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OK, I reluctantly joined the club today

bret

Well Known Member
That is, the drill THROUGH YOUR FINGER club. After the bit punched through the aluminum, I was surprised at how fast that bit goes through flesh. I stopped the drill, tried to pull it out, no go, with the years of drilling experience built in, I instinctually pulled the trigger full rpm and pulled it back out. If you look at the pic, you can see where it came out the top. OUCHY!
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Your "Welcome Kit" is in the mail. It includes
  • Replacement Band-Aids
  • Disinfectant
  • A nicely embroidered patch that say "DOH!"

BTW, Congratulations on going this long without joining.
 
Too funny, while meeting builders through out the years the question would come up, so, how many times have you drill your finger? I would say never, What? Never? So now I know. WARNING to new builders, drilling into yourself is like riding motorcycles, ( It is not IF you will go down, It is when you will go down.....or drill yourself!)
 
Never drilled my own finger but did drill my partners finger once. I didn't feel a thing. I remember feeling o bad about I had wished it was my finger.

Needless to say, he learned to use a wood block to back me up.

Dan
 
I must be really lucky - I have built two planes and didn't manage to do this even once. However - I did manage to pinch my finger severely with a pneumatic rivet squeezer.

If forced to choose between drilling _through_ a finger or smashing the end of one almost flat I can't say which would be worse.
 
That's funny Dan, being a mechanic, I have accidentally hurt a lot of people, Hey, come here for a sec and hold this punch while I............it is all fun and games until someone gets hurt, then it's hilarious!
 
Well at least it was only your finger. And a small bit.

I have always loved tools, and got a sears 1/4 110v drill for christmas as a teen. I was drilling . . something . . and with no workshop and squatting on the carport, I was holding the piece in my crotch. The bit went through and into my pants and wrapped up pants, underwear, and the loose man skin all together before it stopped. Remember the old drills just kept spinning after you release the trigger? Well no blood, but lots of pain and fear that someone was watching. Scared the heck out of me, and changed the future outlook for where the bit would end up.
 
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Drilling and cutting hands is very common with me. If I don't have a few black lines on my fingers (grease in cut), that means I've been spending way too much time in the office checking AD's (or whatever else I do in there) lately. Welcome to the club
 
Well at least it was only your finger. And a small bit.

I have always loved tools, when and got a sears 1/4 110v drill for christmas as a teen. I was drilling . . something . . and with no workshop and squatting on the carport, i was holding the piece in my crotch. The bit went through and into my pants and wrapped up pants, underwear, and the loose man skin all together before it stopped. Remember the old drills just kept spinning after you release the trigger? Well no blood, but lots of pain and fear that someone was watching. Scared the heck out of me, and changed the future outlook for where the bit would end up.


Crapola.... That is scary, I have 1/2" Milwaukee that does that, no clutch, a lot of gear reduction and a spinning rotor with lots of inertia. Release the trigger and wreawwwwwwwwwwww.
 
I drilled into the meat of my index finger a couple years ago and had to reverse the drill to get it out. No accident for 4 years and I drilled through my middle fingernail 3 weeks ago drilling through rubber baffle material for the FAB.
Three weeks after...
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I drilled into the meat of my index finger a couple years ago and had to reverse the drill to get it out. No accident for 4 years and I drilled through my middle fingernail 3 weeks ago drilling through rubber baffle material for the FAB.
Three weeks after...
517C9A08-6BC3-4BE3-A839-B3047AF4EAB9-6983-000003D0AB1CFC03_zpsdb5e917f.jpg

Nice! Where is the Blood shot. That looks almost healed.
 
Been there done that, right through the fingernail.

Oh man, you brought back painful memories!
 
.........any of you smart enough to use a block of wood to use as a back-up when drilling? ;)

No because it is difficult to hold something with a block of wood in your hand and we are dumb enough to put our finger right where we can drill through it!

PS. Even Van has done it! (I asked him.)
 
That's the easiest way to tell when the bit has gone all the way through the part. I only needed to check once...

Bob
 
you know you're a dedicated builder . . .

I drilled into the meat of my index finger a couple years ago and had to reverse the drill to get it out. No accident for 4 years and I drilled through my middle fingernail 3 weeks ago drilling through rubber baffle material for the FAB.
Three weeks after...
517C9A08-6BC3-4BE3-A839-B3047AF4EAB9-6983-000003D0AB1CFC03_zpsdb5e917f.jpg

You know you're a dedicated builder when your first thought is whether or not this should have been de-burred.
 
Drill Accident

In the 70's, I visited the Natchez paddle wheeler while in the shipyard. I watched a guy with long, flowing hair blowing elegantly in the wind, drilling 1" or so holes in plate steel. He was using a geared drill which managed to rip about a 2" ragged circle of hair from his scalp.:eek: It was a bloody patch spinning on the drill about when the drill hit the floor and he was running for the office. Never saw him again but, I bet it never grew back in that spot.
 
You know you're a dedicated builder when your first thought is whether or not this should have been de-burred.

That definitely brought out a hearty LOL. :D

The couple small (#40) holes I drilled in my finger were not nearly as painful as the one #12 hole I drilled in the palm of my left paw. Luckily, it didn't go all the way through. :eek:
 
Co worker drilled a 5/8" hole in his palm. he had a hamburger looking mess there.
 
If possible, reverse the chuck by hand to back the drill out without doing more damage. Need a helper for that though.
 
Thankfully, I've never witnessed firsthand any serious shop accidents, nor do I wish to. My workplace puts on a safety expo about once every 2-3 years, with a "chamber of horrors" tent that has some gruesome images of what can go wrong in an instant...pieces of tooling flying off and piercing eyeballs, degloving incidents, etc.

It'll make a believer out of you when it comes to shop safety, I'll tell you that...
 
Well at least it was only your finger. And a small bit.

I have always loved tools, and got a sears 1/4 110v drill for christmas as a teen. I was drilling . . something . . and with no workshop and squatting on the carport, I was holding the piece in my crotch. The bit went through and into my pants and wrapped up pants, underwear, and the loose man skin all together before it stopped. Remember the old drills just kept spinning after you release the trigger? Well no blood, but lots of pain and fear that someone was watching. Scared the heck out of me, and changed the future outlook for where the bit would end up.

On that note, back when I was a teen working in an auto-part store; I had used the electric impact to remove the pulley nut from an alternator. The nut was stuck in the socket and I was trying to pick it out with my finger. I accidentally pulled the trigger on the gun and screwed the nut up to the back up my fingernail (my finger is larger than the bore of the nut). In my hurry to avoid embarassment, the only way I could think to remove the nut was to reverse the impact and screw it back off. It hurt much worse coming back off since I did it on purpose. :eek:
 
repeat offender

I managed to make it to the fuel tanks before drilling a finger. I thought I was past that part of the learning curve :)

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And Then I did it again on the fuselage :eek:

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One must track his safety record to take industrial accidents seriously.

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I don't know how many times I go to break off the chips after drilling and forget about the stainless steel firewall. those chips don't come off, just in your finger.
 
Soul

Just remember ... our aircraft need blood to feed their soul too.

There are those who have and those who will and hopefully nothing serious!

BTW - I am in the "have" group.

Strike
 
Been there, done that with the finger and drill bit. My worst bleed was catching my forearm on the corner of a sharp wing skin. Got a nice scar from that one.
 
I was a witness and first-responder in this incident that was the result of a guy drilling over his head inside a chimney. This was a classic case of a broken bit diving into the thumb of the work-supporting hand. I had to remove the 18v cordless drill for this guy as he was in a bit of a panic. Luckily, I also had the presence of mind to snap some phone pics as he hyperventilated. We let the ER remove the bit after a shot of local anesthetic.

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I would rather pull it out right away while you are still in shock, no pain for the first few seconds!
 
I was upside down in the fuselage, with my head under the instrument panel doing some wiring work. My hingable fuse panel was hanging down above my head. I turned my head just right and the smooth (deburred) edge of the fuse panel neatly sliced thru the cartiledge of my right ear.

It was too sharp to hurt but man did it bleed. It was hard to wiggle out of there while bleeding heavily.

Cartiledge is white, by the way. And the Urgent Care doc said it looked like a scalpel cut.
 
Thought I would add to my thread from a couple years ago, thought is was funny, this is two weeks old, so I guess I am now branded for life. Getting close to finishing this thing, don't know what else can bite me, maybe a sheered finger when the wings go on? :eek:

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A few years ago, I was at the hangar cutting something with one of those 4 1/2" angle grinders. It got away from me, and I thought I'd just catch it. I caught it all right. Still spinning, into my forearm. Left a nasty, bleeding burn.

The funny thing is, my wife was right outside. I showed her when I went outside to wash it out. She asked "when did that happen", I calmly replied "about 30 minutes ago, I had to finish what I was doing first." She didn't think that was funny.
 
Been there and done it as well. I joined early, as in the tailcone ...
I didn't think to get a picture at the time.

Not airplane related, but as a carpenter, it was common to bump nail with the big 16 penny nail gun. While nailing up blocking a co-worker nailed his hand to a rafter. :eek: We had to cut the board out to get him off the ladder.
The ER doctor wasn't familiar with nail guns and couldn't understand how someone could nail themselves to the wall! :confused:
 
Been there and done it as well. I joined early, as in the tailcone ...
I didn't think to get a picture at the time.

Not airplane related, but as a carpenter, it was common to bump nail with the big 16 penny nail gun. While nailing up blocking a co-worker nailed his hand to a rafter. :eek: We had to cut the board out to get him off the ladder.
The ER doctor wasn't familiar with nail guns and couldn't understand how someone could nail themselves to the wall! :confused:

My toes just curled while reading that!:eek:
 
Be careful

My 'brander' which is used primarily to help remove the blue plastic, takes quite a while to cool down to room temperature. I'm real careful not to put it anywhere near flammables - usually put it on the concrete floor for a half hour or so before returning it to its place in a work cabinet. Great tool but deserves respect!
 
Funny, I think i've got the same heat gun, and the same "brand"! My son was helping by being the official heat-shrink-shrinker while we were doing some wiring the other day. I guess he got distracted for a second and stuck the hot end right to my elbow! It was off at the time, but like E. D. said, it takes a long time to cool down!
 
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Like many others before me, I too joined the drill a 3/32" hole in your finger last night while working on the elevator trim tabs...

I'm sure like most of you, I swore I'd do my best to never let that happen to me... Yeah, right! :)

Ouch!
 
Like many others before me, I too joined the drill a 3/32" hole in your finger last night while working on the elevator trim tabs...

I'm sure like most of you, I swore I'd do my best to never let that happen to me... Yeah, right! :)

Ouch!

All the way to the elevator stage? ........kidding......be carful! I thought I was going to make it to the finish line and not do that.....gear leg faring for me.
 
I'm going to go out, sterilize my finger and a drill bit and carefully drill into my finger to get this over with in a safe, controlled manner. :)
 
Doesn't work that way. You'll jerk and elongate the hole. Then you'll need to drill a size larger and use an oops band-aid.
 
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OK, I just gotta gloat. The ONE thing I didn't do in building the -8 was to drill my finger. Got close a time or two. Now, I did cut myself up on a regular basis. In fact, I used to tell my wife that if I wasn't bleeding when I left the workshop, I didn't get anything done. There are marks of dried blood inside that fuselage! It was my way of proving that a non-professional built the thing!:D:D
 
One month into my build, I added a special "bandaid" drawer just above the rivets and next to the ScotchBrite pads. Isopropyl alcohol for parts cleaning and wound cleaning comes in handy too....
 
I gotta add that I have done all these things in various degrees too, as well as several welding burns of differing shapes, sizes and locations that leave me hopping around the garage swearing like a sailor. But more importantly, I laughed by a$$ off reading all these and after last night and todays "political fun", its just what I needed. Thanks guys!:D
 
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So far I have only drilled a finger once.
I have however managed to file my knuckles with the vixen file several times. You would think after the tenth or eleventh time I would catch on but apparently I am a slow learner.
 
got mine done with a brad tip bit made for wood. pointy center spike and edges around the drill diameter for a nice clean hole in wood.
wife is an e.r. nurse and had a guy come in with a router accident. i asked her what his hand looked like and she said, ''a piece of moulding''!
 
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