turning without the use of a thumb

[TurningDog]

well next week I get to have thumb surgery after a turning accident. It is hard to believe a nearly finshed squat 2" diamter box could have enough force to not only only break a thumb but snap a tendon but apparently it does as my left habd can attest to. I am pretty much going to be without the use of my left thumb for the next 4 months if I am lucky. This presents a problem for me as I make a considderable portion of my yearly income from turning. This won't be a problem as a lot of my stuff for sale at christmas time (my next big sales season) is already done, nearly so or roughed out just waiting a final turning and finish. I am going to be way behind for the spring wholesale shows, but with any luck I should be able to catch up before then.

My big problem is not going to be the financial aspect, unless all my renters suddenly disapear, the rentals fall into some act of god diaster and all the mexican migrants disappear leaving me with no one to translate for, but that need to turn that most of us have is going to be a problem. I know I could use my captive hollow rig to turn the inside of bowls, hollows and boxes well enough but I am short on ideas for doing the outside of pieces any ideas. I am lucky enough in one respect to have people who understand this problem both my surgeon and the physical therapist who will be working with me are turners as well.

 

[john lucas]

Sorry you were injured. I would have to go into the shop and turn a while without my thumb to see how hard that will be. I cut the tendon in my left hand little finger, the last joint. It was amazing how much strength I lost. It took me about a year to learn to use that hand effectively. I did a lot of strength exercises. Still can't play certain chords on the guitar. the loss of the thumb would be rougher.

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Ouch. Sorry to hear about your injury and glad it wasn't worse.

Can you describe how the injury happened? It might be helpful to know how the mistake happened so others can avoid it. Also what tool were you using at the time?

 

[TurningDog]

I was sanding the inside of the box with my thumb and using my fingers as a steady when the tenon broke and it wrapped itself around my thumb

BTW anyone ever turn wooden object on a metal lathe using a cross slide? A friend of mine says he has a slightly rusty slide off an old bridgeport multimachine that is too far out of line for precision metalworking but thinks it will be good enough for wood where the tollerances aren't so great.

 

[Wilford Bickel]

Been there!

A little over 2 years ago I got mauled by a bull here on the farm and the orthopedic surgery the next morning placed 2 approximately 4 inch steel pins into my left thumb. These were later pulled out in the doctors office but that is another story about lies, rusty pliers, etc!! (Yea - like this is not gonna hurt!!!)

A couple of things come to mind - one is you will be limited in the amount of time you can turn due to the vibration causing pain. My surgeon would not even let me attempt it for about 30 days - the wife finally convinced him I would stop when it hurt and she could not live with me if I did not get my "lathe fix". Make sure you understand the point that your surgeon wants you to stop the vibration and pain!!

Secondly, you will have a problem doing cuts that require you to "grip" with the left hand (assuming you are basically right handed and the left hand is your tool rest hand). I found out real quick that a pull cut was almost impossible to control. I had to experiment with other cuts to find one I could control and would work with minimal pain. I learned the next year in a Symposium while watching Stuart Batty that I had taught myself the "proper push cut". He was talking about how long it took in to teach that cut and later when I was able to tell him about how I was "forced" to learn it we both had a good laugh. I now find that cut one of my work horse cuts - always some good comes from everything.

You will need to keep shavings, dust and things like finishes out of the cast/splint. If you get lucky like I did they switched me out of a cast and into a rigid plastic splint that I could remove and clean soon into my recovery. Prior to that I took lots of the white paper medical tape and sealed up the openings in the cast to prevent dust and shavings from getting inside. You won't need but one or two shavings rubbing to understand how improtant this idea becomes if you want any peace with the cast.

That about sums up what I can remember now - control the shavings getting between cast and skin, be careful and stop when it hurts, realize you don't have full tool control and may have to change how you do some things, be careful around the turning lathe as the cast will add items to be hit/caught by the turning piece or chuck.

If I can think of more I will post back - any specific questions let me know. Feel free to PM or email me if you need to with specific questions. GOOD LUCK!! Remember - healing is the most important thing at this time!

Wilford

 

[dkulze]

Dog dude!

Well, if nothing else, you've given us a nice reminder that sanding and finishing can be quite dangerous. I always have to resist wrapping the paper or cloth around my finger to stabilize it. Good way to get hurt.

As to the outside cuts, I've found that a nice, downhill cut with a modified bowl gouge (ellsworth type grind) is sufficiently stable to make with one hand lightly holding the handle and nothing else. It becomes all about riding the bevel and letting that support the gouge. Also, having the rest really close to the piece helps. Now starting the cut takes two hands and you have to be carefull not to overextend over the rest. Also, keep that gouge super sharp and touch it up often.

Good luck and be really careful.

Dietrich

 

[TurningDog]

You will need to keep shavings, dust and things like finishes out of the cast/splint. If you get lucky like I did they switched me out of a cast and into a rigid plastic splint that I could remove and clean soon into my recovery. Prior to that I took lots of the white paper medical tape and sealed up the openings in the cast to prevent dust and shavings from getting inside. You won't need but one or two shavings rubbing to understand how improtant this idea becomes if you want any peace with the cast.

I won't be attempting any turning or dusty work until the would has fully healed my surgeon let it be known she would be pissed if I endup with an infection and she found shavings in the wound. Of course I have plenty of to keep me busy, I am thinking of trying to get an AAW chapter started locally since the closest one is 90 minutes away and their are atleast a dozen other turners in town beside me and the doc (I think have convinced her since her kids are grown and her lawyer ex-husband is still paying alimony she should move up from her jet mini to a ray peck bowl lathe and I will come teach her how to turn large bowls on it I also counted that I have over 250 dvd's that I have bought but yet to watch. i might also buy some more turning vids and start reviewing them for everyone.

 

[MichaelMouse]

I pretty much turn everything with an overhand grip, and find that my thumb is over the top of the tool rather than under as likely as not. I run it down the flute with the roughing gouge! Since the hold is basically downward, with all the finesse coming from the hand on the other end of the tool, the grip should work. You may have to revise your gouge choice a bit to gain edges which don't require dropping the handle and controlling the bounce with your hands rather than with the rest.

If you have the forged pattern gouges, it's a piece of cake, since they will work perpendicular to the rest in a fashion similar to a wing cut on a severely tilted bowl gouge. I know it's just "showing off," but there's really so little pressure on that hand that you can cut almost one-handed when the bevel has a place to steady. For convex work keep the rest at or a touch above center, where the bottom part of the gouge provides both change of direction for the shaving and a bit of pressure into the rest. For concave, keep the rest below center, and the cut at or slightly below, so that the strong hand doesn't push up and catch if you drop the handle a bit.

I smashed a pinkie on the right hand on the three-point last spring, and used the finger of a rubber glove, taped at the base to keep the area clean and especially free of solvent contact. That smarts! For a thumb you might consider leaving the index finger available when you cut the glove to stabilize the taping area.

 

[dkulze]

Yah, the index finger looped over the gouge and supported by the other fingers against the bottom of the rest will work for alot of cuts that need that extra support. If that's not strong enough, you're probably doing something not quite right or you're way the heck out over the rest.

Starting a chapter sounds like an excellent idea. It's alot of fun, less work than folks think, and can generate the funding to do things as a club that you can't as an individual. It's also a great source of support and free wood. If I need a very specialized tool for one job, a 36" chainsaw, or a mucho-giganto lathe for a huge bowl or platter, it's usually just a phone call away.

Dietrich

 

[Bill Boehme]

I am terribly sorry to hear about your thumb injury. I hope that you have a good recovery and make certain that you follow the physical therapist's instructions to the letter. The fingers are very slow to recover from a severe injury such as this and can take up to a year -- if you follow orders -- and maybe never if you don't. Paying attention to safety around any rotating machine is very important, but especially lathes is of paramount importance. It is the only woodshop machine that is basically unguarded and that you are sticking your fingers very close to places where they can become severely injured. It is sad, but probably true that most woodturners have had finger injuries of some sort around lathes. To me the most important thing is to analyze what happened and learn from our mistakes. Perhaps consider modifying your byline to say something like: Always maintain safety awareness and the worst mistake in woodturning might well be not learning from our mistakes.

By the way, I might as well confess that when I first started woodturning, I learned the hard way about hand sanding on the lathe, but especially the inside of anything -- no matter how shallow -- and if there are voids (a.k.a. "negative space" if you are artiste -- as an engineer, that term gets under my saddle -- all space is positive -- it is just filled with different stuff -- air, Inlace, epoxy, gold, coffee grounds, etc.)



Bill

 

[TurningDog]

(a.k.a. "negative space" if you are artíste -- as an engineer, that term gets under my saddle -- all space is positive -- it is just filled with different stuff -- air, inlace, epoxy, gold,a coffee grounds, etc.)



Bill

Speaking of gold I have a turning friend in sonora california who made a piece from a rootball and has a couple of nuggets naturally wedged into it. Of course you should see his glaser gouge after he tried to turn another one with a piece of quartz in it...

 

[Jeff Jilg]

Bill - OUCH! I didn't know fingers were used for filler!

 

[Martin Braun]

I was sanding the inside of the box with my thumb and using my fingers as a steady when the tenon broke and it wrapped itself around my thumb.

I'm asking this not because I'm questioning what happened in anyway - just trying to improve my understanding. I'm a little confused. So was the tool rest nearby and your thumb hit that? Or did the tenon break, but not enough for the box to come free and your thumb got stuck in the box as it changed orientation due to the broken tenon? I would think that unless it was a heavy box that if it broke completely free it shouldn't have so much energy as to injure your thumb. I do a fair percentage of boxes, and would like to know so I keep on the lookout to sand boxes more safely.

 

[TurningDog]

I'm asking this not because I'm questioning what happened in anyway - just trying to improve my understanding. I'm a little confused. So was the tool rest nearby and your thumb hit that? Or did the tenon break, but not enough for the box to come free and your thumb got stuck in the box as it changed orientation due to the broken tenon? I would think that unless it was a heavy box that if it broke completely free it shouldn't have so much energy as to injure your thumb. I do a fair percentage of boxes, and would like to know so I keep on the lookout to sand boxes more safely.

The tool rest was no where near the piece. The box was green sycamore 2" wide 1.5" deep with 1/4" walls with a short tenon turning about 4000 rpms. I had my thumb inside the box pushing the wad of sandpaper down at the bottom of the wall with my fingers supporting the box. I wouldn't have thought it had enough mass to break the thumb either but when the tenon broke the box wrapped around my thumb shoving it back in the direction of my elbow.

 

[Doug Thompson]

Talk to your doctor first but...

I had a operation for carpal tunnel on my left hand and for ten days I did everything to get the hand working again (stretched, squeezed a ball etc.) Then wraped the hand tight with a ace bandage and started to turn large green blanks (hats). You will be surprised, the left hand only guides the tool and doesn't need much of a grip to control it. A week later they operated on the right hand and I couldn't turn for 3 weeks. You might not be down that long.

Good luck and do your best,
Doug

 

[Wilford Bickel]

I won't be attempting any turning or dusty work until the would has fully healed my surgeon let it be known she would be pissed if I endup with an infection and she found shavings in the wound. Of course I have plenty of to keep me busy, I am thinking of trying to get an AAW chapter started locally since the closest one is 90 minutes away and their are atleast a dozen other turners in town beside me and the doc (I think have convinced her since her kids are grown and her lawyer ex-husband is still paying alimony she should move up from her jet mini to a ray peck bowl lathe and I will come teach her how to turn large bowls on it I also counted that I have over 250 dvd's that I have bought but yet to watch. i might also buy some more turning vids and start reviewing them for everyone.

MY LOML was a scrub nurse in surgery with an orthopedic surgeon and after my first post I was telling her about your injury. The very first thing out of her mouth was that you would have an open incision where I did not and you would have to be much more careful about getting it dirty and infected. Listen well to your doctor!! Good luck and keep us posted on how the surgery goes - relax and enjoy being waited on (yea like that goes with a woodturner!!).

Wilford

 

[Bill Boehme]

The tool rest was no where near the piece. The box was green sycamore 2" wide 1.5" deep with 1/4" walls with a short tenon turning about 4000 rpms. I had my thumb inside the box pushing the wad of sandpaper down at the bottom of the wall with my fingers supporting the box. I wouldn't have thought it had enough mass to break the thumb either but when the tenon broke the box wrapped around my thumb shoving it back in the direction of my elbow.

Dude -- 4000 RPM!! Whoa! You are liable to catch the wood on fire -- sand at low speed unless it is a pen. Let me throw a bit of physics at you to explain kinetic energy. First, for linear motion, KE = m * v², where m is mass and v is velocity. For rotational motion, the equation is similar except that it is the vector cross product between the moment of inertia, I, (the rotational equivalent of mass) and the angular velocity, ω, (which replaces linear velocity). Therefore, we have KE = I X ω², for the kinetic energy of rotating objects. It is not necessary to calculate the moment of inertia in order to get a relative comparison of kinetic energy at two different angular velocities. For instance, at 500 RPM, the KE is 2742 * I and at 4000 RPM, the KE is 175,460 * I -- so even though the speed ratio is 8, the KE at 4000 RPM is 64 times the value at 500 RPM.

Even though I wasn't there to see what happened -- and couldn't have seen it anyway since it is all over and done before you even know that anything happened, I have a different thought about what may have happened. It is only afterward when you see a finger pointing in a direction that it never has pointed before that you start thinking, "Houston, we have a problem" -- that is what I thought, anyway. I suspect that the sandpaper grabbed both your thumb and the wood -- locking them together -- and that it was only after taking your thumb for a loop or two that the tenon sheared from its mount. In that scenario, the moment of inertia is not just the tiny little box, but all of the rotating parts of the lathe -- motor, pulleys, belt, spindle, chuck, etc.

Bill

 

[TurningDog]

I would agree that 4000 rpm on a box that size is too fast (though not overly so when you considder that is how fast I turn them at by the dozen with les than 1% failure rate) if all my sanding was done at that speed, but that is merely a quick once over with fine grit to dry green boxes it for finishing. This was one of those nice little bits I picked up at craft supply from another turner in the class.

 

[Jeff Jilg]

But isn't your failure rate higher when you get injured during the process?

 

[TurningDog]

But isn't your failure rate higher when you get injured during the process?

The injury actually has little to do with what or even how the piece was being turned, so says the Doc, and more to do with pre-esxisting tendon problems (which according to her snapped before the break). If it wasn't for the fact the tendon snapped allowing free range of the thumb, this would have been little more a bad bump to the thumb or burnished fingernail. For those who would comment on the speed itself remeber 4k rpm for a 2" is well within the safe limit and it had a rim speed of a 20" platter doing 400 rpm and considerably less mass to go with it.

BTW You will be hard pressed to find someone who turns as many boxes as I do (10 to 15 a day before getting the 1224 and now 20 to 25 five or six days a week) with that low of a failure rate considdering at club demos I have heard both ray key and stuart batty say theirs is higher than that.

 

[Bill Boehme]

For those who would comment on the speed itself remeber 4k rpm for a 2" is well within the safe limit and it had a rim speed of a 20" platter doing 400 rpm and considerably less mass to go with it.

My comment concerning the sanding speed was based on what happens between the sandpaper and the wood at that speed. A lot of heat gets generated and it can cook the resins in the wood and form a glaze on the sandpaper.

The other part of your statement indicates that I did not communicate my point well concerning kinetic energy. Speed is a much greater factor in the kinetic energy than is the mass. However, I also should emphasize that the mass of the wood is only a fraction of the total mass -- you cannot ignore the mass of the motor armature, lathe spindle, chuck, and pulleys. These other rotating components dwarf the contribution of the spinning mass of the wood in this case.

Bill

 

[TurningDog]

My comment concerning the sanding speed was based on what happens between the sandpaper and the wood at that speed. A lot of heat gets generated and it can cook the resins in the wood and form a glaze on the sandpaper.

The instant heat generated is the entire point of quickly sanding at high speed, when you do it right you are only doing for a few seconds which is long enough to dry the surface well enough to except a number of finishes that that won't take well to wet green wood.

 

[Mr. Don]

I won't be attempting any turning or dusty work until the would has fully healed my surgeon let it be known she would be pissed if I endup with an infection and she found shavings in the wound. Of course I have plenty of to keep me busy, I am thinking of trying to get an AAW chapter started locally since the closest one is 90 minutes away and their are atleast a dozen other turners in town beside me and the doc (I think have convinced her since her kids are grown and her lawyer ex-husband is still paying alimony she should move up from her jet mini to a ray peck bowl lathe and I will come teach her how to turn large bowls on it I also counted that I have over 250 dvd's that I have bought but yet to watch. i might also buy some more turning vids and start reviewing them for everyone.

You might want to clean up your language a bit while you are healing.....

 

[TurningDog]

you all posted a lot while I was gone. My thoughts of the day is drugs are good. Yesterday just plained sucked. I am home by 3:00 after 6.5 hours of surgery and a bonus of fixxing tendon problems that would soon to go south on me feeling some GI Pains cause I hadn't eaten since 8:00 the night before andsome back pains because I spent 8 hours in one or the other of an operating table or hospital bed. Wife made supper, which means order pizza, it arived about the time I am on my way back to the ER. At 6:00 they start prepping me to remove my appendix. Halfway through the procedure I come out of the anistesia into full f'ing conscieness and quite frankly I am in pain and and still very hungry. They tell me I had unkind things to say, but I don't remember much else until 2:00 this afternoon. And I don't really care what the manager from papa johns says I am not coughing 37.29 for pizzas that were not at my house when I got home.

 

[David Somers]

At 6:00 they start prepping me to remove my appendix. .

Oh Man! Your thumb AND your appendix!!! My heart goes out to you. I wish I were nearby and could help somehow!! You're not by any chance in Hawaii are you?

Dave

 

[Martin Braun]

Wow, that just sucks! I hope you are feeling better! I hear you on those post-op drugs. They definitely do wonders (for how a guys feels, not how he types ).

 

[Bill Boehme]

My thoughts of the day is drugs are good. Yesterday just plained sucked. I am home by 3:00 after 6.5 hours of surgery ............ on my way back to the ER. At 6:00 they start prepping me to remove my appendix.

So sorry to hear about your latest venture. If it wasn't for bad luck, you wouldn't have any luck at all. Maybe you need to tell the doctors at the hospital to remove/repair/replace anything else that needs attention while you are there since your day has already been shot. I know what you mean about the drugs. After having a triple bypass operation, I was ready to go rototill the garden and do some work in the shop -- or so I thought. When they discharged me, they forgot to give me any pain pills. It was bad news until I was able to get some.

Bill

 

[TurningDog]

Oh Man! Your thumb AND your appendix!!! My heart goes out to you. I wish I were nearby and could help somehow!! You're not by any chance in Hawaii are you?

Dave

if I were in hawaii just leaving me on beach with an ample supply of adult beverages and my recovery would at least be a lot more fun

 

[TurningDog]

Maybe you need to tell the doctors at the hospital to remove/repair/replace anything else that needs attention while you are there since your day has already been shot.
Bill

I was thinking of hading them replace my fingers with go go gadget turning tools.

 

[TurningDog]

update

thanks to all for send well wishes, I am going to be out of turning action longer than expected unfortunately. the doc and I decided to go ahead and do the other hand while I still have insurance to cover it, even though it isn't as bad as the other one was and may have never gotten that far.

 

[David Somers]

thanks to all for send well wishes, I am going to be out of turning action longer than expected unfortunately. the doc and I decided to go ahead and do the other hand while I still have insurance to cover it, even though it isn't as bad as the other one was and may have never gotten that far.

BOTH hands and your appendix??? Is this just a transparent play for sympathy or something???

I did see an article in "American Armless Turning", the magazine for those of us whose turnings look like they were done with our hands tied behind our backs, and they described a fascinating way to put an Ellsworth or fingernail grind on your incissors. The effect was fascinating, though lip guards are a must!

Hope this all improves real quickly!!! We're routing for you!

Dave

 

[Bill Boehme]

BOTH hands and your appendix??? Is this just a transparent play for sympathy or something???

I did see an article in "American Armless Turning", the magazine for those of us whose turnings look like they were done with our hands tied behind our backs, and they described a fascinating way to put an Ellsworth or fingernail grind on your incissors. The effect was fascinating, though lip guards are a must!

Hope this all improves real quickly!!! We're routing for you!

Dave

And ........ they strongly recommend that you do not do natural edge turnings!!

Bill