Left-handed Modelling.

[lapford34102]

I'm back.....

My mother, schooled in the 30's, was made to learn to write right handed. Even in the 60's being a LHanded pupil gave you a label of sorts. I remember being singled out for doing ticks the "wrong" way though never heard an explanation why they were wrong.

No. 2 daughter is a leftie and has a LH keyboard and LH configured mouse provided by work. The Army though has no LH version of the SA80  assault rifle unlike most of it's contemporaries.

 

I'll leave you all with this historical fact. The Latin for R handed is dextro, for L handed it's sinister.

 

Stu

[nigcuberail]

 

 

Also, on a more serious note- has anyone faced a disability, injury or illness that has led them to modify there practice or innovative within the hobby? 

 

Interesting topic that I can relate to directly!

 

I am (was!) right handed until just over a year ago when I lost the use of my right arm and hand. It started with a mild shoulder pain and developed over 3-4 weeks (see here for full details if interested http://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/parsonage-turner-syndrome/)into complete inability to lift or do anything with my right arm and no feeling in most of my hand.

 

So I was immediately faced with having to become left handed to do anything - eat, wash, shave (and other personal admin. tasks!!), drink, dress etc. obviously came first, followed pretty soon after that by work - luckily I am a desk-jockey but just try a while to go to left handed mouse control - takes a bit of getting used to 

 

Anyway, hobbies had to take a back seat for quite a while - even trying to remove a loco body and fit a plug in decoder was pretty much impossible with only one hand, and that one being the wrong one   I have a small shunting layout in build, but that had been sidelined a few months before due to household jobs & DIY demands.

 

However, after 6-7 months or so the nerves started to recover/repair and I developed some arm movement. This meant I could 'plonk' my duff hand in places to hold things down and this allowed me to gradually do simple things in the hobby arena. However things like soldering that definitely needed 2(3?) hands were still way out of sight, plus I had been warned off hot things following a bad burn suffered when stir frying (no feeling in my finger ).

 

The development of my 'left handedness' progressed quite quickly and soon I was using a cordless drill and had developed sufficient strength to use screwdrivers left handed. Use of a hammer was tricky though!

 

After 9 months I pretty much considered myself left handed but there were still things that defied my ability - using scissors left handed (weird) for example.

 

Attendance at the excellent Wessex Rehab at Salisbury Hospital stimulated me not only physically but also mentally to try tasks.

 

Now I have more strength in my right arm, some in the wrist and a little grip, I am able to hold things in my right hand and so some modelling tasks are back on the agenda - I have embarked on a Scalescenes Boxfile layout as a form of rehab.

 

I think I will be left handed for a while yet, then the challenge will be to start using my right again - hopefully I will then be ambidextrous

So it is remarkable how we can adapt and find new ways to do things when challenged - motivation has lot to do with it and I am lucky that this hobby has helped me.

I can now well appreciate the challenges faced by the left handed as well as those with disabilities, injuries, arthritis etc..

 

I can't think of anything I have felt the need to alter or move round at home since becoming left handed, the problems have mostly come from being one handed!

 

I am able to drive now but thinking about it - just try getting the car key in the ignition with your left hand when the steering lock is on the right!!!

 

 

 

[MarkC]

 

I'll leave you all with this historical fact. The Latin for R handed is dextro, for L handed it's sinister.

 

Stu

My ex would agree with you...   

[forest2807]

Cricket is a confusing sport in this respect. So-called right handed batting is really mainly done with the left hand.

 

Very true. I bowl right-handed, kick right-footed, write right-handed, indeed I am so right-hand dominant that I bat left-handed in cricket because my right hand is at the top of the bat handle and in total domination over my useless, weak and pathetic left hand. Makes perfect sense.

Apart from in golf where I drive left-handed but on the green whichever way feels comfortable at the time seems to work. I miss equally well both ways.

Edited December 10, 2018 by forest2807

[The Johnster]

Like most right handers, I've never given this much thought, and perhaps it would do me no harm if I did.  Kitchen appliances with doors hinged on the right are a thing that I have complained about in the past though, on the basis that my flat has a tiny kitchen whose space would be much better utilised if some doors opened the other way.  A choice would be nice!

[bbishop]

Completely ambidextrous, which means pretty well randomly I do some things left handed and others right handed.  So at cricket  I bowled right handed but usually threw left handed.  Presumably as a kid, the pencil was put in my right hand so I write that way and so the same thing with a cricket ball.  My sinister handwriting is almost the same as my dextrous writing and I did prove to myself that I could bowl left handed, but didn't see any point in "grooving" an action. 

 

I also have no sense of left and right, so I'm no good at directions and, in the cadets, would be the only boy saluting left handed which was for some reason a complete no-no.

 

Batting at cricket should be determined by the dominant eye: in my case this is the left one so I batted right handed.  Not that that was an issue, I was one of nature's natural number elevens.

 

Bill

[Ray Von]

Interesting topic that I can relate to directly!

 

That's an inspiring story, nigcuberail - I'm glad you are doing well, and on the mend.

 

It's amazing just how much the loss of even a seemingly "minor" function can have a huge impact. I broke my left thumb some years ago and thought "no problem" (not immediately!) But even that tiny loss of dexterity had its own consequences, being right-handed I thought of the left thumb as something of a "spare!" - Not on your nelly! Eating, washing, buttoning flies - almost every routine task, became a baffling operation! Never again would I overlook my humble thumb (except I cut it badly with a craft knife a year after breaking it and was back in the same boat!)

Edited December 10, 2018 by Ray Von

[sharris]

My ex would agree with you...   

 

My right handed ex always uses a mouse left-handed, simply because I was the first mouse-user of the two of us, and it sat to the left of the keyboard so when she first started using it she learned to use it there. I've never, however, flipped the left and right buttons to make it truly left-handed - probably because I first started using a mouse in pre-Windows days when things were less configurable. 

 

My desk at work has a PC (left 2/3 of my desk) which I use for almost everything and a Mac (right 1/3) which I use for some medical imaging software that's not available for PCs, with the result that there's a mouse to the left and right of my keyboard. Visitors to my desk invariably try to use the wrong mouse. 

[sharris]

 If you are left-eye dominant...

 

I'm left eye dominant as well as left handed, which means the rear-panel display on my SLR gets more streaks of nose-grease than it would if I used my right eye. 

[Joseph_Pestell]

I'm left eye dominant as well as left handed, which means the rear-panel display on my SLR gets more streaks of nose-grease than it would if I used my right eye. 

 

Too much detail!

[81C]

I was left handed and footed schools forced you to write with the right and all sports you were encouraged to be right handed and right footed

I'm now out of stubbornness ambidextrous, as a young lad I used the right when tutors were around and the left when no-one was watching, I

do own a pair of left handed scissors no-one else can use so I can always find them.  

[Joseph_Pestell]

How do people cut the fingernails on their right hand?

[Steamport Southport]

How do people cut the fingernails on their right hand?

 

Clippers?

 

Personally I just use a pair of scissors. 

 

 

 

Jason

[298]

I'm sure I started a thread about a related subject a long time ago, but can't find it. It basically posed the question, if you a visualising a fiddle years to station/yard layout design, do you put the fiddleyard at the left or right? I wonder if left and right handers differ in this, on average?

On the right, and I've never thought I should do otherwise.

 

I realised only a few days ago that after six years of the work bench being in the loft room with the window to the left, I'm always blocking the natural daylight with my left hand.

[Ray Von]

I was expecting a minority of lefties, but it seems more like a majority - show of hands....? :-D

[Dava]

Back in 2015 I fractured my right [prefrred] wrist whilst living in Canada and went on to build a micro-layout from foamboard as mental & physical therapy

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/96750-coxheath-sidings-goes-dcc/

 

42 or so months later I have about 90% recovery in the wrist. I did try cutting with the left hand [which I use for mouse and other things anyway] but didnt have the strength in the right to hold the ruler down. I realized that you need quite a lot of strength in the non-preferred hand to do this and now get a bit of pre-arthritic pain in that wrist from doing that. The right hand is very steady but prone to dropping things unexpectedly so I'm very careful with handling gauge 0 locos.

 

I think we can Learn to compensate for lost abilities to quite a big extent but not completely. I also find qwerty keyboards a big time waste!

 

Today I noticed some very large foamboard displays beside the recycle bins at work [they don't recycle] so will be taking a craft knife in tomorrow early doors to cut them up for future re-use. I don't plan another layout completely from foamboard but it useful for buildings and scenic effects and I'd never have to buy any again.

 

Dava

Edited December 10, 2018 by Dava

[newbryford]

When I was at school the year's sports calendar was divided into rugby (September - December), hockey* (January - Easter) and cricket (Easter - summer). There's no such thing as a left-handed hockey stick. 

 

_{* the field variety, not ice hockey.} 

 

There is if it's the ice variety...... (oops - must read the small print!)

 

Polo is always played right handed. (Well at least since 1975)

Edited December 10, 2018 by newbryford

[NeilHB]

Another leftie here! Though I eat right handed, and use a computer mouse with my right hand, mainly because I was the only leftie in a family of right-handers for a very long time!

Modelling wise cutting etc. is all done using left hand - trying to use a scalpel in the right hand invariably leads to loss of blood...!

[GreenGiraffe22]

Left handed here, no idea if I do model railway stuff differently to right handed people. I've always been horrendously cack handed. I'm a Grade 8 pianist and yet I can't for the life of me pack a bag properly for a customer at work, it's usually "do you wanna pack while I scan? I'm dreadful."

 

Edit: I *can* play tennis with the racket in either hand =)

Edited December 10, 2018 by GreenGiraffe22

[Stubby47]

^^ I can play table tennis with a bat in each hand, and am reasonable at darts with both too.

 

My left-handed sis-in-law eats with her right & cuts with the left, very odd.

[Zomboid]

I'm right handed, but it always struck me as a bit odd that to play guitar, most of the "clever" stuff is done with my left hand.

You need both, of course, but I could lose a couple of fingers from my right and still be able to play. Any damage to my left hand and I'd have to learn to play again in left handed fashion pretty much from scratch.

 

I think it applies to most stringed instruments, but I've never picked up a violin so I don't know about that for sure.

Edited December 11, 2018 by Zomboid

[Colin_McLeod]

Peco and Hornby do both right and left handed turnouts.

 

Oh wait. I might have missed the point of this thread.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I'm right handed, but it always struck me as a bit odd that to play guitar, most of the "clever" stuff is done with my left hand.

You need both, of course, but I could lose a couple of fingers from my right and still be able to play. Any damage to my left hand and I'd have to learn to play again in left handed fashion pretty much from scratch.

 

I think it applies to most stringed instruments, but I've never picked up a violin so I don't know about that for sure.

With the bowed string instruments, 'clever stuff' has to be done continuously with both hands, unless you want to be mistaken for a cat strangler. That's why relatively few ever attain real proficiency. (I could sort of do one or the other poorly, so no chance of competently doing both at the same time, I am a maestro on the triangle, mind.)

Edited December 11, 2018 by 34theletterbetweenB&D

[Ray Von]

Peco and Hornby do both right and left handed turnouts.

Oh wait. I might have missed the point of this thread.

For which you need a left-handed engine driver....? :-)

[GeoffAlan]

Educated in the mid 1950s, I had pencils and pens very firmly ripped out of my left hand and placed in my right. Strangely enough, until I left education at 21 I had constant complaints about my virtually illegible hand writing.

 

Scroll on some 20 years and a shoulder injury meant I could hardly use my right arm so, having a series of presentations to do, on a large, vertical board I used my left hand to write. To start with it was painfully slow and the writing was equally as bad as my right hand would have managed. Move on 3 weeks and my left handed board writing was reasonably paced and way more legible than anything I could have done right handed. 

 

I never needed to do it again and my right arm returned to normal so I lazily went back to lousy right handed writing. These days it doesn't matter as I type everything, either on a computer, tablet or phone.