Those are great and funny stories, thank you for sharing them.

I'm sure by now you've perfected the "finger test of hot items" as, the brain telling finger to touch surface, brain says to move finger off surface and brain then thinks about if it was hot: for reasonable hot temperatures this does indeed work. What doesn't work is brain tells finger to touch surface, brain thinks about how hot that is and then brain tells finger to move off. And if using the first method nothing registers then a succession of quicker taps ensues to gauge the actual temperature.

I'd have to say that the worst tool for an electronics job is probably my index finger.

When I was younger, just starting out in electronics, I had a passion for building kits. It was supposed to be a gentle way to get yourself acquainted with the art of reading component values, populating boards, soldering, clipping leads, testing, troubleshooting and providing the finishing touches with as little risk and as much convenience as possible.

The first mistake is a very common one - I was soldering a PCB pin to a board as an attachment point for a wire, as I was instructed to do. Not having a set of helping hands or anything, I shoved the pin into the board, held the pin down with my index finger firmly while gripping the sides of the board with the same hand, and using the other hand grabbed the iron and the solder and began to solder the pin. Needless to say, I immediately grasped the concept of thermal conductivity when I grew a blister right in the middle of my index finger ... making work more painful for about a week.

I thought I'd learned the lesson, but then, I got caught again when it came to tinning a short piece of wire. As I had a crummy thermally-balanced iron, heating times were a little inconsistent, so I was holding the wire at the insulated end and tinning the stripped end. Needless to say, the insulation eventually gets hot and melts as well ... giving me another burn. Add that to inadvertent soldering-iron contact when I used one without a stand ...

Many years passed and I became more experienced at soldering. Being burned by the iron became a thing of the past. But just last year, I burned my index finger again. This time, it was a bit of a funny story - I usually hold solder with the left hand, feeding it into the iron on the right. Well, on my bench, I had a scrap of 0.8mm 60/40 solder, and a scrap of 1mm tinned copper wire. Guess which one I grabbed and tried to feed into the iron? I was a bit frustrated as it seemed to be taking forever to melt ... and then the heat got to me! D'oh!

Sometimes, it's not the iron's fault. I have another habit - namely of testing the temperature of something with my finger. Having built a kit, I got a diode in the wrong direction and it shorted out the supply voltage, crowbaring it down to zero. I was wondering what was taking all that current, so I started touching components to see which ones were hot. Needless to say, I burnt my finger on an 1N4004, which taught me a lesson - perhaps use a less important finger instead ... or get a thermal camera.

But the finger also has a number of remarkable properties - being conductive and attached to the body, I've gotten zapped by touching things and I've also zapped things (e.g. MOSFET gates) by touching them through ESD. My fingers are dangerous.

- Gough

Yikes - I've heard of people cutting notches into expansion cards and RAM because it wouldn't "fit" but ... totally destroying a video head like that is a new one. I've cleaned plenty with high purity isopropyl alcohol, low-lint swabs, moving along the direction of travel (not up and down, as one can snap the head), sometimes vigorously if the iron oxide/chrome dioxide/cobalt dust is stubbornly stuck in the gap, then leaving to dry. I can't imagine how one could really screw that up so bad! Probably would have left some scratches on the tape too!

- Gough

I'm in two minds as to confess to this. Years ago as a young technician I watched a colleague use a spanner wrapped in PVC insulation tape to undo the bolts on a live 440v AC connection strip: luckily all ended well. Had the spanner slipped then because the insulation was not very tough it would have easily been punctured. That would have been followed by the inevitable arc/plasma and some horrendous burns. A proper VDE spanner set is the only credible solution as the insulation on those is much stronger e.g. Product LinkProduct Link

Wow! Glad there was no serious damage. I did hear about RF burns on 20W, maybe it was about you! I worked on some of the hardware, some Clansman successor equipment which was 20W too, and also some of the handheld UHF range (Cougar). That was long-deployed after I started on it, but I had some post-production design projects (like finding ways of adding extra channels in software for customers, since the initial production version only allowed selection of a few channels from the rotary control on it). The antenna tuning units were very cool.. always liked hearing the rapid relay buzz while it found the best setting! : )

I once inadvertently used my arm as a voltmeter . . . . . . .

Back in 1986 I was undergoing training at RAF Cosford - Radar Technicians course, we were fault finding on the Decca Doppler system and part of the procedure required me to place a shorting link - made of 2 croc clips and a piece of wire - between 2 terminals.

So, working carefully I held the insulated croc clip and attached it to the live terminal - currently at a potential of 980V DC - and then was surprised to feel a large jolt in my right arm.

I had forgotten that holding the other (uninsulated) croc clip was a bad idea. One sharp kick resulted in (according to my oppo), me clenching my jaw tight, peeling my lips back in a rictus grin, and jumping up quite a bit . . . .

All I remember is a big jolt and a numb feeling in my right arm midway between the elbow and shoulder. I was tempted to have a line tattooed there to indicate 980V on the scale . . . .

Lesson learned (for a bit at least), right up to the point I SWR matched a ground spike antenna on a Clansman Radio with AE Tuning Unit and 20W PA fitted, with my hand resting on another AE attachment point. . . . . . 20W of RF straight through my skin , one small black hole and a cooking smell.

But that's another story all together . . . . at least I got close to 1:1 SWR.

I know how you feel. My mom makes jewelry, so I decided to borrow some of her tools. Let’s just say it didn’t end well..

I thought it was just me that couldn't use that crimping tool properly. It's pretty hopeless as a wire stripper too. Never tried to cut an M3 bolt with it, though!

I have a crimper that is very similar to this - which works just fine.

The jaws have a slight difference, which concentrates more crimp force with less handle force. And the steel looks slightly heavier.

As 14rhb mentioned I also like the screw cutter.

Sometimes it is not so much the 'WORST tool for the job' but more a case of using the right tool in the wrong way.

Early in my electronics career, in fact before I even had a career, while I was a student in High School I had an electrifying experience.  Our High School was lucky to have a very talented and creative electronics teacher, Mr. Wilson, who was instrumental in setting up a FM stereo radio station at the school.  The station was maintained and run by students. Having completed my first year of electronics class (also run by Mr. Wilson), I was allowed to apply for a position on the electronic staff for the radio station, which proved to be a very positive step in inspiring my future career.  One day I was asked to remove a piece of equipment from within the radio station studio (partially housing some of the broadcast equipment, i.e exciter, RF monitors, etc.).  I immediately when to work, assessing the connections and starting to remove the piece of equipment.  With a trusty screwdriver in hand, I when about removing the connecting wires when there was a loud bang, a bright flash and then absolute darkness and quite.  My heart was pounding (at a very high rate) and I sort of lost track of what was going on.

In my haste to remove the equipment I had forgot to shutdown power to the device.  The last connection that I was working on removing was the power to the device (I was unscrewing the power cord).  The screwdriver had shorter out the line cord.  I was quickly removed from the area and the teacher and other staff members cleaned up the mess that I had made and worked to get the radio station up and running again.  Later that day, one of the more senior members of the electronics staff had told me that they were able to get everything up and running again, except for the frequency monitor (that constantly measured the frequency of the FM transmitter/exciter) which was damaged by a power surge in the process.  I was told that the frequency monitor costed $15,000.  I was pretty shook up about the damaged that I caused, which further caused mental stress/confusion.  After another hour or so, the teacher came in and took me aside.  He had told me that the frequency monitor was OK, but the exciter module had suffered a surge and the main crystal was damaged, only a $75.00 part. A while later, one of the other staff members took me aside and told me everything was OK, the others were just joking me.

Later that day, we were having a class with was in preparation for our up and coming FCC test for our radio operators licenses.  On of the group was collecting a list of names of students that needed text books.  I had raised my hand, and he start writing my name on the board .... Gene ... then he stopped and erased that, and wrote F.M. BurnEmUp.  That became my radio station name for the rest of high school.  I even received mail with that name for several years after school.  To this day, on a facebook group for the radio station, I am still referred to as F.M. (for short).

Right tool, but used in the wrong way.  I learned a lot from that experience.