some lessons learnt

It was Saturday. I was making two necks for CBGs. This time I had bought the type of machine heads like you get on classical guitars - you need to make a slot in the headstock. I decided to rough drill them out on my big drill press then put a router bit in it to clean up the slot. I knew what I was doing was a bit dodgy to say the least but "I'll be careful" I thought. I had a really bad week at work stress wise and I reckon my brain wasn't running properly. The bit grabbed the wood and pulled my hand onto it in a split second. I felt a sharp pain in my finger end. There was that horrible realisation that I'd damaged my finger and it flashed through my mind "how bad is it"? So you have to look - it could have ben the whole tip of the finger. Well it wasn't as bad as I expected but it wasn't good.

So lessons learnt? Don't mess with machines when you are overtired. Follow safe practises - you know it going to go wrong don't you? Don't think you know better than that inner voice that's warning you. Lastly, don't buy those type of machine heads. It's taken three times as long to prepare the headstock and I'm not entirely happy with the results anyway.