SHED MATTERS 2

[PanBiker]

Old cutter, I reckon you may need a tetanus jab for that Stanley, give the surgery a ring.

[Marilyn]

Keep an eye on the colour of that nail bed, Stanley. If it starts to look dusky, circulation could have been affected.

That is going to hurt tomorrow!

[Stanley]

Will do Maz, thanks for the warning. My tetanus jabs are up to date Ian. Old dog for a hard road!
Off to bed now to quietly heal up......

[plaques]

I would recommend a visit to your health centre and let the treatment room nurse have a look at it. They may apply some Steri strips to pull the wound together which will speed up the healing process.

[Marilyn]

...don't go slathering it in ancient home remedies from rusty old tins..
You need some Iodine/Betadine...that is the brown stuff they swab you with before operations. Use it liberally.

[Stanley]

Thanks all of you. It was washed with cold water and covered with a sterile dressing while it was still bleeding and then strapped over the top. It's a good colour, not painful if I am not using it (beyond a bit of soreness). I considered re-dressing it last night but decided to leave it alone to let it get on with healing. I shall do nothing today but read......

[chinatyke]

Hard luck, Stanley. Trousers down and get your Tet jab: Why do they always give the shot in the boottocks as Forrest Gump would say?

[Stanley]

God knows but I have a very attractive bum......

[Stanley]

No jab needed. If you have had five tetanus jabs over a lifetime you are protected. I have had at least seven not counting the army!
I am having time off until I heal up lads. Not nice if I knock it!

[chinatyke]

No jab needed. If you have had five tetanus jabs over a lifetime you are protected.

That's good to know. I should be OK also.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

Why do they always give the shot in the boottocks as Forrest Gump would say?

Bigger target than the arm!

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

Sorry lads but I am not going back in the shed until my finger is healed. It's doing OK and I will take the dressing off and have a look at it on Monday happen.....

[Stanley]

I've had the dressing off and inspected progress. Still partially open wounds even though they are healing well. It's going to take a lot longer lads and I am not going to risk any damage. Talk amongst yourselves! I shall return......

[Stanley]

I have to report I'm getting a shed itch. I want to strip my door lock down and find out what has gone wrong.... But I am fighting it.

[Marilyn]

That finger will be quite stiff and uncooperative for a bit once it returns to action.

[Stanley]

I've been doing my best to exercise it Maz even though it is restricted by the dressing. I trimmed both ends of it down to allow a bit more movement. Won't be long before I take it off, I feel the time is ripe! Not ready for no dressing but certainly a far lighter one.

[Stanley]

I had a look at it lads. Improving but still nowhere near ready for shed work. Be patient, I shall return!

[micktoon]

Hi Stanley, sorry to see your finger injured, best advice is dip it in cellulose thinners and it will be healed by the morning after . Glad it was not worse than it is though on a serious note.
It looks like you have more or less got the hang of the horizontal mill cutter sharpening anyway so will have good stock of sharp cutters. Hope you are back in the shed soon, until then keep reading and for gods sake do not watch the tv unless you like Christmas adverts

Cheers Mick

[Stanley]

Good advice Mick and I shall heed it! I won't go back in until the swelling has gone down. Worst thing I could do at the moment is knock it or get it infected.
Later while pondering on the shed.... I remembered that I gave away my model of a steam hammer to one of my grand daughters because she wanted to have something I had made. So my next project will be the Stuart Steam Hammer which is a satisfying little model to make and which works well if you try it out on lead.
Which reminds me, one of my favourite engineers, Henry Maudslay, used to try out his ideas by using cold lead on the anvil before he did the real thing in the forge...

[Stanley]

I'm on the verge of getting back into the shed. While I have been knitting my finger up I have been thinking about how it happened and what I can do to remove the danger. I have arrived at a solution and my first job when I get back in there is going to be first, search all my Clarkson accessories to see if the solution is sat there and failing that, make my own solution. The basic fault that allowed the cutter to get away and attack me is the set up. Still my fault but there will be a better way and I shall find it!
I have decided what the next project is going to be. I gave my grand daughter Yiota my miniature working steam hammer because she wanted something made by me so I shall make another one..... (LINK)

[Stanley]

The itch is getting worse.....

I told you! 17 days after the incident I am back in the shed. Tiring even though I only did an hour and a half but it feels good.



China was quite right, I have decided to use disposable vinyl gloves, not for physical protection as much as keeping my hands clean and oil and chip free. A complete success, hardly any loss of feeling, close fitting and I like them.... The first thing I did was go through the accessories and surprise surprise I found everything I needed to effect what I have decided is a solution. A major component of this is that as the cutter stop is going to be fixed and follow the cutter as it gets ground, it will have to be substantial spring steel. The answer was obvious, an old all-hard hacksaw blade.



Cut the hacksaw blade to length by holding it in the vice and one smart blow with a heavy hammer on a cold chisel does the trick and then it can be ground to a clean smooth finish but how do you drill hardened high speed steel. My answer was to sharpen a tungsten tipped masonry drill to a good edge and drill it. It worked of course and as it's a masonry drill a bit of damage to the edge doesn't matter.



I picked the most difficult cutter, a slitting saw. It's big, has a lot of teeth and isn't very wide so the tooth rest had to be just right. I assembled my parts and built the stop. It took a bit of fiddling to get it right and of course every cutter demands its own setting to get the correct cutting angle. I have to admit it's largely guess work! Anyway, I got stuck into it....



I have to admit I had to screw my courage up! I was frightened to death. One thing I realised that would have saved me 17 days of grief is that I can keep the cutter into the job by holding the mandrel and not the cutter. Pity I didn't do that in the first place but then if I had I wouldn't have got to this improved and safer method. I just kept at it until I had done a complete revolution.



Only one thing remained, pop the saw in the mill and do a trial cut. Wonder of wonders, I had it right! It was cutting proper splinter shaped milling chips. Not perfect but a perfectly serviceable slitting saw and that will do me. I was almost trembling when I finished, I will be better tomorrow but this morning had been high stress! So I knocked off. Just one thing that is a disadvantage, I realised that with the vinyl gloves on I can't tamp the hot coals in my pipe with my fireproof forefinger so I had to manage without! Then I discovered the other advantage when I took the gloves off, my hands were as clean as when I started. All told, a good morning......

[Big Kev]

Good to see you on the mend.

[Stanley]

Thanks Kev, it feels good to be back to normal , almost.