When I started turning (two years ago) I wore a heavy leather glove on my
left hand but reading various posts I became nervous about the safety of
using the glove so stopped. Yesterday while roughing out a piece of
hardwood I got a splinter driven up my knuckle at my little finger, had to
have it out at the hospital, hurts like hell at the moment. I'm most
definitely going back to the leather glove unless there is an alternative
which is safer while protecting against this type of accident. Any vets
have guidance on this?


--
Bill Gooch
Kemptville, ON.

wearing gloves, jewelry, watches, etc, are forbidden in the machine tool
trades, cause they can get caught, and then what happens? So why
shouldn't it be the same for a woodworking lathe? you wanna wrap your
arm around the spindle?

John

Hi Bill

The good news is, you have a finger to hurt. I know a lot of people wear
gloves, and I even gave it a try once while protecting an injury from a non
lathe incident, but it got very scary for me. I would rather deal with
abraded skin and the occasional splinter than having my hand maimed because
a glove got caught up in the machine. The machine always wins.

--
Bill

Bill Grumbine

commercial site www.wonderfulwood.com
personal site www.enter.net/~ultradad
"Bill Gooch" wrote in message
.. .
When I started turning (two years ago) I wore a heavy leather glove on my
left hand but reading various posts I became nervous about the safety of
using the glove so stopped. Yesterday while roughing out a piece of
hardwood I got a splinter driven up my knuckle at my little finger, had to
have it out at the hospital, hurts like hell at the moment. I'm most
definitely going back to the leather glove unless there is an alternative
which is safer while protecting against this type of accident. Any vets
have guidance on this?


--
Bill Gooch
Kemptville, ON.

"Bill Gooch" wrote in message
.. .
When I started turning (two years ago) I wore a heavy leather glove on my
left hand but reading various posts I became nervous about the safety of
using the glove so stopped. Yesterday while roughing out a piece of
hardwood I got a splinter driven up my knuckle at my little finger, had to
have it out at the hospital, hurts like hell at the moment. I'm most
definitely going back to the leather glove unless there is an alternative
which is safer while protecting against this type of accident. Any vets
have guidance on this?



Don't wear 'em on your clumsy hand. To use a word which was new to many
here a couple years back, your hand has proprioception - a sense of its own
position - which is easily fooled by gloves, even tight ones. If you wear
on your good hand to diminish the shock of roughing, remember you need only
a palm section, not finger covering. The nastiest hand injuries I've run
have been glove catches - or rings.

Your experience makes me appreciate the cowardly way I cut once again. No
way anything like a splinter can catch me.

Bill Gooch wrote:
When I started turning (two years ago) I wore a heavy leather glove on my
left hand but reading various posts I became nervous about the safety of
using the glove so stopped. Yesterday while roughing out a piece of
hardwood I got a splinter driven up my knuckle at my little finger, had to
have it out at the hospital, hurts like hell at the moment. I'm most
definitely going back to the leather glove unless there is an alternative
which is safer while protecting against this type of accident. Any vets
have guidance on this?

IMHO, it's best to have a handwheel on your lathe to slow it down or
rotate it. I can't think of any reason to touch a moving vessel if it's
only roughed out. I will touch the spinning wood after I've sanded it
but make a habit of not touching rough wood for that very reason. If
you weren't trying to touch the wood, then you weren't paying close
enough attention.

Hope I don't sound harsh here - sorry for your wound - but injuries
almost always happen due to inattention or taking a shortcut. What
would have happened if that splinter had been driven into your leather
glove and grabbed it? I think you probably go off lucky compared to
what might have happened. YMMV...

....Kevin
--
Kevin Miller
http://www.alaska.net/~atftb
Juneau, Alaska

George wrote:
Your experience makes me appreciate the cowardly way I cut once again. No
way anything like a splinter can catch me.

What is that way?

Interested in being a healthy coward. :-)





--
Will
Occasional Techno-geek

Somewhere, can't recall where, on the net is a picture of an individual who
wore a glove while operating a shop tool. The injury he sustained is called
a degloving......literally stripped the skin from his forearm, hand, and
fingers, as well as removed about 1/3 of his digits. Horrible maiming injury
for life. 'Nuff said.

bill

"Bill Gooch" wrote in message
.. .
When I started turning (two years ago) I wore a heavy leather glove on my
left hand but reading various posts I became nervous about the safety of
using the glove so stopped. Yesterday while roughing out a piece of
hardwood I got a splinter driven up my knuckle at my little finger, had to
have it out at the hospital, hurts like hell at the moment. I'm most
definitely going back to the leather glove unless there is an alternative
which is safer while protecting against this type of accident. Any vets
have guidance on this?


--
Bill Gooch
Kemptville, ON.

I have discovered over the years that different people have different
opinions on what is safe and what is not. With wood turning I use no
gloves. I also watch where I put my hands. By using bare hands I am able
to tell the quality of the turning, but I do not put my hand on the bowl
until I know that it is safe. I think that if the lathe is able to grab a
glove than it is also able to grab a glove. The bigger question is where
are you placing your hand.


"Bill Gooch" wrote in message
.. .
When I started turning (two years ago) I wore a heavy leather glove on my
left hand but reading various posts I became nervous about the safety of
using the glove so stopped. Yesterday while roughing out a piece of
hardwood I got a splinter driven up my knuckle at my little finger, had to
have it out at the hospital, hurts like hell at the moment. I'm most
definitely going back to the leather glove unless there is an alternative
which is safer while protecting against this type of accident. Any vets
have guidance on this?


--
Bill Gooch
Kemptville, ON.

"Will" wrote in message
.. .


George wrote:
Your experience makes me appreciate the cowardly way I cut once again.
No
way anything like a splinter can catch me.

What is that way?

Interested in being a healthy coward. :-)


Between centers, standing entirely out of the throw zone, and cutting the
wood across the fiber rather than against the rotation.

http://personalpages.tds.net/~upgeorge/index.html

Basically the sliver came up the flute of the chisel, hand was resting
against the tool rest. Thanks for comments, guess I got my answer.
Curious to know what "cutting across the fiber" means.

--
Bill

"Bill Gooch" wrote in message
.. .
Basically the sliver came up the flute of the chisel, hand was resting
against the tool rest. Thanks for comments, guess I got my answer.
Curious to know what "cutting across the fiber" means.


Goes to the principle of spindle turning, where you cut down hill, across
the direction of the "grain". What you want to do is have the most vertical
portion of your edge at centerline to make the final separation of shaving
from the piece. Think of how you cut one side of a bead with a gouge. You
move in and down, with the gouge at a shear angle. With a face-grained bowl
the "down" is taken care of by the rotation, you merely control the shear
and the "in," which is along the toolrest. As soon as the shaving begins,
the shear is re-referenced continually against the bevel, so you have only
the movement across the toolrest to control.

Many turners push the nose of the gouge into the rotation of the object.
With a cross grained bowl, that means two areas where the end of the tool is
picking up unsupported fibers, leading to things like splinters, bouncing
gouges, and torn grain to be sanded. if, instead, the cut is made across
the rotation from center to rim, the shavings fall neatly beneath or down
the gouge without picking up or flying around. This is a lot easier on the
turner, because s/he can move the toolrest in close, taking the thrust of
the wood onto the toolrest rather than the elbow. It works best with a
broader pattern gouge, which can support itself against the wood to prevent
rotation. When I'm showing off, I often take one hand off the gouge and
continue the cut with the other - easier with the "good" hand, but possible
with both, since I have the gouge against two good references, the rest and
the piece.

You can do this with the swept back portion of a bowl gouge, of course, but
then the force vector is mostly along the tool, rather than across it, into
the rest. You're obliged to control two out of three orientations, rather
than one.