When I was 17 I worked in a local butcher's slicing cooked meats as a Saturday job. One day when the pressure for quarter pounds of corned beef got very high, I was working (naughty me) without the metal plate on top of the meat - it had been proved that with the right amount of pressure (not possible with the plate on) you could get 4 slices to the quarter on #4 setting.

Well nobody complained about the little extra they got, and the side of my right thumb to the left of my nail eventually healed without trace, thank goodness. Cost me the job though, when my dad insisted I get it in the accident book.

I once sanded off part of the nail of my right index finger on a band sander at college too. Show me a stanley knife and I was bleeding everywhere, but using a scalpel for finer work I was fine. (Unlike the guy in our group who dropped on in his thigh and had to go to casualty. The doctor was quite amused at what he'd done).

Andrea