting it happen.

I had to get 3 stitches in my pinky after I slipped while trying to cut a plastic warjack from it's base.

There was a surprising amount of blood, which prompted my ER visit.

I have a nice scar from it and my pinky still feels a little stiff when I flex my fingers, but I guess it could always have been worse.

I think i've talked about this before, but driving the thick and pointy end of a sprue about an inch under one of my fingernails is probably one of my finest moments.

The lesson is, use sharp tools when trimming, dull tools catch and make you slip.

Buried an x-acto knife in the side of my left hand at the base of my index fingèr many years ago. Trimming a vinyl Judge Dredd model. Stitches. Still aches when it gets cold.

It was many years ago now, but working on a model with a hobby knife with a dull blade and cutting toward myself, the knife skipped and jumped, and I slashed my hand good. Bled like crazy. The chair I was sitting on got blood everywhere on it. It was an old kitchen chair, with green vinyl on the seat. I was slow to clean it up, and it stained the vinyl permanently, and heavily. For years afterwards, I had my own Blood Throne.

Holding the lid to the Insta-Cur super glue between my teeth, I finished gluing and then tried to expertly guide the tip of the bottle into the cap/lid. I missed by a fraction of an inch, and dabbed super glue onto the tip of my tongue. When they say instantly cure, they weren't joking.

I've sliced the my left index finger and nail, working on some sort of metal miniature, I now have an indent in the skin to the right of the nail on the left index finger.

 youwashock wrote:
Buried an x-acto knife in the side of my left hand at the base of my index fingèr many years ago. Trimming a vinyl Judge Dredd model. Stitches. Still aches when it gets cold.

I did that near the pinky. Not my worst injury though.

I was making fishing flies (long story) and I put the side of my hand on a soldering iron. It took a few minutes for it to start hurting, all the nerves where it touched were obliterated too fast to register what had happened.

I can't match any of these tales of savage mutilation, but my momement of greatest hobby terror came during the assemby of my Death Guard Leviathan.

It was an immensely satisfying kit to put together and fully magnetise, while drinking a nice glass of whisky.

The glue was barely dry before I realised to my absolute horror that I had somehow contrived to get the polarity wrong on the chunky 6x4mm magnets holding the torso to the legs....cue absolutely frantic hacking at the lovely kit with my craft knife, and a stream of profanities at the "stupid f****ing model"...

 harlokin wrote:

somehow contrived to get the polarity wrong on the chunky 6x4mm magnets holding the torso to the legs..

Oof. That moment when you try to put the pieces together and they repulse is brutal.

I had a pretty bad one recently. I was pinning a metal model with a dull drill bit; it snapped and drove all the way through the tip of my left index finger, through the nail. Hurt and bled like crazy. I was worried about infection but didn't want to go to the emergency room as things in my city are bad with COV right now. It's healing nicely.

Another good one is when the top of my superglue bottle popped off and I covered my very hairy thigh with half the bottle. That really sucked getting off.

Cutting a Slaanesh chariot off its temporary base after painting, I managed to fully insert a blade into the palm of my hand.


Spoilered pic of stitches:

Used a space heater once to speed up the curing of some customizations I did on Chaos Bikers with Magic Sculpt.

The putty cured just fine. The plastic melted into something warped and unrecognizable.

Super glued my hand to a pepsi can for a few hours.
Not a bad as a GW employee who glued his head to a table and someone walked in and lifted an armful of merchandise!!! Absolutely true