Anyone ever gotten XACTO finger?

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FastCargo

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As some of you know, I'm working on a flying version of the old Soviet N-1 moon rocket. A few days ago, I reached the point of cutting out the 2 trellis-type stage couplers. To keep them as one piece wraparounds, you have to cut the inner triangles out with a hobby knife (unless you got a laser). Also, they are constructed of 2 pieces of cardstock (I'm using 110 pound) glued together for additional strength.

This makes for roughly 80 triangles that have to be cut out (plus the external triangles).

It took a few hours, but it got done for both wraps.

However, I've noticed for the last 36 hours, my 'pointer' fingertip is numb. I'm not concerned of course, I still get good blood flow and only a minor bit of dexterity loss. But this is the first time I've ever encountered this.

Anyone else have stories of unexpected hobby induced impairments (other than the standard gluing body parts or cutting yourself)?

FC
 
X-Acto finger? Yes, all the time whenever I do a lot of intricate cutting. (Hand-cutting a bunch of centering rings out of 1/32" plywood, for instance.) It doesn't get to my index finger so much as it does the first knuckle of my middle finger. I have a large callus there, and I'm afraid of what I'll see if I ever have to get the joint x-rayed. I used to have a similar one in the same place back when I was in grad school in the pre-laptop era and took all of my class notes by hand. (I wrote a few papers out by hand, too.) I'm sometimes amazed that I don't have arthritis in that joint. The first joint of my index finger, on the other hand, just gets sore from overwork. It feels like I have been doing push-ups all day with just that finger.

I feel your pain; you have my sympathy.
 
...first knuckle of my middle finger. I have a large callus there, and I'm afraid of what I'll see if I ever have to get the joint x-rayed. I used to have a similar one in the same place back when I was in grad school in the pre-laptop era and took all of my class notes by hand....

I have that same callus for the exact same reason...excessive writing! I'm one of those folks who writes with a heavy touch. Can't use .5 mm lead pencils because I constantly snap the lead...have to use .7 or .9mm...or just a pen.

FC
 
I see your X-Acto finger and raise you a Dremel Thumb.

About 2 months ago I was using a Dremel with a sanding drum to contour some landscape for some war gaming terrain. The Dremel was running almost continuously for about an hour. Ever since then, my thumb on the hand I was holding the Dremel with clicks at the joint and sometimes locks up entirely.
 
I see your thumb and go all in with bass guitar fingers.

When you play a bass for years like I have, you get these huge callouses on your fingers, you don't even feel an x-acto knife cuts into them.
 
I see your thumb and go all in with bass guitar fingers.

When you play a bass for years like I have, you get these huge callouses on your fingers, you don't even feel an x-acto knife cuts into them.
I see your bass guitar fingers and take the round with bar chord finger, developed on a warped neck and a high-action fretboard.

Then I clean out your bank account with rope-start shoulder and chainsaw vibration grip. :dark:
 
Yes, about 20 years ago I *very* nearly cut the entire tip off the middle finger on my left hand....scar still visible on the side....and little sensation left at the tip. :eek::eek::eek:

Sure bled like crazy, second only to the horrific knee injury I had at 6 (never fully healed).

Cutting Depron is *so* much easier than hacking through tight grained balsa or bass!
 
Oh wait, I think I'm talking about a slightly different kind of Xacto finger.

I get the kind where you are using a metal straightedge to guide the cut, and I get a little impatient and don't pay close enough attention, and the blade edge catches the edge of the metal straightedge and climbs off the balsa sheet and starts across the top of the metal straightedge. And I'm continuing to draw the Xacto back, right toward my own fingers holding down the straightedge, and thinking 'If I don't stop now, I'm gonna slice my own fingers' but I don't stop for some reason and I watch myself slicing open my own fingers thinking 'I should stop now' but of course I don't. I won't say how many times I have done this. I must be a slow learner.
 
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