The Home Machinist!

The tweezer



This tweezer came with an old machinist toolbox I bought several years ago( I encourage all newbies to hunt for old machinist toolboxes especially full of tools)

Anyway , these have turned out to be the best tweezers on the planet, they have a serrated edge which really easily grabs all intruding splinters. I love them and they are the most valued tool in my tool box!!!!!

I had forgotten about the tweeser. I too have a set as described and l think it came from a Gerstner box. It has a little post on one side which rides in the hole of the other, so its serrated tips remain aligned.

Uh-huh. For many years I had a little plastic tube that carried a very sharp set of folded metal tweezers. Sold under the name 'splinter picker' it was ideal for shoving into the top of your skin and retrieving that little aggrevating sliver of irritation, that you rarely could see without the other tool, a magnifying glass. After picking out the offending bit, you of course wrapped the now empty injury in black Scotch 33 electrical tape, that clearly has medicinal value during work. Following this road to recovery, I have never had an infection in the recovered injury. While I still dont have a fancy tool box for my instruments, I have a special place for the picker.

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Big Dave

Be Alert! The world needs more Lerts.

There was a later version which had the magnifying glass all built on it. It was inexpensive, General and don't know where it went. One had a plastic lens which clouded up, so plastic around stuff...
Getting back to decent tweezers, I found the name on the one which may be the same as OP has. . The name is SKLAR Germany.

zipsnipe,

Thanks for starting this thread. Reminded me of one of my best garage sale finds, a well cared for Kennedy 520 tool box, looked nearly new, full of tools. Among the tools, two Starrett mikes, several machinists jacks, some old style calipers, more than a few square, round, and triangle stones was a pair of tweezers. Still have them and need to use them every so often. Oh yea, this was late on a Sunday afternoon just as they were closing and I dickered the $20 price down to $10, and no, I didn't go to jail.
Jack.

Little trick for spotting slivers -- not so much metal ones, you can see those, but wood (or plastic, or glass):

Put a drop of iodine tincture on the area. The iodine will wick down into the wound channel, and you'll be able to see where to go digging with the tweezers.

Who knows, it may even do some good disinfecting the hole !

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Pete in NJ

Haven't thought about tweezers.

Years ago, I worked for Dr. Trotter's son from Buffalo and they were blade and clipper men, and so I guess that bolstered my natural tendancy. Steel cuts (from sheared edges) were beveled off and healed quickly. Splinters would generally respond to a knife blade being dragged across it with the cutting edge perpendicular to and at right angles to the direction of movement. This is the old Boy Scout method of dealing with stingers and it works for most splinters, especially metal. It doesn't require a great deal of precision either, which is a plus with my eyesight. A few strokes with moderate pressure and the irritation ceases. For splinters that do not respond to this, an excavation with a #11 scalpel blade (after an alcohol swab) along the splinter until it is exposed and picked out. That really used to freak the kids out until they realized that it was the shortest route back to a normal state of affairs.

I have a veterinarian friend who I occasionally make specialty devices for that has a whole lot of tweezing tools and has supplied me a small, fine-nosed, locking type of "stat" that suffices when tweezing is required, but the kids keep adopting them. Presumably the tradidition continues.

Iodine makes an excellent locating stain and does indeed supply significant antibiotic properties, and, of course, Scotch electrical tape is the go-to product for the seasoned industrial field medic.

Bill Walck

Tweezers......for those times a Leatherman just won't do.....

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Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.