Okay, what was the stupidest (carving) thing you ever did that resulted in a cut?
I believe we can learn from our mistakes.

I'll go first;
I was carving two matching twenty-eight foot totem poles in my driveway. I had been working on on them for 18 months; the first pole was done and the second pole was half finished. I was beginning to shape the hat of the 'watchman' at the top of the pole. Using a 1 inch flat chisel and a woodworkers mallet; when the chisel slipped and made the prettiest 1 inch cut right above my knee. Unfortunately, it ruined a good pair of levis.

Here is another;
I was removing bark from a walking stick using a Helvie Jumbo knife (3 inch blade). To get more power, I reversed the knife in my hand and used pulling strokes. (You can see this coming can't you?)
Well, I was careful not to cut myself while using the knife, but when I was done, I rested my carving hand on my leg. Only I forgot to turn the knife around first. Unfortunately, I ruined another pair of levis.

[Kenny_S]

This did not happen to me, but he claims I am the cause of it.

A good friend(still) , want to carve so I set him up with a knife and a piece of walnut(whish he wanted to carve in first) :. I sharpened his knife and told his wife the fool will cut his hand off if he wasn't careful .
Anyway, he called me up one Sunday evening around 6:30 PM. Now he should have been at church as he was the pastor of our church.
Anyway, When I got over there, I park the car and notice blood on the sidewalk. The closer to the house , the more spots.
I rang the door bell and heard him say come in.
Now, I was shocked and embarassed as he was sitting there with his left hand up and bandaged.
He had cut himselfdown the thumb and plam of his hand.Badly! He required 21 stitches in thumb and plam and still to this day, has no feelings in little fingure and the next one. That was in 1990 when it happened.
I guess, Yes , it was my fault!If I hadn't sharpen his knife and gave him the walnut blank and gave him instructions on carving away from your body, and told him to keep his hand and thumb below the carved piece and,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Now this did happen to me, I had finished stromping my knife, a Helvie and picked up my piece to do some more carving on it. The second stroke nicked my fingure at a tune of 3 stitches.So much for keeping my hand and fingures below the piece ,eh?

Best to you all and remember safety first.

BTW, My friend has not taken up carving again to this day. But his daughter is a fine carver and no cuts. At least one of them had some brains.

Ken

This didn't result in a cut, but I missed losing at least a finger or two my fractions of an inch. I was making a frame for a relief carving and had the pieced all ripped out and needed to cut the grooves to hold the carving. Should have used the router table, but was too lazy to set it up so decided I'd cut them with the table saw. I was also too lazy to put the zero clearance face plate on the saw. Don't need to use the push stick either because your not cutting all the way through the stock. Needless to say, as soon as the stock cleared the table and hit the faceplate it dropped, the blade came through, and somehow or another missed my hand. A whole series of stupids there, all related to being lazy and in a hurry.

:'(I heard this while at a carving camp. A carver was sitting carving and was being bothered by flies. He kept waving the hand he had the carving knife in to shoo the flies away when he clipped his right ear. He took the knife out of his right hand and put it in his left hand so he could hold his ear and took a swipe at another fly and clipped his left ear. Close your eyes and imagine someone sitting there holding both his ears. That's why the bandaid stock is so high!!!!! Pam

Pam,
That reminded me of a story; I was taking a carving class in North Carolina. It was a small class of 12 carvers; one of which was quite old and not especially adept at carving.
We were carving caricature busts; this carver would yell out every time he cut himself. First was: Yeooo! I cut my finger.
Later it was: Shoot! I cut my arm. Then: Ouch, I stabbed my leg.
This went on day after day for nearly a week; I was at the point where I didn't even look up when he yelled out.

Then toward the end of the week, we were all concentrating on the fine details and trying to finish our carvings. Out of the silence came: Oh No! I cut my nose off!

Thankfully it was his wooden nose.

I came across this in the old postings.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Sure glad I don't do things like that! :

Me too! Well except there was this time with my tablesaw and the board I was ripping kind of bound up and that damn blade bit my thumb. 21 stitches, a small steel cable (to put the tendon back together) with a big lead washer on the end. It wouldn't have been so bad, but working outside in January was kind of rough, especially when the washer made the cable cold :'(