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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Time to try something dangerous looking! Press the pad of your thumb against the edge of a sharp knife (without drawing the blade!) You can exert a fair bit of pressure, indenting the pad of your thumb without slicing the skin, and you can slice some skin without drawing any blood.
Drawing the blade towards you is dangerous from the risk of slipping and what the blade may slice during that slip, but that risk is somewhat eliminated by taking some care see draw blades as an example of this “never draw towards yourself” advice being irrelevant.
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