Yeah, that's pretty ironic. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> So...were they stored lose in your dresser? That's why I store mine in the sheaths. Mine are so sharp it's dangerous to leave the edge uncovered.

A couple days ago I was sharpening my M6. To test the sharpness, I was grabbing lose cat hairs off my sweater. I held the M6 between my legs and grabbed each end of the hair with my hands. Without "sawing" it, I put just the slightest pressure on each end of the hair against the blade. I barely touched it and it cut it. Then I tried shaving and shaved a bare spot. That was sharp enough for me. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I had an accident a while back with my Howler, but I never took pics or told you guys about it. It was a couple cookouts ago, in late summer. I was waiting for the wood to burn down to coals in the grill. I was whacking at some wood with my Rats out of boredom. My Howler was a bit dull from hitting the wood with it. It wasn’t DULL, but it didn’t have its usual razor edge. I had a armsize piece of wood on its end like I was going to baton it. I was holding it on top with my right hand, and swinging my Howler at the top of it with my left. Where I was impacting was like 5 inches or so away from my hand. I had a thought…uh oh…what if my Essential Tremors cause my hand to move wrong, and I come down on my other hand with the Howler? Then I thought, nah, I’m far enough away I think it’ll be ok.

Well, I was wrong. See, another thing about essential tremors is that physical activity makes them worse. All that chopping, sawing, and carrying wood made it worse than usual. I ended up whacking my right thumb, right on the thumbnail. I was afraid to look. I cut pretty much all the way through the thumbnail, but I don’t think I cut the skin underneath. The skin under the nail where it hit was all bruised from the impact. Where it cut the nail was all jagged, so I used some sandpaper to smooth it all out so it wouldn’t catch on things and flip it backwards. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/barf.gif" alt="" /> Where I hit was near the end of the nail, and after a couple weeks it healed and that section of nail grew out. It’s all normal now.

I told my parents that it’s a good thing I hadn’t sharpened it first, or I would have lost the end of my thumb. I later sharpened it and let them inspect it. They both said “oh $h!t” when they felt the edge. I said, “That’s what we call “scary” sharp.” <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> “Now you know what I mean when I said good thing it wasn’t sharp.” After that experience, I learned to keep my hands FAR AWAY from the edge while in use.

So Jason, be glad you at least didn’t whack your finger with the edge like I did. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />