Butter Fingers... (not for the weak-stomached)

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davidagladish

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Aug 20, 2008
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Hey all.

I was just framing a project and somehow managed to cut my finger on a little rubber bump-on! :icon9: It got me to thinking about some of the dumbest and worst frame shop accidents. Call me morbid, but I was just interested in everyone else's outtakes and mishaps. The worst one I can think of was a glass accident. Back when I had my first framing job in Springfield, IL I was carrying a piece of glass (get this) WITHOUT gloves and holding it on the SIDES INSTEAD OF THE TOP!! I was just asking for it to slip and cut all four fingers on each hand, so it did. Worst framing mishap of my life. I have never carried a piece of glass without gloves since. Lesson learned.

Care to share yours?
 
Oh you didn't open this can of worms did you? Must be new here! Welcome to our sanitorium! Did you want the daily mishaps? glass cuts, paper cuts. Weekly mishaps? points in palm carrying razor in mouth "backwards", usually only cuts the tongue.

Or just the best ones?

Dug into shirt pocket and "found" an unwrapped mat blade. Learned lesson, now I carry them in my mouth ;)

Squashing finger in vnailer not too bad, driving vnail in, ouch! (actually never drove the nail, only squashed hand.

Glass shards in eye. Glass shards in finger, in foot. (Hint to get out let get infected, easier to find.)

This is one area we like to one up each other, by page three this should be a real stomach turner! Can't wait.
 
I totally wanted to open this can of worms. I'm so in the mood given the X-mas rush, crazy customers, etc. Plus it's Friday!

BTW, once had a co-worker break a 30X40 piece of glass right in her face as she was lowering it onto a print. Found her a bloody mess a couple minutes later, as I had just taken a trip to the restroom. Ambulance, damage report, stitches, and worker's comp. later, we finally finished framing it. Magically, no blood on the print, but there's still a nice red stain on the floor.
 
As this isn't a new topic here, here is on old thread worth rereading!

Oh and let's just say chopper blades are wicked sharp! 've gotten more cuts went I replace the blades than when using it, but the first week I used it I learned how painful it is to have the skin on the back of your knuckles removed. Twice... And making itty bitty frames I have managed to scrape minute layers off my finger nails. Didn't hurt, just opened the eyes!
 
Squishing finger in vnailer and driving vnail...finger nail stopped it from going all the way thru.....14 stitches, but no broken bones. (This was theonly time I ever had stitches...super glue just didn't work on stopping the bleeding)
 
Just yesterday I shot a framers point into my index finger. Odd thing, it didn't hurt... but it was in a spot that had to press against the mat cutter while I cut the 4 4-opening mats I had to cut... ouch.

And a bunch of years ago I cut the tips off both index fingers simultaneously on a Morso chopper. Dummy.

At least all of these things heal well... and quickly.
 
Heres one I just did................................:cry:

I was stitching down a piece of leather............with a needle...........I was pushing really hard..................the back end of the needle went through my whole THUMB and stopped when it hit my fingernail on the otherside......even made a mark............YES IM A KLUTZ!!
.........ow ow ow ow ow ow ow :faintthud:
I LOVE BLEEDING for my work! :p
 
blackiris said:
Heres one I just did................................:cry:

I was stitching down a piece of leather............with a needle...........I was pushing really hard..................the back end of the needle went through my whole THUMB and stopped when it hit my fingernail on the otherside......even made a mark............YES IM A KLUTZ!!
.........ow ow ow ow ow ow ow :faintthud:
I LOVE BLEEDING for my work! :p
Click to expand...

Ahh. The DNA that one would find in a frame shop!!
 
I have a v shaped scar on my left ring finger from the v shape of the blades on a Morso chopper. I was chopping about 15 frames all the same size and was chopping and sliding the stick in and was adjusting the moulding in place and my leg twitched and pushed the blades down.

Luckily not all the way down. It was enough to hear/feel it reach the bone. Took 11 stitches. Never did THAT again!!
 
Blackiris.. they have little leather finger sleeves for just that reason.

I have 2 for the fingers and one for the thumb. Really works.
 
Oooh, I'm gonna love this thread! Better than the Framer's Cook Book.

BlackIris, ow ow o wow o ow! I love the "it left a mark"! You had me cringing and feeling your pain! Peroxide helps get blood out of a mat. And Dave works on the stain on the floor as well. Just a handy tip you pick up watching Sopranos. One of those shows where I catch myself saying "Ooh, I can use that at work..."

And Dave, after a few years it takes bigger cuts to draw blood from a framer. I've had some good paper cuts where I can estimate whether I can finish the job before I get a bandaid or if the blood'll get on the mat before I can finish! The mental debates I found myelf having after an "accident".
 
Still worked

Was carrying a large piece of glass to the dumpster (no gloves). When I threw the glass in (at) the dumpster it hit the side of the dumpster. Took fifteen stitches to sew up my left hand. Cut from the middle of my hand to the base of my index finger.

BTW this was two weeks before Christmas. Needless to say I still had to work. Changed a lot a bandages. :icon9:
 
On Tuesday I was changing the belts on my miter saw, and one of the blades dropped and cut off my head. Luckily the UPS guy was here, and managed to fish my head out of the sawdust. The ER got it sewed back on, and I was back to work on Wednesday, which was good, because I took in 580 orders on Wednesday, and another 831 orders yesterday. Today I've only taken in 635 orders, but it's only 1:30 pm. Before work, I made 23,000 readymades, though.
 
Bob Doyle said:
Oooh, I'm gonna love this thread!

And Dave, after a few years it takes bigger cuts to draw blood from a framer. I've had some good paper cuts where I can estimate whether I can finish the job before I get a bandaid or if the blood'll get on the mat before I can finish! The mental debates I found myelf having after an "accident".
Click to expand...

I did that once when I was stretching a canvas. Air stapled my finger to the stretcher bar, but it didn't hurt, and I didn't really care...so I just kept on going with my finger stuck to the bar. Accidentally got a little blood on the corner tho, and it showed after I had detached my finger and put the frame on. It was a weird impressionistic painting, still tacky, so I just got out some paint and a brush and used my own artistic lisence to cover the bloody overflow. Customer never knew the difference. Should I have charged extra for my artistic addition?
 
framah said:
Blackiris.. they have little leather finger sleeves for just that reason.

I have 2 for the fingers and one for the thumb. Really works.
Click to expand...

LOL....................Yah I know..........DId I mention I'm a bit spacey??

And DAVID.........lets not turn this thread into Bodily fluids added to the artwork.........I seem to remember a thread a while back about a guy that added certain DNA to his pieces.:faintthud:......All guys think their an artists anyway......EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW ;)
 
Hmmmm, well last week I cut the tip off of my thumb for the second time. Once my wife stapled my index finger. That one took a pair of pliers to get the staple out of the bone. Not to bad for 25 years of framing.
 
PaulSF said:
On Tuesday I was changing the belts on my miter saw, and one of the blades dropped and cut off my head. Luckily the UPS guy was here, and managed to fish my head out of the sawdust. The ER got it sewed back on, and I was back to work on Wednesday, which was good, because I took in 580 orders on Wednesday, and another 831 orders yesterday. Today I've only taken in 635 orders, but it's only 1:30 pm. Before work, I made 23,000 readymades, though.
Click to expand...

so what did you do for lunch???
 
Duct tape (duck tape?) will solve most of those mishaps....good to temporarily keep your head in place until you can find the superglue.
 
I just got reminded of my "usual" right now. Breaking apart a frame and sliced my finger with the v-nail as it was coming out. It's not so much the vnail, but the force of breaking the frame and knowing that I'm pulling the vnail through my flesh that bothers me most! I can deal with the pain but to face up to the fact that I did it, well, not fair.
 
Ok, Paul... Now I know you are full of it!!

There's no way UPS would help fish your head out of the sawdust.

They have a time schedule to keep.
 
I was given an alien to frame but it wasn't dead and it abducted me. It put an alien egg in my leg, it hatched and all the green yolk stuff burned a hole through the workshop floor that the little alien disappeared down.

Thing is they returned me to earth 3 months before they abducted me and so it keeps happening over and over!
 

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This didn't happen to me but to a co-worker...
after cutting a piece of glass my co worker excused himself to go to the restroom (we had no bathroom in the store so we had to use the public room in the little mall we worked at) He came back with a package from the men's store that was also in the mall. I asked if he did a little shopping while he was out and he replied "I had to buy a new pair of underwear". I had to know, so i quired deeper to find out that a glass shard had found its way to his nether regions and cut his..."sack". Yikes :party:
 
framah said:
Ok, Paul... Now I know you are full of it!!

There's no way UPS would help fish your head out of the sawdust.

They have a time schedule to keep.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but they would kick it to the other end of the room before they left.
I was once sewing a silk scarf to a subtrate with the sewing machine. My daughter was stading behind me and said something, which diverted my attention. The needle went thru the end of my thumb. I manually turned the wheel to get it out. I wanted to rip her head off, but I didnt becaused I passed out.
 
One of my worst wounds, which I still have the scar to remind me, is from the chopper. Not from the blades, as you might expect, but from the foot pedal assembly.
Years ago, I was using a chopper in a shop in AZ. The foot pedal was really tightly spring loaded. I was wearing shorts that day. I was chopping a moulding when my foot slipped off the foot pedal and it snapped back up on me, catching me in the right shin. The edge of the pedal gouged out a nice channel of flesh from my shin about 4 inches long and pretty deep.

Bled! Bled liked a S.O.B.! I applied pressure and waited. My boss wanted me to go have stitches, but there was nothing to stitch. I gouged out my shin as if I had taken a wood gouge to myself. The grossest thing was walking over to the chopper and picking off the dangling shred of flesh hanging from the footpedal. :eek:
 
We used to carry 36 by 48 glass. We kept them in the pallet and took them from the top, up and out until the pallet was empty. (There is a long story as to why but this is enough to make you flinch) My son , who worked for me as the framer pulled a sheet up and out, the pallet was about 1/2 empty, the sheets in back fell forward hitting the bottom on the glass he was pulling out, causing it to break, catching him across the top of his knee. The glass cut his main tendon almost completely in two. We did have to go to the ER and he was in surgery immediately to reattach the tendon so he would be able to walk. We only carried and handled glass 32 by 40 after that. Anything bigger had acrylic. By the way, my roof had leaked that week because a truck had pulled a wire down making a hole in my roof and it rained flooding my chop room, plus I was robbed. My insurance cancelled on me. The joys of owning your own business.
 
Silly people, take care of your UPS delivery person and he or she will take care of you! Today my regular deliverywoman got a big box of See's chocolates.
 
davidagledish, take my Fabric Wrapping 101, NOBODY forgets my story about the half second jerk with a razor blade and the 68 un-insured stitches.
 
evartpat said:
One of my worst wounds, which I still have the scar to remind me, is from the chopper. Not from the blades, as you might expect, but from the foot pedal assembly.
Years ago, I was using a chopper in a shop in AZ. The foot pedal was really tightly spring loaded. I was wearing shorts that day. I was chopping a moulding when my foot slipped off the foot pedal and it snapped back up on me, catching me in the right shin. The edge of the pedal gouged out a nice channel of flesh from my shin about 4 inches long and pretty deep.

Bled! Bled liked a S.O.B.! I applied pressure and waited. My boss wanted me to go have stitches, but there was nothing to stitch. I gouged out my shin as if I had taken a wood gouge to myself. The grossest thing was walking over to the chopper and picking off the dangling shred of flesh hanging from the footpedal. :eek:
Click to expand...

I've done that a few times.:party: It's worse when you get a good wack, go and bandage your shin, then go back to the chopper and do exactly the same thing again.:help:

Maybe they aught to put some sort of hydraulic damper on the pedal action.;)

Never wear gloves when operating power tools. I had on a pair of latex gloves on one day while I was using a power drill. One finger of the glove snagged the drill chuck and wrapped around it. It pulled very tight. Intinctively I jerked my arm away. The hand was OK apart from a nasty red mark, but pulling my arm back caused the screwdriver bit in the drill to be catapulted like a bullet across the workshop straight into the screen of a nice little nearly new TV.
 
Bob Doyle said:
I've had some good paper cuts where I can estimate whether I can finish the job before I get a bandaid or if the blood'll get on the mat before I can finish! The mental debates I found myelf having after an "accident".
Click to expand...

This reminds me of a woman I worked with who got a papercut one day and bled on a mat. It didn't get clean so it got recut, and she bled on it. She flat out refused to get a bandaid and I could never understand why. I think she went through three before the manager finally stepped in. I think she didn't want some young kid telling her what to do, but dang! She really needed to just put on a band aid! She didn't work there much longer. :nuts:

My two best:

My first few weeks of framing ever and I was cutting frames on a Morso. I remember I was going real slow because I was still new to it. So when I came down on my fingertip I was lucky that I was going slow enough to notice before I got very far. No stitches, though. I got superglued on that one.


When I was at corners I was changing the blade on a wall cutter, you know, how you have to tighten a screw tight enough to hold the blade but it is a flat head screw? Yeah, that slipped. It came down across my wrist about an inch across. I was lucky to have missed two big veins! You can see the veins on my wrist and the scar beginning right alongside one and ending along the other. I was very lucky. I think it was six stitches.
I still have the accident report. Maybe I should frame it! :icon11:
 
Paper cuts, every week..............check
Glass dust in eye.........................check
Brushing away wood chips under the chopper blades and brushing ever so slightly against the blades and slicing 3 finger nails off (no pain) .........................................check
Hammering fingers......................check
Framers points in finger...............check
Bleeding on mats........................double check, hydrogen peroxide in utility belt ...............................check
Triming things with the sharp edge of the razor pressing against my finger.................................. eh.. kinda like walking on hot coals...no biggy.
Oh!!!!! Walking on glass ouch, screws ouch, nails ouch.....check...check...check.

The absolute worst.... a fellow worker was bringing in a large sheet of glass in her car, the sheet of glass was in her back seat. She had to break suddenly or got into and car acicdent or something, (details aren't to clear anymore, happened 20 years ago and it was after I left the job)..the glass flies forward and eh...this is really tragic...decapitates her. So I tell this only as a warning to all of you don't carry loose glass in your back seat.
 
Ouch

1. Had only been framing for about a month, it was a sunday morning and was keen to get orders out for the monday. Cutting a small frame on the morso and to this day do not know how I did it but ended up with my middle finger hanging over the edge of the moulding right at the point where the blade made contact with the moulding. Sliced my finger nail and end of finger clean off! The end of my finger ended up in the waste bin, but with all the shavings in there I couldn't find it. Off the hospital and was operated on that day to graft the end of my finger.

2. This one is by far my worst incident to date. Years ago I was drilling small holes in polycarbonate with a 3/16th bit in a air drill. I was holding the piece of plastic with a pair of pliers and was resting the plastic on the edge of the work bench. Somehow I managed to slip with the pliers and with the drill still going I ended up drilling through my jeans into my undrwear and the worst bit, into my "you know what"! I rushed to the toilets to check the damage, and was confronted with a very messy "groin area". Plenty of gauze and wadding to clean up the "area", and back to work. After that I was the brunt of many jokes in the workplace. :icon9:
 
On Halloween this year, I cut my left pinkie finger pretty good.

I was readjusting a metal frame and it slipped and sliced my finger. Blood just came pouring out. I walked really really fast towards the breakroom to go wash it up. As I'm doing that, a few coworkers see me with a bloody tissue and they get on their walkies "Ummmm, Amy's bleeding again" (I'm very much a klutz)

So, I'm in the breakroom cleaning it up. My manager looks at it and says that I should be ok. And that if I wanted to go to the Dr.s I could, but they don't stitch fingers any more.

Well, 3 hours later, I come back from the Dr.s with 4 stitches in my pinkie finger.

Then I got yelled at the next day for going home an hour early :fire:
 
In California we fought really hard to get a classification for framers and one for front people. Could not understand why they made framers, who never get hurt, pay as much as cabinet makers for workman's comp insurance. After reading this, now I know. Lets hope the people who set rates don't read this thread.

(Decapitated?????)
 
Icon, not framing work incident, but 12 years ago I was cutting some ABS plastic on a table saw. Of course it was alone and late at night. The plexi caught on the blade and was thrown into my stomache! Hurt like a mother, major bruise, but very lucky that it didn't stab into me! Taught me a good lesson I'm sure just don't know what it was!

Threads like this make me wish that Saw Stop was around 15 years ago. Now someone needs to invent a tool safety device that shuts off all power equipment when the "operator" is distracted! Like a GFCI circuit, only for me it would be a JFCI (for Jerk interupt!)
 
Years ago I thought it was smart to have a metal garbage can for glass in the shop. The problem is it got heavy fast and could take two people to pour the contents in the trash.

New employee starts on a Monday morning, glass trash is full and heavy, I have her give me a hand to the dumpster with the can and I instruct her how to lift the can with me on one side and her on the other. I explain how to lift and hold the handles and to NOT PUT HERE HANDS on the top edge of the trash can as the glass will shred her hand.

She still put her hand on the top edge, to this day I wonder why, the skin on her hand was shedded:eek:. She spent the day in the ER and got stitched up. I got a another new employee.


framer
 
I just bought 2 boxes of 36" x48" I don't think I'll do this again. What type of gloves do you suggest. Best way to handle this size?:shrug:
I was thinking about getting some suction cup handles? Now I'm afraid:eek: I may be adding to this post!!!
 
Audrey Brown said:
I just bought 2 boxes of 36" x48" I don't think I'll do this again. What type of gloves do you suggest. Best way to handle this size?:shrug:
I was thinking about getting some suction cup handles? Now I'm afraid:eek: I may be adding to this post!!!
Click to expand...

I have gloves with tthe little "sticky" rubbery stuff on them for the big glass.........Its really not that bad Audrey...........just make sure you hold the glass and transport it from the top edge.........otherwise.......<shudder> It could be bad...........:faintthud:
 
Butchers wear gloves that are made of kevlar or some such material that protects from slicing. They would work for these potential injuries.

My problem with glass is not so much the slicing as the poking, and the Junk Yard Dog gloves my brother got me weren't any good for those injuries!
 
Cutting a 34 x 48 mat in the Fletcher a couple of weeks ago - while manipulating the sheet for the next cut with the arm up jam my index finger right into the "straight cut" blade (the one I NEVER use) - should have gotten stitches but had too much work to do - that's why I keep butterfly bandages in the shop. Needless to say I don't keep a blade in that stupid thing anymore -
 
Audrey Brown said:
I just bought 2 boxes of 36" x48" I don't think I'll do this again. What type of gloves do you suggest. Best way to handle this size?:shrug:
I was thinking about getting some suction cup handles? Now I'm afraid:eek: I may be adding to this post!!!
Click to expand...

Sometimes gloves can be your own worst enemy...my old wood working teacher never recomended them because you can loose your grip, no matter how "suctioney" the grip of the glove is. This I can say, never handle glass by the corners or from on end, try to balance your hold in the middle to disperse the wieght of the glass. You dont want to hold it so that one side is unsupported.
AND
WEAR
YOUR
SAFETY GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
I know I've worked too late when I get out a fresh razor blade to trim something and forget to put the sharp side down. Once I get the work table mopped up I go home. Done that too many more times than I want to remember.
 
Jack Flynn said:
I know I've worked too late when I get out a fresh razor blade to trim something and forget to put the sharp side down.
Click to expand...

Oh my.........I thought I was the only one that did that!!! :p
And I ALWAYS scrape myself when I get tape off of my tape despenser!! Those suckers are sharp!!!! :p

I also tend to make a very fun obstical course for myself in the back room........tripping over stuff all the time........especally when I carry glass..........What fun would framing be if we didn't live life on the edge???? LMAO!!!!!! :D
 
You can get a bit blasé if you handle a lot of glass. Occaisionally you get a little reminder..... I lifted a 4x3 onto the bench one day. One corner snapped off in my hand. The sheet pivoted round between the corner I was still holding and the diagonally opposite corner on the bench. I just managed to get my head far enough away for the edge of the sheet to miss my nose by about 0.0578mm.
 
prospero said:
You can get a bit blasé if you handle a lot of glass. Occaisionally you get a little reminder..... I lifted a 4x3 onto the bench one day. One corner snapped off in my hand. The sheet pivoted round between the corner I was still holding and the diagonally opposite corner on the bench. I just managed to get my head far enough away for the edge of the sheet to miss my nose by about 0.0578mm.
Click to expand...

eeek.
 
PaulSF said:
On Tuesday I was changing the belts on my miter saw, and one of the blades dropped and cut off my head. Luckily the UPS guy was here, and managed to fish my head out of the sawdust. The ER got it sewed back on, and I was back to work on Wednesday
Click to expand...

I take it then that they sewed it back on the right way? You should have just grabbed your Attach-Ez and did it on the spot so you didn't lose time.
 
Bob Doyle said:
Threads like this make me wish that Saw Stop was around 15 years ago. Now someone needs to invent a tool safety device that shuts off all power equipment when the "operator" is distracted! Like a GFCI circuit, only for me it would be a JFCI (for Jerk interupt!)
Click to expand...

I saw that on the history channel. The inventor "hesitantly" slid his finger into the blade. It stopped immediately, but the action of the brake and sound is enough to give a person a heart attack. Then there's the cost. Almost as much as an ER visit.
 
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