Maker Hazards

One of the hazards of humans using tools to leverage ourselves into modern civilization.

I like the term “maker” for those hobbyists who take on constructive projects and build cool things.  There is a local club called “Twin City Makers”, operating out of the “hack factory”, a building outfitted with shops and specialized tools that are out of reach of many young inventors, but are made available in this community setting.

I am not especially skilled at woodworking or metal working, or many of the other skills that have been needed in the renovation of This Odd House, but I have found the need to acquire rudimentary crafting techniques for many small projects.  The major renovation is done, but there remain many details to reach a state of “completion” (see punch list blog entry).

One of the remaining items is to fill in the hole in the wall left by the window air conditioner.  The old behemoth was replaced by a small energy efficient mini-split heat pump, which did not need any of the wall space previously used by the A/C.  This left a 1-1/2 by 3-foot opening.  What to do with it?

The options were to make a stucco patch and cover it over, replace with an actual window, or to make some “feature” that would fit in the space and provide an accent to the house.  We opted for the latter, thinking this would be least expensive, and the easiest, and allow us to use the space to uniquely post the address of This Odd House.

A simple frame around a wooden panel would do, how hard can that be?  Of course, a simple frame around a panel would be too simple, it needed something more—a ceramic panel maybe, yes, and with custom made tiles.  Oh, and it needed to light up at night so the pizza delivery guy could get here without confusion!  A design was made, and the project begun.

It was well along, the frame had been constructed, primed and painted, and the LED lighting system fabricated and attached.  But at one of the final steps, an accident occurred.  One of the tools used to cut the optical diffusing material to size caused the traumatic removal of the end of one of my appendages.

You may think that I should be better trained with power saws (and I should), but in this case the tool was a pair of scissors.  Yes, it was just a pair of scissors, but at that particular force and angle, it removed the end of my finger.

It was just the tip, a slice of skin, but deep enough that simple pressure was not enough to stem the flow of blood.  A trip to Urgent Care and an hour of embarrassment later, I had a coagulation bandage on it and was returning home.

The illuminated address panel will be delayed a few days.  I am usually quite safety-conscious, insisting on safety glasses and work gloves for activities involving tools and high forces, but this episode illustrates that accidents can happen just about anywhere.  I wasn’t running with scissors, but was being a little too casual with these sharp metal objects, whose very design is intended and leveraged to split materials in two.