I can now literally say I've put Blood, Sweat, and Tears into the building of my new GP RV-4...

Below is the result of driving the full length of my exacto blade (NEW) into my hand while trying to trim the wing jig off of the left hand wing half...

I will be the first to admit my technique in doing this was bloody stupid!!! And to make matters worse I was trying to do something else at the same time... (I know, I know)

No pain but resulted in an arterial bleed which took several hours to stop!!! And 3 stitches... It could have been worse!

Let this be a warning to all!!! Safety does not start at the strip!!!

Those blades are Dam Sharp...

Sorry for the fuzzy pic... I had to snap a quick shot with my cell phone while the nurse was getting a clean dressing...

Matt

Bloody stupid indeed!

I have had some 'close calls' myself. The blades are indeed very sharp. I'm sure this is a 'lesson learned' for you and hopefully many others.

Glad it was not worse.

Gee, never done that, but sure have sliced off the ends of a few - OK, I'm not a fast learner - finger tips while holding a straight edge and cutting the balsa when the finger tip found its way to the wrong side of the straight edge.

"Bloody stupid"? I thought it was only Bloody Brits that used that term, not the great Kiwis I've met!

Bummer! Be thankful you didn't slice any tendons in half.

I warned a fellow about the Exacto #11 back in the early 70s. He reported back a few weeks later that he had slipped while cutting the abs plastic on a Lanier Transit. The blade went to the hilt in the fleshy base of his thumb on the other hand. He said that it felt like it was stuck when he tried to pull it out so he unscrewed the ferrule on the handle and pulled it off of the blade. He then drove to the local hospital with the blade still embedded where they pulled it out and gave him a tetnus shot.
His comment was "they really are sharp".

Good Post.
Safety First, Always.

Yeeouch!!!!

I was wondering if anyone would ask... "Pun Intended?"

Pun received, but there are a few terms used by the Bloody Brits (guess I'm not too politically correct, eh?) that are way too over used and idiotic - in my opinion. "Bloody" is one of them and another is "Brilliant". They seem to think anything resembling mediocrity should be called "Brilliant"!

My latest... the part of the blade that -wasn't- in the wood amputated the top half including the nail..
Wrapped it up, went to Urgent Care, where the whole thing was sewed back on.
Looks perfectly normal now, can't even see a scar on the skin.

you have to show pictures, eh?

a little gruesome

It's brilliant you feel so strongly about it but to be honest it doesn't bloody matter...

I'd also but forward the notion that you yanks have one or two annoying idiosyncrasies...

Don't search for "Prop" and "Bite" then...

The humen body is an amazing machine...

Altough the doc numbed the finger, I still felt the sutures going thru the nail... euuuuuuu!
But that's all the pain there was.
The end is a tad numb, which I expect will be permanent, but no biggie.

Us? Surely you jest!