A different question about sharp..

[steven c newman]

Seems I am about to start a trial run of Blood Thinners....been told to be extra careful around sharp objects. May have to take a break from the shop, even....

Most of the cuts I do get in the shop, come from those chisels.....they are sharp enough that I don't even feel the "nick" until I see the fresh DNA on the wood...

Thought maybe I could get a pair ( or three) of Kevlar gloves? Something to guard against nicks? Anyone else have this sort of "problem"?

[Vincent Tai]

I do have a problem with sometimes getting cut. Once I drove a chisel into my right shin (long story). I don't have the problem with the added danger blood thinners pose though but if I did I would certainly look into kevlar gloves. A lot of them look decently thin and not too sweaty. Maybe also take a look at what sort of motions + grips most often cause cuts.

Vince

[Luke Dupont]

The problem you may have with gloves is that you dull your tactile senses, which help you to feel where and how you're holding things and avoid getting cut in the first place.

A more important suggestion might be to identify how you're actually getting cuts. For example, I would mysteriously get cuts on my fingers after using a particular set of chisels, despite not touching the cutting edge. It took me a little while to realize that in flattening the backs, I had created a very sharp edge at a right angle on the backs. So, I slightly rounded the edges up until the last half inch or so, and those chisels nolonger cut my hands when paring.

[Jim Koepke]

My meds include a blood thinner, Plavix, and occasionally getting a nick hasn't been a problem.

Your blood thinner is most likely different. Some blood thinners require continual monitoring. The dosage may have to be adjusted before you can resume playing with sharp objects.

One of the things garnered from working in jobs that had safety programs is turning mishaps into a learning experience. Though sometimes the same mistake is made more than once before it becomes experience.

My most recent bleeder was from cleaning the license plate on my truck and bumping against the underside of the tail gate. Before that it was having my thumb in the wrong place while rotating the lower bandsaw wheel. There are always Band-Aides and Neosporin or other wound dressing close at hand.

Most of my cuts from plane irons or chisels these days are so shallow they usually only break the skin or shave a layer of skin off my callouses without bleeding. Maybe it is time to break my bad habit of slapping the sole of the plane to dislodge shavings.

jtk

[Christopher Clark]

Steven,
I've been on a blood thinner, Warfarin/Coumadin, for over 30 years. Cuts just take a few more minutes to stop bleeding. I have a roll of paper towels handy to stop the flow. It's been a non issue for me.
CLC

[Thomas L Carpenter]

I'm also a blood thinner and because I'm a geezer my skin is very thin and bruises easily. I frequently will rub against something or bump it slightly and a bruise forms a few days later and of course by then I've forgotten how I got it. I don't cut my hands often but my fore arms take a lot of hits. Yesterday I bumped into the band saw table and bleed like a stuck pig. I have a bag of t shirt material rags and found that wrapping one around my arm controlled the bleeding and eliminated the band aids that tear my skin when removed. There are plenty of solutions for bleeding and the drug store is a good place to look. Ask the pharmacist.

[Dave Anderson NH]

Luke makes a very good point about the sharp corners on the sides of chisels. I wear a very thin leather glove on my "downhill" hand which guides the chisel. No glove is needed for the hand on the handle. I don't even want to think about the number of small nicks I got before I adopted the glove.

[Shawn Pixley]

90% of my chisel cuts are from the back / side edge. I should round them over, I’m tired of finding these thin cuts on my fingers. No blood thinners though.

[James Pallas]

Seems I am about to start a trial run of Blood Thinners....been told to be extra careful around sharp objects. May have to take a break from the shop, even....

Most of the cuts I do get in the shop, come from those chisels.....they are sharp enough that I don't even feel the "nick" until I see the fresh DNA on the wood...

Thought maybe I could get a pair ( or three) of Kevlar gloves? Something to guard against nicks? Anyone else have this sort of "problem"?
I have same problem Steven. I get bruised bumping into a padded chair arm. Little nicks are problems at times. Plenty of new skin and band aides around. I try not to make big errors, could be a real problem. Listen to the docs until they get it adjusted right. I look at it the same way as being in the kitchen, sharp stuff will cut you but even if you sat in front of the tv all day and then just broke a drinking glass the problem is the same. My wife got a new puppy and he has me bleeding all over the place. I have 4 band aides on my arms now and numerous healing up ones, probably 15 or 20. Part of life when you have a few miles on.
Jim

[Stew Hagerty]

I am partially paralyzed. My right leg is completely dead and I am in a wheelchair. A cant begin to tell you how many times I have looked down to see blood running down my leg. And I never felt a thing. Fortunately my blood clots just fine. I often have no clue how I even did it. Gashed myself against the end of a board, poked myself with a chisel, or just bashed into something moving my chair around.

[steven c newman]

July 20 will be the "EPS" , or Ablation surgery. then a month later they go in again, and add a "Watchman" insert.

Got bored just sitting around today....had that Millers Falls No. 900 to rehab..
388215
Good news..I didn't cut myself once. Just a $4 plane...

[Russell Sansom]

First, I haven't posted for a couple years, so hello again to SMC. This isn't precisely an answer to the question asked, but it is relevant. I've been away from the shop for several years and upon returning I find myself dashing into the bathroom / first aid station every couple days with a nick or a cut or a scrape or, one I've never had in the past ... a nasty splinter! ( thinner skin ). In my early years hand working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week I came to realize that I was cutting myself on a much too regular basis. So, I thought, can I simply be more vigilant, more focused on absolutely NOT getting cuts? The answer was yes. I went from 3 or 4 cuts a month to 3 or 4 per YEAR!

As proprioception diminishes with old age, not to mention strength, endurance, and eyesight, I'm not sure if I can find this resonance again. I've had to start wearing very thin leather gloves while handling rough lumber and my initial campaign to stop cutting myself has proven hopeful. I've cut back one hundred percent on the dumb and thoughtless accidents, but I still seem to be stumbling into the odd ones every month or so. For that odd one, I have bought 7 kinds of bandaids. Having just the right one seems to help considerably.

This isn't quite a response to the question, but encouragement for one direction to help with the final solution.

[Andrew Seemann]

The hard part is staying vigilant all the time. I spent 6 years in machine shops in my youth, and the nastiest, bloodiest cut I ever got was while opening a can of pull-tab chill in the break room (no idea how I did it either). I probably should have gotten stitches for that one. The second worst was catching my lower thumb on the cutting tool of a stopped Clausing lathe after taking a measurement. I didn't see either of those coming ahead of time.

The wife had that EPS ablation thing a few years ago. She had a bad arrhythmia, no idea where it came from; they think maybe a virus attacked her heart because she was too young for the standard things. Getting rid of the extra beats did wonders for her.

[steven c newman]

Have started the Warfarin. Now have a pair of Cut-Resistant gloves...the kind used in auto glass factories....thin enough I can feel through them, and not get cut.....I hope.

Too boring to give up woodworking,,,can't just sit around all day.

[matteo furbacchione]

Seems I am about to start a trial run of Blood Thinners....been told to be extra careful around sharp objects. May have to take a break from the shop, even....

Most of the cuts I do get in the shop, come from those chisels.....they are sharp enough that I don't even feel the "nick" until I see the fresh DNA on the wood...

Thought maybe I could get a pair ( or three) of Kevlar gloves? Something to guard against nicks? Anyone else have this sort of "problem"?


If you are worried make sure you have a first aid kit with a roll of gauze to help facilitate the clotting mechanism in the blood.

On a side note... You can tell how sharp a blade is by how long you bleed for. A dull edge tends to tear the the tissue leaving nice microscopic ragged walls to the cut for the fibrinogen flooding out of the capillaries to cling to... Whereas a very sharp edge leaves very clean smooth edges and the clotting agents have a difficult time clinging to the edges of the cut.

Obviously blood thinners would magnify that issue.

So use really dull tools if you're concerned about blood loss :)

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Steve,

Let me start by stating that I am NOT a doctor. This is NOT medical advice.

Buy a pack of this for $22. This is Celox clotting powder in small 2g packs. I keep some in my shop.

https://www.amazon.com/CELOX-Temporary-Traumatic-Treatment-10-Pack/dp/B0032UY9BQ

The link above is for small packs that would work well with small cuts. Some people prefer the gauze.

Some studies, such as one in the Turkish Journal of trauma and Emergency Surgery found that Celox was effective on hypothermic bleeding and WARFARNISED blood. This is a paper touting it as the greatest thing since sliced bread (and I am not advocating sliced bread to stop bleeding):

http://www.turvatieto.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Celox-independent-performance-studies.pdf

Let me know if you want to give some a try, I will drop a few packs in the mail to you; I already have your mailing address. I need to do the same for a friend at church. Apparently he cut himself shaving the other day and it looked like he took a bloodbath (according to his son).

Andy

[Bob Glenn]

I used to re-enact at eighteenth century events as a windsor chair maker. I was using a froe to split out some oak for a spindle. Someone in the crowd watching me said "you're bleeding". I looked down at my hand and my finger was dripping blood. Being period correct, I picked up a wood shaving and wrapped it around my finger to stop the bleeding. A little girl in crowd asked, "Is that real blood? We all had a good laugh. My DNA is still visible on my froe.

[Dan Hulbert]

After two trips to the ER in two years to sew up chisel marks on my off (left) hand, I finally got some high quality cut resistant gloves. Now they hang on my chisel cabinet to remind me to put them on when I grab for a chisel. So far, so good... only time will tell if I can skip a year of sutures.
I'm not on blood thinners, but on my last trip to the ER for sutures, the Doc asked if I was because it was bleeding so profusely. Must have been because of the sharp tool/ clean cut problem noted earlier.

[steven c newman]

Even worse when you don't even feel the cut.....

[John C Cox]

I see a box of that in my near future for both myself and Dad.... Many times I wished I had some of that stuff when watching blood drip all over the floor..... I am going to put a pack or 3 in my hunting kit as well.... We have needed something like that too many times out in the woods....