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!
In: 20
Whittler her!
It’s because you don’t actually pull your knife in a way that could cut you (if you keep good form). You are supposed to cut in a way that, even if you were to slip or someone unexpectedly pushes you, doesn’t go into anything.
When you pull the knife toward you specifically, you do so in a way that the handle of the knife would come to rest on your thumb before the blade does.
That cut, however, is actually one of the safest because it’s relatively easy to mitigate a potential slip. Cutting away from you is a bit trickier, as you have to be concious of how the blade would move if the wood splits for example. When I set up a cut that way, I always imagine the blade suddenly growing infinitely far in the direction I want to cut. If that would get my fingers, I reposition them.
Though I also always keep my gloves on.
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