Grafted thousands of times but eventually we all slip with the knife. My ex girlfriend called to check on me and being slightly distracted while trimming up some grafting tape i slipped and the razor went in the palm of my hand all the way. Not sure what it lodged in but when i pulled out the blade it took a tug to get it out. Zero pain with this type of injury for me but i realize an infection can be serious. Anyone else have a slip of the knife yet?
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Yikes! Thanks for the advertisement for newbies like me to use just a grafting tool like the Fieldcraft Topgrafter! 
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Razor knives are my tool of choice now because of their versatility. A razor is just about the sharpest thing i know of and it sure can make a mess of a hand. Very glad it wasnt the fingers because when they get cut grafting season becomes much more difficult.
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I got a nick the other day just wiping down my blade…not even trying to make a cut!!!
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That’s a deep one Clark, keep it clean! I shaved the very tip off my pinky two weeks ago with a bic razor, my granddaughter (4) looked at it and ran to my wife and said “ I hope papa’s finger grows back on”. Lol
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Ouch! Yesterday I got a pretty good slice in my thumb and didnt notice until the parafilm started showing up with red blotches. I wrote it off to technique and was pretty sure something like that was going to happen. Now I’m typing with a bandaid 
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I have read about gloves that would prevent such injuries. Some don’t like them because it makes them more clumsy.
Do any of you use them?
Which ones do you recommend?
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I’m so clumsy, it’s hard to believe all 10 fingers are there. A couple do have big scars, but not from grafting.
This year, 3/4 of my grafts were bench graft. I did most of the work on a cutting board. That helped. Some was with grafting knife, some with single edge razor blade. I braced fingers and hands as well as possible, didn’t force it, and made use of my sharpener.
Take good care of that wound @clarkinks! Ouch! I feel your pain,
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I like to wear surgical gloves. They are very thin but can protect from lots of cuts despite their thinness.
I cannot see myself wearing thick gloves for grafting as you completely lose feel.
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That photo makes me glad I lopped the tip off of the morakniv I bought for grafting. I took one look at it and thought “this thing will open me up for no reason”.
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I cut myself my first time grafting, so I’ve worn gloves ever since, clumsiness be damned. They’re just regular work gloves reinforced with duct tape around the danger zone.
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When making the cleft part of a graft I do use a cardboard guard around the rootstock over my hand. That way if it cuts a little to faster or farther down than I want it to then it will hit the cardboard and not my hand. I have made these type guards out of leather as well when sharpeneing axes with files. Except I put the leather guard on the file between the handle and the file part. Works great in case of an accidental slip 
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Ouch!
I’ve made many flesh cuts over the years while grafting. Fortunately I still have 10 fingers left 
It looks like I will be starting grafting in the middle of this week. We are in the middle of a relatively cool spell now.
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Just did same thing Clark, sliced into my thumb while cleaning alcohol off blade with paper towel. Not a bad cut but puts me out of action a few days. Usually I glue these wounds but am out of super glue.
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Just look up “cut proof gloves” on eBay, Amazon or AliExpress (if you don’t mind waiting a few weeks to a month for shipping).
They are all fundamentally the same, using Kevlar threads woven into thin gloves.
Just takes a while to get used to them. They are only a few mm thick.
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better to be cut with a sharp blade than a dull one but also a higher chance of a larger cut. i have scars all over my hands from cuts but none from grafting. knock on wood. biggest one i got fishing in a brook when i was 16. slipped on some rocks and landed on shale. sliced my whole lower palm wide open ! i covered it with some big dogwood leaves. walked the 3 miles back to my bike then 2 miles back to the house. i thought i was going to bleed to death. my mother bandaged it all up and it took about 3 months to heal. we had no heath insurance back then so you did your own doctoring.
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In the old days, it was advised to use an cheap “o” ring used in garden hoses.Ok they are to hard to find when you need one.
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Saw a trick I plan on using. A CD. Slip the scion/ rootstock through it and work away. If you slip, it hits the CD not your flesh.
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I use cut resistant gloves like these. They are very tactile and I have never felt they impared my knife work. I don’t know why people seem so hesitant to use proper PPE when grafting. The knives are super sharp (or should be) and you are always just one slip away from a serious injury.
Airgas!!g!!cut%20resistant%20work%20gloves&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9PCGrpmx6AIV3YVaBR19JAFCEAAYASAAEgIxrfD_BwE#&utm_arg=SEM:Google:Co-Op_Ansell:Industry:Search:397905768174:Ansell:::Cut+Resistant+Work+Gloves:e:CoOp
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Its only a minor cut in the thumb. The specific slip happened when I was trying to rock the knife on a thin rootstock branch for the cleft graft. Lesson learnt!