Don't take me long to look at a horse shoe...

[Downeaster]

Making a doo-dad for the shop. One part I needed is a crank arm out of 1/4" round stock with a 90° bend in each end.

Marked out the spot, chucked it up in the vise and got the first end glowing with the torch and bent the 90 in it.

Very carefully flipped it over, aligned things so the bends would be in the same plane, and heated it up.

And promptly grabbed it by the hot end to make the other bend...

Not bad reaction time for an old fart tho, I let go of it fast enough that all I got was a shiny spot on the pad of my pointer finger.

 

[Team Junk]

I had to concentrate yesterday cutting the gauge mount with a cutoff wheel to keep from making the same mistake.

 

[Mailman]

Hey DE.....I got a present for you....hold out your hand....

 

[Downeaster]

 

[azman857]

OUCH! (Shakes head) Yeah....we've all do something like that...… a time or two...… Grab a cold one DE with that hand.....for the cooling of the burn, ya know...

 

[kshansen]

And if it's hot enough it can be a little slippery!

 

[Ratranger]

I was working on a trailer once, welded the plate mount back on. Went to stand up and slipped on some gravel, my hand slid right to where I had just welded. Had a nice burn on the web between thumb and pointer than ran part way down my palm.

Then the usual not waiting long enough/forgetting it was just glowing red. And the impacted off rusted nut that got way hotter than expected.

 

[MaxPete]

Making a doo-dad for the shop. One part I needed is a crank arm out of 1/4" round stock with a 90° bend in each end.

Marked out the spot, chucked it up in the vise and got the first end glowing with the torch and bent the 90 in it.

Very carefully flipped it over, aligned things so the bends would be in the same plane, and heated it up.

And promptly grabbed it by the hot end to make the other bend...

Not bad reaction time for an old fart tho, I let go of it fast enough that all I got was a shiny spot on the pad of my pointer finger.

Yup - been there and done that. Glad you didn't do more damage DE!

I think that just about everyone who has worked with their hands has some sort of hand or finger injury involving either heat, a sharp edge or something extremely heavy or moving very fast.

I chopped the end off my left index finger about 35 years ago at a Becton-Dickinson injection molding plant in Oxnard CA. I got it caught in a hydraulic cylinder and a side oil port edge nipped it off. The darned thing hurt like fury at the time and I was more interested in clean water than anything else. However, the plant people actually found and brought the "removed" piece along to the hospital. The doctor looked at it for about 1 second and said, "I can't do anything with that" and threw it in the garbage can. All he did was clean it, bandage it, give me a couple of Tylenols for pain and send me off.

When I first saw it - the finger ended about halfway across my fingernail (so the cut included some nice white bone) but the tip has largely filled in over the years although it is still pretty numb.

 

[Mailman]

Back when I was a welder, I used cutting torches almost daily. Sometimes a little molten metal will blow back and stick to the end of your torch , messing up the flame.
Wearing thick gloves, it was common practice to do a quick swipe with your hand to knock the offending blob off. I had done that move countless times.
Once I did it and was unaware of a split along the seam of one of my fingers of my glove.
When I did my swipe, the tip of the torch went right in that opening and stuck there for a moment. The flame shot down the back of my middle finger and across the back of my hand and burned it all....crispy.
It was by far the worse burn I ever got in my years of welding. My hand was raw for months. And the best part? I was young with no safety net, I had to work. Never missed a day. Didn’t even go home early. Just wrapped it up and kept on working.
Oh to be 22 years old again and indestructible!

 

[MaxPete]

Oh to be 22 years old again and indestructible!

Yup - I was about 27 when I had my finger boo-boo. That is why vehicle insurance rates are so much higher for younger folks and testosterone is why they are higher for boys than for girls....