First Aid

Remember what your mother told you? Be careful, be patient, wear safety glasses. Remember?

Well, do it.

There's a maxim you should understand. IF IT CAN HAPPEN, IN TIME IT WILL.

If something can fall, in time it will. If something can slip, in time it will.
And so on. So don't be surprised when something does happen--it's because it could.

Where possible, eliminate the opportunity for unwanted things to happen.
We'll do things at the lowest temperatures, etch without acids,
quench without oil (no smoke and flames), etc.

There's an ethic running throughout this tutorial of doing things in the simplest most direct manner.
From the acquisition of tools and equipment to techniques and processes, simple is usually best.

Before beginning to forge knives, there are three conditions you should know how to treat: burns, smashed thumbs and cuts. Add the following to treatments you already use. Working with hot metal, hammers/heavy-things and sharp edges, you'll more-than-likely, at some point, suffer all three injuries.

Immediately lower the temperature of the burned area. We're talkin' doing so within a minute if not seconds--the faster the better. Probably the best thing to use is ice or ice water. If you cool the area immediately you will lower the severity of burn by one if not two degrees. From second to first or third to first. If you burn your fingers picking up hot metal then hold ice cubes just like you were holding the metal. A substantial portion of the cellular damage caused by a burn occurs after (within a few minutes) you are burned and by cooling the affected area you can avoid this secondary damage. Cool the burned area and keep it cool for maybe ten minutes or as long as the burn feels "burned".

After you've smacked your thumb it'll swell up and the nail will turn black. This dark coloration is blood trapped under the nail. The pressure of the trapped blood is what makes your thumb throb. To release this pressure take a paper clip, bailing wire or the like and grind a 45 degree point. Now heat the tip red-hot and press down on the nail. Let the wire burn through the nail. As soon as a hole is made the pressure will release and the blood will cool the hot wire tip. Heating the wire tip sterilizes it and the released blood will cool it. Bend the wire tip at a right angle to the wire body and you'll have a little spring action in your instrument. It's not uncommon for the blood from a strongly throbbing thumb to spurt several inches--there's that much pressure, that's why it hurts. And it may take a couple heats to burn through the nail.

After the blood release, bandage your thumb. In a day or two, when it's stopped draining, seal the hole with a drop of Super Glue and when that's dried, file it smooth.

Cuts:

As soon as the bleeding has stopped and the wound is dry (and clean!) close it up with Super Glue. If the cut is deep, the glue may sting for a moment but then will create a strong water/air tight seal. Done right, no bandage is necessary.