dougw the-dubster

Liking such comments seems slightly wrong. So maybe I should just point out I clicked 'like' to indicate I had read your comments, felt the pain etc. and absolutely nothing along the lines of liking that you both ended up with some nasty cuts !!

Been there done that too. Got a 4 inch gash over a quarter inch deep to show for it, plus some pants re-purposed as shorts.

The knife was so sharp, I thought I had just cut my pants .... until the blood started pouring out.

40 years later the scar is only 1.8 inches by .3 inches.

I did learn from that one though.

These horror stories are starting to get too real...

Been there, done that. More than once. It is slowly starting to sink in.

. . . . . . . . . and when cutting a plastic model piece off the sprue with a very sharp scalpel, don't place it directly above your thigh and push straight down!

The resulting hole in my leg was quite interesting, where whatever protruded through the freshly cut flesh resembled a small pair of lips!!!

True story. (and I ruined a pair of jeans before holes in your jeans were fashionable)!

You know the situation: you are boxing up a successful project and have just made a hole in the plastic case for a switch/potentiometer or light. But the drill bit wasn't quite large enough and you need to make the hole slightly larger. In your desk tidy you spot a nice sharp scalpel and with it's finely pointed blade it would seem ideal for scraping some excess plastic out of that tight hole....unfortunately however they aren't designed for lateral loadings and in an instant the blade can snap, pinging the piece of metal in some random direction. In this example all ended well and the broken piece missed the face and hands; a valuable lesson was learnt.

Several things can be used to open out a hole successfully and safely:  a round file, a cone-cutter or a hand-reamer.

reamerreamer

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Worst tools to buld a product. Managers. Closely followed by sales. And the guy from element 14 who orders 3 batches of 1100 units and expects them all within 3 working days.

The worst tool is the wrong size screwdriver. You’ll just mess up the head of the screw (or even the screwdriver) by using the incorrect size and can end up with a screw either not fully screwed in or impossible to unscrew again!

While doing time, I was forced to use a nail for Phillips screwdriver and paperclip and matches as my soldering iron. I repaired headphones and radios that had been dropped crushed or thrown and broken. I charged two packs of cigarettes for any repair of any size. It was a fair deal for the guys inside with me.

That was my scam, my way of making it on the inside. Even had cigarettes when I was released. What a way to make a living LOL

A recommended tool to NEVER use for ANY electrical work is a metal ladder.
It's also worth making sure that you can isolate or ground any cable reels if they have a steel core.

Many years ago, I was rewiring a house with my father.  He forgot in his life more about electrics than I'll ever know, but he had a sense of humour.
After a tea break, I went up the six step ladder, picked up the cable real, and was back off that ladder in one step.
What I didn't know, was that he had already connected the other end of the wire, and it was live.

Copper cable, plus steel core cable drum, plus aluminium ladder, plus concrete floor, plus one bare foot young idiot equals complete circuit.

It was neither the first nor, the last time I got bit by single phase mains, but it straightened my hair out that day I can tell you.

Sorry guys, there are no pictures, it was like thirty years ago, may be more, before digital cameras and smart phones were ever thought of.So, there you have it.

NEVER use a metal ladder.

It will connect you to the ground in more ways than you expected.

The worst tool used while building a circuit is a soldering iron with improper tip heating. My unsteady hands + improper soldering iron = chaos on perf board