Ouch!
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223 Posts
OMG!!! You win for sure...man I hope that's not you. That looks really painful. What happened?
I went to a double feature of Benji as a child. When I got out of my friends car I slammed my finger in the door of a mid 70's Monte Carlo, which shut part way. My friends dad started to drive off so I went for the handle to get my finger out. It looked sort of like that and it really hurt as I sat through both horrible movies.
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730 Posts
Doing the head gasket and front main on a 1.6L Miata when I was too poor to do it anywhere other than my unsheltered gravel driveway. I wore gloves for every second because without health insurance and only working part time I couldn't afford to risk injury.
I took those gloves off one time - to run my finger around the front main to make sure it was seated correctly - and immediately opened my knuckle up all the way down to the tendon that works the index finger on my right hand on a casting protrusion on the cast iron block.
It was a $1200 hospital bill, paid in cash from the last of my savings and I lost a week of work. Would have been cheaper to have a shop to the work for me.
Always wear gloves. Never take them off.
I took those gloves off one time - to run my finger around the front main to make sure it was seated correctly - and immediately opened my knuckle up all the way down to the tendon that works the index finger on my right hand on a casting protrusion on the cast iron block.
It was a $1200 hospital bill, paid in cash from the last of my savings and I lost a week of work. Would have been cheaper to have a shop to the work for me.
Always wear gloves. Never take them off.
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5,446 Posts
Thankfully not me, I work on enough open belt bikes to know I never want one. This is just one of the reasons. IIRC it was a track bike with open belts and fatefully a ignition switch or start button near the belts so one momentary loss of attention and the finger went between the belt and pulley. I am not going to out him but he is a member here.
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66 Posts
Once you bleed on it though you know it will work. Took my index finger knuckle off down to the bone doing new rotors for my DRZ's dirt wheels. On a side note, those would make amazing Xena weapons hahaha!
Every time I work without gloves I get a booboo. I still go without on some things though, when I know I’m going to get them really oily. A couple of months ago I got multiple cactus spines broken off in the back of my hand, followed within the hour by multiple fire ant bites. My hand swelled up so big I thought it would explode. Gloves are good. They won’t stop a Ducati belt though. But that’s all nothing compared to a friend at work. He got his hand caught in a big machine and it slowly pulled his thumb off. They replaced it with his big toe.
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215 Posts
I usually start with gloves and tear them sweat in them and become unhappy with them and take them off, I also usually bleed doing just about anything, if the cops ever need a DNA sample, they can just swab my bike down a bit!
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1,499 Posts
I spent much of the last 35 years working in Heavy Equipment. No one wore gloves when I was an apprentice. No one wore them when I was a journeyman. Around the time I'd been a craftsman for 8 or 9 years, gloves started to become more common place.
I switched careers for a while and in that time, gloves really took off. When I returned to the profession they were more or less mandatory on the shop floor. Management harped on it, our industrial safety guys harped on us about it....we even got issued mechanics gloves with rubber armor on the back for more protection.
We got nitrile gloves for working with some really unfriendly hydraulic fluid. I wore them anytime I had to work with that stuff....it really burned my skin if it got under the nitrile or on my skin above the gloves. Nasty stuff that. I got to where I wore them for oil changes and most specially working with brake fluid. I hate DOT3. I've had some bad experiences with that stuff in the past so I make sure to wear them for that.
I still go bare back for most jobs though. Tactile feel is just numbed out, even with the nitrile gloves. The mechanics gloves are perfect for working on hot exhausts and when running impact wrences....sometimes you gotta run a 1" impact in heavy equipment. Much of the time 3/4" is what you use so the mechanics gloves we got had gel pads to reduce the vibration transfer. Not that it helps that much with a 3/4" impact though.
I've changed careers once again so these days, at least the last few weeks since I've been at the new job I don't need any of that stuff. In my garage at home though.....I'm well stocked. And no, I don't lube chains with the bike running. Seen enough of that and the damaged hands and digits that comes along with it.
Had a guy I knew in the military get discharged medically because his hand went around the rear sprocket on his dirt bike. Severed tendons and poked a few holes all the way through his hand. Broke a few of the phalanges too while he was at it. The damage was so great he could no longer do his job. Don't think he'll ever ride again either.....sean
I switched careers for a while and in that time, gloves really took off. When I returned to the profession they were more or less mandatory on the shop floor. Management harped on it, our industrial safety guys harped on us about it....we even got issued mechanics gloves with rubber armor on the back for more protection.
We got nitrile gloves for working with some really unfriendly hydraulic fluid. I wore them anytime I had to work with that stuff....it really burned my skin if it got under the nitrile or on my skin above the gloves. Nasty stuff that. I got to where I wore them for oil changes and most specially working with brake fluid. I hate DOT3. I've had some bad experiences with that stuff in the past so I make sure to wear them for that.
I still go bare back for most jobs though. Tactile feel is just numbed out, even with the nitrile gloves. The mechanics gloves are perfect for working on hot exhausts and when running impact wrences....sometimes you gotta run a 1" impact in heavy equipment. Much of the time 3/4" is what you use so the mechanics gloves we got had gel pads to reduce the vibration transfer. Not that it helps that much with a 3/4" impact though.
I've changed careers once again so these days, at least the last few weeks since I've been at the new job I don't need any of that stuff. In my garage at home though.....I'm well stocked. And no, I don't lube chains with the bike running. Seen enough of that and the damaged hands and digits that comes along with it.
Had a guy I knew in the military get discharged medically because his hand went around the rear sprocket on his dirt bike. Severed tendons and poked a few holes all the way through his hand. Broke a few of the phalanges too while he was at it. The damage was so great he could no longer do his job. Don't think he'll ever ride again either.....sean
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5,446 Posts
Similar story with the rear chain.
A customer was lubing his chain without a stand so he had his mom rolling the bike while he lubed the chain. At some point he got a finger in the sprocket and they could not get it out so she had to call the fire department to get his finger out of the chain and sprocket. Needless to say she probably never helped her son with motorcycles again.
A customer was lubing his chain without a stand so he had his mom rolling the bike while he lubed the chain. At some point he got a finger in the sprocket and they could not get it out so she had to call the fire department to get his finger out of the chain and sprocket. Needless to say she probably never helped her son with motorcycles again.
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942 Posts
The result of complacency on my part around power tools. Gloves wouldn't have helped but the push stick that was within easy reach certainly would have. As with the hand through the chain/belt sprocket scenarios mentioned, stupidity is the start of many avoidable accidents.
At least there's a little Duc content.
At least there's a little Duc content.
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289 Posts
I nearly lost a fingertip to a BICYCLE chain. I'm still shocked at my own stupidity and I'm not going to try to explain how I managed to do it. My left pointer finger is permanently more pointy and mostly numb.
It wasn't so much getting it caught between the chain and chainring, thought the crunch was pretty bad... it was having to turn the pedals backward to get it out that sucked.
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8,387 Posts
Since we're telling injury stories...when in the Air Force I had a part time job as a butcher that included slaughtering home ranch raised stock. I was skinning a steer when on an upstroke to make another cut the tip of the knife caught the flesh. It was wooden handled with no guard and wet from blood and animal fat so it slipped through my hand and cut half way through my index finger between the last two joints as well as a pretty deep cut on my middle finger near the base. Luckily it was so sharp it just slide right through with no pain. It took five or six stitches to close it and to this day there is still a small bit of numbness at the tip of that finger and that was 41 years ago.
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223 Posts
Man you guys...Im a musician! I had no idea people ever got fingers caught in a chain. I will slow down when I work around them from now on thanks to this post! I can almost understand a bicycle chain because they are small, they come off easy and you have to use your fingers more to put them on...but running a motorcycle to lube the chain? Yikes.
I had a friend that claimed to have lost a couple of fingers on an open drive belt on a Harley. Years later his roommate told me he lost a $10,000.00 bet on a basketball game and a guy stuck his hand in a fan for payback.
My Grandma was always missing a thumb and a finger tip. We were told it was a washing machine to keep us out of them...but it turned out to be a press at a factory...just like Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath.
For those who don't know...the day Sabbath got signed to a label, Tony was placed on a different machine and the pedal worked different. He put his hand in and stepped on the pedal too early. He actually glues leather pads on his missing finger tips. This is how the first metal band dropped the tuning on a guitar and gave them a certain 'sound'.
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942 Posts
I own a guitar shop in the Chicago suburbs. I used to play pretty good fingerstyle guitar before that joiner ate my fingertips. Be careful dude!
https://www.guitarworksltd.com/about/
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223 Posts
That's cool! (not the joiner part that sucks). I have played Chicago many times...its a fun city for sure. Im glad to see any private music store survive the dreaded Guitar Centers. I grew up southern MN in a small town full of music stores and the home of Hal Leonard publishing (the worst music transcribing ever done).
Im currently the keyboardist in a YES tribute that has seen some nice success in St. Louis. We are supported by our biggest rock station KSHE radio. We are selling out theaters and hope to hit Chicago soon...YESSONGS STL.
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