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Looking forward to getting my mangled wedding ring repaired once jewellers open.

In other news, this should turn up on a pallet sometime this week. Plenty of opportunity for finger fun.

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I know it's not a mangle, but it did instantly remind me of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZEEgIti8sM

That looks rather bad. You have made a great point about injuries though and ears is a big thing. My hearing isn’t great and it’s work related exposure to loud noise. I have never taken hearing loss seriously and that is a mistake.
EVERYONE SHOULD TAKE NOTICE OF THE RISKS THAT YOU TAKE!
Stay safe all!

It’s a bit late at that stage, I’d agree but I’m also in the don’t really care either. It comes with the territory imo.

I’m old but I was a young gun a long time ago. Mistakes were made and now it’s not great really. If I had someone who said - put ear defenders on or other protective equipment, and didn’t mess about when they said it, I’d now appreciate it. But, being young, who cares??? I didn’t - mistake to some extent and youth doesn’t make you invincible but I learned - and too late!

I'm surprised to hear of everyone wearing their wedding rings while working! I've heard too many stories of people getting their finger amputated by their ring...

Snap!

Did mine pushing a lump of oak through a table saw, jumped and dragged me in.

Stuck a plaster on it, and didn’t bother with A&E...

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I’d like to remove/cover up this cat flap in a pvc door which came with the house as it leaks a lot of heat. What the best way to approach this?

You will need to find the thickness of the panel to get the correct one. It's probably 20mm, 24mm or 28mm.
Being as it's going anyway, unscrew the catflap and get access to an edge to measure.

Use a stiff sharp scraper to remove the beads from the frame.
Starting midway along the bead on the line arrowed in the picture

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I would go matchy matchy. DeWalt make some decent impact bits, they come in good cases you can clip onto a belt and are reasonably priced. E.g.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-6-35mm-hex-shank-mixed-extreme-impact-torsion-screwdriver-bit-set-32-pcs/7045f#product_additional_details_container

Personally I wouldn't like cheaper bits breaking on me, buy cheap buy twice and all that.

Just got some custom moulded earplugs a month ago - nice to fully justify a wee luxury purchase.

Finger twins! Although I would be more worried if it had been my right hand. I did feel like I'd overreacted once I was seen at A&E. I'd actually done everything right and they just xrayed the finger, checked and redressed the wound and sent me home.

More of a glove issue, but the ring didn't help. I won't be wearing it while in the workshop in future.

Charmingly, several people asked if I thought the wedding ring might had saved my finger.

Heal up - until you invest in voice to speech software lfgss needs your fingers to impart advice ;)

I know it's not a mangle

Pretty much genuinely thought it was, was expecting to see @dbr in his washerwoman get up on my next trip to his workshop.

Then sneaking out into a sports car and driving around Hackney going TOOT TOOT.

De-gloved fingers are pretty grim too.

I lost my wedding ring about a month after marrying, because I took it off before using heavy equipment.

Now I have a silicone wedding ring, which I don;t need to take off at all.

I did feel like I'd overreacted once I was seen at A&E.

With mine (from the mandoline) I arrived in A&E (getting there myself by motorbike!) registered and sat down to wait. After a few minutes I went up to ask for something as the bandaging on the finger was starting to drip blood and I didn't want to make a mess on the floor, they gave me a cardboard kidney bowl.

After about 30 minutes I went back up to the reception desk to ask them what to do next as the kidney bowl was nearly full.

The look on the face of the A&E receptionist was priceless.

The kidney bowl held about a pint and this level of blood loss got me straight to the front of the queue.

From there it was about 2 minutes until being seen by a doctor, 5 minutes to x-ray (to confirm how badly the bone was damaged - not seriously luckily), 15 minutes to seeing the plastic surgeon and then I was being operated on about a couple of hours later (local anaesthetic luckily). I had great fun discussing blood and gore with the surgeon during the operation, it was also fun as I was quite fit at the time and during parts of the operation a HR monitor alarm would keep going off as I was dipping under 50bpm. They really didn't like it when I closed my eyes, relaxed, breathed slowly and got it down to 39bpm. Under 40bpm sets off a much louder alarm. Who knew.

And, not wishing to re-enact the scars scene from Jaws but that same hand is a bit beaten up. One chunk taken out of the side of the hand from falling on a glass bottle and a forever unique thumb-print from checking how sharp a kitchen knife is as someone walked into the back of me. Both squarely on my list of things never to do again.

(Given both are at least 30 years old they're as healed up as they're ever going to be.)

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DIY vs professional.

Personally, I'm cautiously sceptical about the usefulness of professional tradespeople's opinions on tools for DIY. Especially on YT.

Not that I think they're totally without merit, but having laboured on resi building sites, for the most part there is a lot that just isn't applicable to DIY imo.

Tools are used for a tiny fraction of the time, there is basically no time/money relationship, you don't need to worry about weight, you have the time to take greater care to prolong life, etc. etc. My dad's corded B&D is still working* what must be 30-35yrs later.

*albeit with only one torque setting now

a forever unique thumb-print

Just like everyone else then!

Sorry, it is a good scar.

I have to take mine off so regularly for climbing and MTB that I have a small length of knotted dyneema in my wallet so that I have somewhere reasonably safe to store it.

I haven't yet got into the habit for DIY and keep leaving it on when sanding / filing and taking little nicks out.

I see your point but you can also separate professionals into groups. Some are more technical and the tools have finer applications/require more careful calibration, others are mentalists who try to solve every problem with a basic set of tools and try to spend as little money as possible on them, or if possible don't own them at all.

It probably helps if you came to all this before the internet was a resource. There's a quiet calm about reading the trend catalogue of an evening that has been lost to most people because of internet reviews.

It’s a fair point. I think I mentioned that there has to be a balance between cost and usage. My plumber bought a Milwaukee sds drill with 6ah batteries and it was madly expensive but he needs it for site work and can justify the expense. For my diy things, I could never justify buying one for a one off job.
The professional perspective is useful to work what the very best tool is and then you have a starting point to find the balance with usage and cost.
I have a corded Bosch drill which I got with coupons out of cigarettes at least 25 years ago and it hasn’t missed a beat. My fathers B and D drill is still at home and it has to be from the 1970s - still working but showing signs of age. Probably the upside of corded tools is that, if looked after, they will last and there are no battery worries.

That said, there are plenty of fat people with carbon bike wheels so if you want nice things you can just buy them without justification.