Little Prick!

Posted on by

One of the joys of being a mechanic type is the constant pain in the ass of getting little metal slivers in your hands and fingers. It’s even worse for me now that I work in a steel production plant. It is almost a weekly thing.

I spent 3 days digging this little bastard out of the pad on the end of my right index finger.

It was basically a No Seeum.

I could sure feel the fucker though. I wound up using a lighted magnifying glass and that pointed sliver removal tool. As you can see, the tip of that was bigger than the sliver so I had to gouge a fucking hole in my finger and then lever the little splinter out.

27 thoughts on “Little Prick!”

  1. Back in the day when I was a working A&P mechanic turning wrenches on corporate aircraft my fingers had warts all over them. When I quit and went back to engineering school I noticed that all the warts died off and healed. All those little skin punctures you get doing real work admit viruses and other pathogens. It’s one of the unappreciated risks of hands on work. Look out for yourself. Wear gloves if you can. Clean your hands every time you get a chance. Look out for yourself because one thing is for sure – no one else is.

  2. To look at the size of splinters like that it’s amazing that they can contain a guidance system which finds a tender nerve every time!

  3. Can rare earth magnets help you in their removal ? Some of those magnets are really strong.

    • BTDT, and it DOESN’T work. It needs to be imbedded in very soft tissue (see foreign metallic object removal surgery videos) and big enough to get a grip on.
      Personally, I’ve NEVER gotten it to work, and I have access to some pretty powerful magnets.

    • I once removed a piece of shrapnel from a guy’s arm with a magnet. It was a 1.5 Tesla MRI system. That magnet was also powerful enough to suck a fire extinguisher across the room, or to pick up a patient gurney, among other things. So basically I’m agreeing with Igor that you’re unlikely to be able to remove metal shards with any normal magnet, even a rare earth one.

  4. I have the same experiences with thorns from plants out in my pasture. Buffalo hide gloves or hydrahyde are my best friend.

  6. Those little pain in the asses of life which make us grateful when they’re gone.

  8. Complain when you have a bone fragment embedded in your finger having ripped through thick surgical gloves and get back to me… Doesn’t show up on an x-ray and far greater chance of infection and hurts like hell!

  10. Since I work on CNC’s for a living, this is almost a daily thing. Nitrile gloves help, but occasionally I still get one. I just take the same route you did and gouge them out of my skin.

  11. Didn’t mind the bits I could dig out, it was the holes from .020 safety wire and badly clipped cotter pins that ruined my days. Don’t get me started on ziptie razor blade ends. My kingdom for a roll of lacing cord!

    • Music wire is the fing worst! It springs and goes everywhere, safety glasses are not an option.

  12. The worst incident like this I suffered was I was at a friend’s house and their dog knocked over one of those ‘fiber optics’ lamps. You used to see them more, hardly ever do now. They have a heavy base with a lamp, usually with a revolving color wheel and it shines up into a bundle of fiber optics that are loose at the ends usually 10 to 12 inches long. I went to grab the thing and about 20 of those ‘fibers’ broke off in different parts of my hand. It’s almost impossible to find a tiny thread of glass embedded in your skin. It took me several days to find them and dig them out. You could sometimes find them by shining a bright light directly at the skin and when you saw it light up deeper down in the skin, you knew you found one. Digging it out without breaking it was another thing in itself.
    https://www.amazon.com/Changing-Multi-Sensory-Illuminated-Christmas-Decoration/dp/B09LLW82GD?th=1

  14. My wife’s Down Home remedy for splinter removal is stroking the affected finger through your hair. Hair will snag onto the splinter and remove it. Fairly decent success rate. Fingernail clippers or manicure nippers are my go-to tools.

    • You can use over the counter Lidocaine and I believe it is a 4% solution, place a sizeable slug of it on the offending wound and let it set for about 10 minutes and dig away…

  16. When I worked in a machine shop, running a turret mill, that was a constant. I was making aluminum brake calipers for Indian & OCC, so a magnet didn’t help.

  17. Making custom knives I had one hanging out in my brow I happened to rub the little sucker into my eye everytime I blinked I would scream I used drops, wash it wasn’t happening finely after being a tuff guy I went to the eye doctor he got it out I was pushing it deeper in by rubbing it that never stopped me from grinding just made me grind smarter.

  18. Having a welding shop and metal slivers are a fact of life. Mostly I can find the little bastards but sometimes they are so thin having come off of an angle grinder especially the 9″ grinder that they are damn near impossible to find even with my lighted magnifying lamp. Some of it comes from being dumb enough after all these years to use a bare hand to brush off the welding table.

  19. Been there done that. What worked best for me was something call teat balm or bag balm. Put a daub of the over the spot and cover that with a bandage. It will get it out. You can dig them out but that is about the best solution I found.

    In my younger days I worked as a machinist, line welder, and a general mechanic. Most of the mechanic work was on shit covered machines.

    I’m sure someone had it worst but not many.

  20. For slivers in my hands I’ve washed my hands and left the hand with the splinter wet. I put on a rubber glove and continue to work for a while. The skin on the hand is softened up like soaking in a sink for that amount of time. I remove the glove and the splinter is usually easy to remove.

Comments are closed.