Metal slivers in your fingers

[tornitore45]

No matter how careful and clean I try to work I end up with to many tiny slivers in my fingers.
The type you just feel when you rub.

Like to hear your method to avoid them in the first place and to remove them if we must.

[ctwo]

I am fortunate to have a bench microscope. I use it to inspect a lot of different things, but the single most common item I'm looking at is a small metal sliver embedded in skin.

The only thing I can think of is to take bigger cuts and make bigger chips. Do you use air? I usually use a brush and end up wiping quite a bit with my hands and fingers.

[hammermill]

ouch . I bought a inexpensive usb microscope a while back at it sees frequent detail removing slivers/shavings. I keep a small shop vac for clean up of shavings to reduce the amount of exposure.
for removal often time duct tape or a backward scrape of a razor blade will do the trick. most folks keep a small tin of needles ,teasers and magnifiers handy to get them out.

last year we got some china made glasses with magnifiers and lights that have proven useful and popular for sliver removal.

[RSG]

I don't do allot with steel but I always wear nitrile gloves in the shop so I haven't had an issue.

[SteveM]

I recently used my camcorder to see a sliver.

One of the problems is that when the sliver is so small, the tweezers can't grab it. I took emery cloth and grabbed it in the tweezers and pulled it out several times on both sides to close up the gap where the jaws meet. Also ground the tip so that both jaws were the same length.

I have a set of tweezers with a built in magnafying glass, but they are cheap and don't work well.

I have also used my flip up magnafiers, the kind that clamp onto your glasses.


Steve

[tornitore45]

I use the vacuum cleaner often and compressed air after that, for the stuff the air cleaner can't reach or is oil glued.
Seeing them is not my problem since I have my 2.5X visor on.
The first layer of skin is thick, though and dead (no baby bottom here) so by the time I feel it is deep into the live skin. I end up digging them out with a sharp prick but is no fun.

Larger chips is a good idea but between the small work and the small mill there are still plenty of needle like chip especially when side cutting which I tend to avoid.

[f350ca]

Harold won't be able to dispute this use of digital callipers. They'll grab the smallest of splinters. The jaws are ground to close with zero gap and near perfect alignment. If they won't pull the offending foreign body nothing will.

Greg

[John Evans]

The tweezer on my smaller Swiss army knife work great for splinter removal,better than any of my machinist ones.

[tornitore45]

Harold won't be able to dispute this use of digital callipers. They'll grab the smallest of splinters. The jaws are ground to close with zero gap and near perfect alignment. If they won't pull the offending foreign body nothing will.

Great, now you also know the approximate size of the sliver.

[DavidF]

I have a good one for fiberglass making you itch. put duct tape over the area and pull it off. it will pull the fg out and stops the itching.

[SteveM]

Harold won't be able to dispute this use of digital callipers. They'll grab the smallest of splinters. The jaws are ground to close with zero gap and near perfect alignment. If they won't pull the offending foreign body nothing will.

Great, now you also know the approximate size of the sliver.

Yes, but only approximate!

It's just too hard to pull splinters with a tenths-reading mic, unless you get a blade mic with non-rotating spindle!

Steve

[Harold_V]

Harold won't be able to dispute this use of digital callipers. They'll grab the smallest of splinters. The jaws are ground to close with zero gap and near perfect alignment. If they won't pull the offending foreign body nothing will.

Greg

Heh! Finally! A use for calipers!

Harold