First lathe-related injury.

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Bubba57

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Joined
Mar 11, 2014
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103
Location
Lake City, Florida
Beautiful afternoon so I steal a bit of it to go to the shop and play a bit with my Easy Wood Turner carbide thingy. I'm turning away, having a good time and notice that there is red liquid getting everywhere! Using my powerful intellect I quickly deduce that this red liquid belongs to me, and should not be dripping on my lathe. So...I turn off the lathe and try and find the leak. I did...a 1/4 gash in my left thumb. Didn't hurt, didn't know how it got there so I got the bleeding stopped and continued with my turning.
And did it again...exact same spot...and this time it hurt.
So now I have a half inch gash in my thumb but also know how it got there. Typically when I'm turning acrylic, the ribbons that don't get gulped up my exhaust system wrap themselves around each end of the blank and I brush them off with a wire brush...except for a few small ones that pile up right on top of the tool and I brush those off with a quick flick of...my left thumb!
Don't know why it's never happened before but the pad of my thumb was raking across the '3 o'clock' position of the carbide insert...and making a hole in me. Well, it didn't take long for that bit of muscle memory to become extinct! The bad part is, I shed blood, not over a nice pen, but a cheap-ass Slimline!
 
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magpens

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Feb 2, 2011
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15,913
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Canada
That's a quite impressive description of the incident ... do you write novels ?!

Seriously ... sorry to hear !!
 

SteveG

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Joined
Dec 21, 2009
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2,985
Location
Eugene, Oregon 97404
I have invited a number of friends/family to my lathe to experience the joy of pen turning. This has always been using a carbide tool, due to the easy learning curve. One of the first things I do is demonstrate the shavings piling up on the tool, and the natural tendency to want to brush those shavings away IOT see the cutting edge. That is when my 'student' get an emphatic WARNING. Refrain from slicing and dicing their thumb and/or fingers on that little cutter that hangs off the side of the tool just enough to draw 'red liquid'. I imagine many of us have learned this same lesson by doing it. Once was enough for me.:eek::eek:
 
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