The Gory Details (Gross)

Gory Detail #17: "Power Tools: Your Friends in Mayhem"

Let's face it. Things that come with both a motor and a blade are dangerous. Myself I can't stand those edgers. "Hey," said someone. "Let's take a piece of sharpened metal, attach a motor and grind the thing against the edge of concrete sidewalks." Right. Why not just hack a hole in your shin now and save the trouble?

From a horror writer's perspective, power tools are great devices for more or less the same reason. Why spend all that time stabbing someone when you could pop them a few times with the nail gun and have it over with?

Here are a few gore generating power tools with notes on their applications and limitations.

Weed eaters – Weed eaters are generally a long pole, with an electric or gas motor at one end that drives a string blade revolving at the other end. The forces generated by these little jewels is pretty impressive. The string tip, spinning out six to eighteen inches from the axis, really packs a wallop. As a dedicated weed eater manic, I derive tremendous pleasure from putting the thing to work on large weeds or a small sapling. It rips the bark right off and chews through the soft wood like it was hungry.

On human flesh, it is just as destructive. We're mostly made out of water and the weed eater has not problem "parting" us. A single swipe from a weed eater will leave a deep, clean (except for the grass) cut. This is hard to do because the weed eater spins so fast. Most weed eater cuts are sort of shredded where the string has passed through the skin many times. Yum. Deli thin slices.

Nail Guns – There was recently an incident where one man, in the course of falling off a house, shot his friend, who was also falling off the house, six times in the head with a nail gun. While that incident was clearly an accident, it highlights the awesome power of the nail gun.

Driven by compressed air, the nail gun takes a cartridge of nails much like a regular gun takes bullets, and fires them into the target right up to their little heads. The guns come in a variety of sizes and can use many different kinds of nails. There are also pneumatic (air pressure) staple guns. If you've ever had a whole subdivision go in next door, (currently happening in my neighborhood) you've heard the endless sound of nails guns, "kathunk, kathunk, kathunk." Most nail guns have a little guide right under the piston intended to keep the gun from firing if it's not pressed up against something. Pressing down on this button with anything will allow you to use the gun however you see fit.

On people, nail guns are particularly nasty. They are designed to drive holes into hard materials and really aren't bothered by silly little things like breastbones and skulls. While the nail gun is dependent on the pressure in the compressor powering it and may be ineffectual if the juice is low, a fully powered nail gun easily countersinks in a skull and may even go right on through, lodging itself in the brain stem.

Belt Sanders – A belt sander is a pair of cylinders hooked to and electric motor. A "belt" of sandpaper is put around the cylinders like the tracks of a tank. When turned on, the belts sander is a powerful surface grinder ready to take on wood, masonry and even concrete. On flesh it's heavenly. Even a slight touch will leave a nasty, bleeding scrape and more serious contact has the potential to completely strip the skin off the victim. If you want to hurt a character but not kill them, feed them to a belt sander.

The Chain Saw – And of course, the venerable chain saw. A motor, a blade on a chain, bloody mayhem. What could be better?

There are a couple of considerations often overlooked by chainsaw wielding lunatics in the movies. The first is that most gas powered chainsaws have two stroke engines. This means they have oil mixed right into the gas, oil that comes out of the saw as noxious, smelly, light blue smoke. We don't notice this smoke much when the saw is run outside because it drifts off in the wind. Running a chainsaw indoors, however, is going to fill the room with acrid smoke as fast as it gets filled with body parts.

Another consideration is the opening under the blade that wood chips are meant to fly out of. You generally don't have to worry about this when cutting wood because the chips are fairly dry and don't clump up. With shredded flesh, the opening may clog up and have to be cleared.

Finally, there are electric chainsaws. They are modestly powerful and can do the human sawing pretty well. Don't run with one however. They are attached to extension cords and may trip you embarrassingly and painfully. It's no use being a homicidal monster if you're just going to make an ass of yourself.

And you thought wearing eye protection would save you. Now get out there and write.

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