Nothing Happens At Ten 2009

Kiss the Devil

Sometimes you have to kiss the Devil that bit you.

I have changed my mind about revealing the gruesome details which resulted in my previous entry about the pain of peeling oranges. Here is a photo of the Devil that bit me last weekend.

That is a rabbet plane, and that is the plane iron sticking out from the bottom of the plane. And yes, it was sticking out like that as it sat in the bottom of the drawer that I was reaching into. If you don't know what a rabbet plane is, you know how to use Google.... or ... perish the thought... fnBing.

I had just finished doing a maintenance chore here at the house (installing a new doorknob) and I was putting away one of the tools in a drawer when, as I pulled my hand out of the drawer, my finger scraped across the corner of that iron, causing some deep damage to the finger. The plane iron was not damaged.

Plane irons are sharp tools, and I always pull them back entirely into the body of the plane before storing them. That protects the irons from chipping and the fingers from slitting. This iron appears to have worked its way out of the body by an inch or so, probably by being jostled in the bottom of the drawer. I have been looking for this tool for a couple of years, and it seems to have been bumped around as I put things into and out of the drawer. The blade is only wedged into the body, after all, by that piece of wood on the top.

So, Kiss the Devil? What does that mean?

My fix for the problem was to sharpen the blade.

You see, upon inspection I found that, although the blade was sharp, it was not razor sharp, as it must be if it is going to be useful. So I sharpened the blade that nicked me, and it is now razor sharp. Then, I pulled the blade all the way back into the plane body and put the plane on a shelf in full view so as not to find it crouched in a hiding place again, ready to strike.

This Devil will have to be a bit more creative next time if it wants to bite me again.