OK...so I smoke e-cigarettes when I'm at my bench. well my e-cigarette is the same diameter as my No. 1 hobby knife. Well stupid me went to take a drag but I was holding my knife with the blade facing me...take a guess what happened...I have a big gash on my lip and man did it bleed. So anyways, anyone else have any "modeling injuries" aside from the usual piece of plastic flying and hitting you in the eye or cuts on your finger...none of that common stuff...

Did you ever drop something in your lap and hurry and close your legs to catch it? Wasn't really necessary as the hobby blade stuck in my leg. It could have been worse.

Don't sneeze while handling a propane torch. I did the other day while soldering some PE and singed all the hair on the fingers of my left hand.

Black eye and cut lip from my wife when she caught me trying to sneak in a couple of new kits to the stash

I do a little fly-tying at my modelling table as well. I dropped a part on the floor, and instead found a fish hook snarled in the carpet monster. I had it in one hand and reached up on the table to grab a pair of scissors and sunk the hook past the barb into my finger. The only way to remove it at that point is to push it until the barb breaks back out of the skin, cut it off, then pull the hook back through. That was a fun day.

oh, and I had to cut the hook out of the carpet monster while it was buried in my finger.

I had a similar experience with my hobby knife. I had just put the knife down and was holding two parts together waiting for the glue to set when I noticed the knife rolling towards the end of the bench. I don't know why but I just watched it roll off the bench and stick blade side down in to my leg.

The thing is my wife is a nurse and is able to get me surgical blades so that is what I load in my hobby knife. Funny thing is those blades are so sharp it really didn't hurt that much, going in or coming out. Either way it still sucked.

Carving at plastic or resin with my hobby knife, something with break or slip, and I don't even feel the deep gash in my finger tips until what I'm working with turns all red...

Luckily, I've gotten a lot more careful about that, but I still end up with sliced fingers now and then! Some of your guys' comments though... yikes

When I was a kid I was cutting some Tamiya figures off their sprue when my hand slipped and I jabbed the cutting knife into my thumb! When it happened I had some sort of spastic reaction and immediately jammed the knife into my thumb again! While faint, I still have the "V" shaped scars to prove it!

Have a 40-year-old scar on my thigh where I was cutting and the Xacto slipped. Luckily, I was holding it up so the blade just grazed me and only left a one inch cut but I have been extra paranoid about using my knives now.

If it had been an inch higher up my leg I would have had a second circumcision. Oh, yeah, don't wear shorts when cutting.

Not exactly an injury but could have been:

Fully paint loaded and air loaded double-action airbrush, paint not flowing, I hold the airbrush up to my face to see if the needle is moving, pull back on the trigger... but pressed down also.

Zinc chromate green face.

Decades ago I was chopping the top on a car with a hot knife and it rolled off the table into my lap. Point first. Don't know what hurt worse, the stab wound in my thigh or the burn next to a sensitive part of my anatomy. I had a sudden and painful itch in my ear and without thinking scratched it, with the hand that was holding the tube of superglue. Unfortunately I didn't put down the tube of glue and it got all over my ear. I tried to gently wipe it away but just wound up gluing a finger and a cotton swab to my ear. My roommate about died laughing.

LOL!!!


1. The airbrush is always loaded.
2. Never point the airbrush at anything you are not prepared to paint.
3. Always be sure of your spray area and what is behind it.
4. Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to spray.

Modeling Injury:

Years of Tube glue in a closed room...


....wait, what was the question?

Ever use pantyhose for helmet camo nets? Stretching that material across 1/35 helmets looks great! But if you let it go, it snaps off the round helmet. So it needs to be glued on. So I stretched some hose across a helmet, held tight with my thumb and finger, and applied a tiny amount of CA...

...CA + nylon = chemical reaction that will melt onto your skin. A melty chemical reaction that is bonded to your skin with CA! Car alarms triggered, the cat on my lap - found claw marks on the ceiling; some sheetrock work required after extracting the chair from the wall; plastic shelves holding models turned over and scattered...

Good times!

P.S., the guy at the back has the netting:

Hmm now let's see....
The knife in thigh issue; a handful of near misses..
The CA+part+finger; check
Slashing my thumb with new blades; check
Slashing my fingers by breaking knife blade; check
Getting hit in the eye (deadcentre) by a small piece of p.e. launched when cutting it loose; check
Almost drinking the white spirit instead of tea; check. Had it up to my lips, when my nose detected the strange odour.
Rolling back the chair, leaning over to pick up something I dropped, while the chair was still moving; check. Good thing I was not holding any knives at the moment!

These days, whenever I drop something during building I immediately freeze. Only my eyes move, following the object in question until it remains stationary.
I also make sure my hands are empty, before proceeding to the next move.

I must throw in with this one! Almost all the previously mentioned oops plus.... Model part flying... head and eyes on the part moving to retrieve it before CM eats it......Head moving swiftly, backside pushing rolling chair away from model desk, however head moving faster than chair that became lodged on SOMETHING.... head meets desk just above eye level.... DOOHH! nothing a little tylenol wont fix.

For all you stabby people out there, Super Glue works wonders on cuts!!! Just make sure you didnt do any nerve damage! Yes, Maria, it BURNS!! (cut my head doing a pre-flight of an aircraft during my flight school days but didnt want to miss the flight, Mechanic had some superglue... problem solved!)

In same class as knife in thigh... Similar thing but I was foolishly bare foot and stupid thing went into top of foot between the bones. Was a #11 blade. Going in sucked pulling it out was murder. I did mutter "Oh my goodness" several times.

CA one leg of my trousers to my leg once. chisel into my thigh and the usual scalpel wounds

I've cut my hands and fingers more times than I can count- worst one was cutting off the fleshy tip just in front of the nail on my index finger- took ages to heal and I still type weird with my right hand because it hurt to bash the keys with my index finger for so long. I was also drilling one day with a pin vice and of course it slipped and the bit went straight down the tip of my thumb. Most painful was getting Mr. Hobby thinner in the eye- I guess the pipette was blocked because when it finally squirted out I got a huge backsplash off the paint palette and right into my eye.

Lets see here, what has happened in my 50 years of modeling for injuries (and miscues):

1. Plastic chip in the eye when cutting from sprue
2. Burn hair (head, arm, hand, leg, foot)
3. Stabbing incident(s) by Xacto knife (reference #2)
4. Dropping super glue on skin (reference #2)
5. Sand paper dust/debris in eye
6. Hit head on chair, table, light, while hunting down parts in carpet monster
7. Stabbed by PE
8. Stabbed by drill bits

Miscues:

7. Drop finished model (complete 4 letter cuss words usage)
8. Wife, kid drops model (additional 4 letter cuss words)
9. Dog chews up finished model (runs out of 4 letter cuss words, starts all over)
10. Used ice tea for weathering/dry brush...ruined finish...stickiness everywhere (had same texture as my weathering mix, so, no more ice tea when modeling, but I still do beer)
11. Airbrushed light bulb by mistake...light bulb cracks, fizzles, breaks over model causing damage to finish
12. Placed model on window sill to speed up drying...well, u know what happened
13. Painted cat by mistake...ran across my paint path
14. Looking at kit outdoors, on lawn furniture, winds takes kit away, lost loose 'green' parts in luxuriously green grass
15. Wife takes car, backs into box of models while moving...yea, u guessed it
16. Bought models in Japan, leaves them behind in Japan...never did see them again
17. Bought model in Italy...completely different model in box...yep, it was in shrink wrap

Trying to get the top off a tube of super glue I decided to use my teeth - I bit straight through the lid; and as I was gripping the tube the super glue flowed onto my lips. Instant reaction was to close mouth... I ended up having to 'saw' my lips open with a wet flannel. Blood and lip skin everywhere. Oh yeah...

Russ & Monte I have felt your pain also !
I have now taped a fat piece of sprue to my Xacto knife's handle to prevent rolling.

Knife cuts from carving and scraping plastic. My vocal cords when another damn part flies somewhere I can not trace it. Clothes that get a few occasional CA glue drops.

I exclusively use Swann-Morton Surgical Scalpels, with & without the chunky brown plastic handles, as they are not round, don't roll, with surgical blades, sharper.

They also live in a pencil tin lid, when not in use, haven't stuck myself in a long time...

Can you get "modeling insurance" in your policy?