Recently I’ve been watching a lot of woodcarving/whittling videos, but I’ve also seen this happen in videos of people peeling fruit with a knife. I’m always amazed when they make a cut towards themselves and I see the sharp part of the knife make contact with their thumb (or sometimes their palm) after cutting through the material, yet it never seems to cut through their flesh. I feel like I’m way too scared of cutting myself to ever consider drawing a blade towards myself like that.
Is it just practice and knowing the right amount of pressure to apply? Are these knives (woodcarving blades and paring knives) maybe not very sharp, since I’m assuming softwoods and fruit are their intended purpose? If any woodcarvers or avid knife fruit peelers could chime in, I’m all ears!
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A knife only cuts when the blade is drawn across a surface – just think of cutting food on a chopping board and you don’t just push down, but pull the knife towards you to slice into the item.
The same works with fingers – as long as you don’t slide your finger along the edge of the blade, the knife shouldn’t cut into your skin (though please don’t try this, it will still dig in uncomfortably, and the chance of slipping and properly cutting yourself is pretty high).
On its own this perhaps does still risk some injury, but an experienced knife user will also be doing things like accurately stopping the knife short of actually touching the finger, may have tougher, calloused skin that will resist more and so on.
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