The Wrong Nail

After driving two hundred pounds of framing nails, I hit the wrong one. A 24 ounce waffle head framing hammer is less than kind when it comes in contact with a finger nail. The unlucky finger, right hand next to the pinky, wasn't even near the intended target. As the hammer was just on the return from the back-swing, it grazed the rafter behind me ever so slightly and sent the swing off to the side a few inches away. The finger nail exploded on contact sending a fine spray of blood onto the stud in front of it. Expletives followed. I didn't even have a band-aid. (Yes, I know; I should have a first aid kit on the job.) The coagulated mess shown in the picture is the accumulation of slow bleeding over the course of a couple hours. The last time I smashed one of my fingers with a hammer was about 8 years ago when I was building the shed on our land in Brooklin. I was due.

Despite the finger I managed to put up the rest of the shed rafters and frame in one of the gable ends. Forty 18' 2x10's arrived in the afternoon along with enough tongue-in-groove sheathing for the roof. The rafter material was boomed up to the loft floor so I wouldn't have to lug it all up there. I finished the day cutting a few of the rafters to size.