Left-handed Modelling.

[Vecchio]

I fall in a similar category. Had a fracture of one of my fingers on the right hand and as this took a while to heal I trained my left hand. And I was typing love letters on a typewriter.... (for the young ones - this is the device you find only in museums today, fully mechanical, no power socket needed, no battery :-)) The letters were not very personal but readable.

Of course my right hand is back to full functionality but I tried to proceed using the left hand on purpose. So I can consider myself now as a bi-hander when it comes to tools. Very convenient when you have confined space. I am not as good as my sister (born lefthander, education started in the fifties, forced to use the right) who is a teacher and writes left or right with the same speed on the blackboard.... But overall I am quite happy with my left hand skills.

[Huw Griffiths]

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....? :-)

 

Nothing sinister, then ... .

[47137]

 

I remember school workworking classes. I was required to hold the mallet in my right hand (and the chisel in my left); hold a saw in my right hand and was banned from all power tools. The teacher told me I was "unteachable"; fortunately the metalwork teachers were more forward thinking. This was as recently as the mid-1970s.

 

I hold my knife and fork the conventional way round, but hold the spoon in my left. Drawing a line with a rule I go right to left but somehow I much prefer to use a rule with conventional markings and do the arithmetic in my head. I have done this for so many years that now I have two left-handed rules I always seem to try to use them from the wrong end.

 

Nowadays the only tool I really curse is the vernier caliper. The micrometer is easier because I need to use both hands and it's easy to use with the right hand; but the vernier somehow begs to be used with the dominant hand.

 

My microwave is in the left-hand corner of the kitchen so the door has to be hinged on the left to make it usable. The fridge/freezer door is hinged on the right as supplied new but the doors are reversible. The real pain is the washing machine, but really because it's in a cramped corner rather than my handedness.

 

The ignition key in the old car was a problem even though I had the car for a full eleven years. The new car is keyless and the manufacturer has had the sense to put the start button on the left!

 

- Richard.

[Trains4U]

I'm not sure if left-handedness is linked to a liking of technical/detailed things, but its interesting to note that there are three left-handers at Trains4U (Myself among them)

 

And in my day-jobs, I worked as an IT Lead software tester in a team of seven, where 5 of us were left handed, and in my current IT development team of 9, 4 of us are left handed.

 

 

 

Saying that, I use my mouse right-handed, my knife and fork the right way around, I bowl (10-pin) right handed, and couldn't use left-handed scissors or pens if I tried (Though my soldering iron is always to the left)

Edited December 12, 2018 by Trains4U

[Happy Hippo]

The Army though has no LH version of the SA80  assault rifle unlike most of it's contemporaries.

 

Stu

A problem that was not new as using the Sten and Stirling SMG's threw up a similar problem.

 

However, shooting is different to other sports/occupations as the main factor which dictates which side you shoot is not being sinister, but which eye is the dominant of the two.

 

Although very left handed I have never had a problem switching shoulders and therefore eyes, which made me very popular when having to look and possibly shoot around the left hand edge of cover.

[dhjgreen]

I'm not sure if left-handedness is linked to a liking of technical/detailed things.......

I think now is the time to add my piece of trivia (maybe made up by a left-hander)

Ten percent of the people who ever lived have been left handed, but 90% of geniuses are/were left handed, Da Vinci being an obvious example.

[Trains4U]

A problem that was not new as using the Sten and Stirling SMG's threw up a similar problem.

 

However, shooting is different to other sports/occupations as the main factor which dictates which side you shoot is not being sinister, but which eye is the dominant of the two.

 

Although very left handed I have never had a problem switching shoulders and therefore eyes, which made me very popular when having to look and possibly shoot around the left hand edge of cover.

 

 

I managed to master the bolt action version (L-98), qualify as an RAF Marksman as a cadet  and eventually become a civilian weapons instructor and range conducting officer in the ATC.

 

You just have to practice!

[Stubby47]

ATM machines are very right-handed. One I used today even had a shell over the key pad that made it almost impossible to use left handed.

[Trains4U]

I'll just leave this here...  (Grrrrrrrr)

 

[jbqfc]

ATM machines are very right-handed. One I used today even had a shell over the key pad that made it almost impossible to use left handed.

them and railway ticket machines are a pain to use

 

John

[Ray Von]

There seem to be a lot of similar cases regarding schooldays and teachers' appalling attitudes to left-handedness - on one occasion my partner was made to hold her pen in the right hand and then had cellotape lashed round and round the hand and pen by one such unthinking (I won't put the word I was going to use) person.

 

Needless to say, this was humiliating and distressing.

Edited December 12, 2018 by Ray Von

[47137]

ATM machines are very right-handed. One I used today even had a shell over the key pad that made it almost impossible to use left handed.

 

I've had one of these too. Thinking it through now, I want to understand why I use by DCC controller in my right hand, but insisted on using my left hand for this ATM - the thing needed a contortionist. The saving grace for me is the demise of the public call box. Impossible things.

 

- Richard.

[Captain Cuttle]

With a partner who is a lefty, this all sounds very familiar - and you have my sympathies. My best mate / drinking competitor is also left-handed, so I hear a lot of - quite justifiable mostly - rants.

 

We once googled "Microwave Oven with Hinges on Right" they're out there, but they cost more than a regular one!!! =-O

 

This might upset some lefty's - but living with one can be a bl*%dy NIGHTMARE! Nothing is ever the "right" way round! The kitchen is probably the worst place, kettle in the right-hand corner with the handle facing left, wooden spoons and other cooking utensils are kept in a tall container next to the hob - this switches from the left to the right side of the hob in an unspoken war of attrition that shows no sign of ever ending! I switch the door hinges on fridges whenever we get a new one, for the sake of a quiet life(!) I could go on... :-)

Well, i am left handed and dont have any real issues apart from a shake due to a tennis elbow  operation which prevents me from using my left hand to write and holding a soldering iron. i just used my right hand more and strangely cant cut anything using scissors in my left hand.  I use the mouse in my right hand and type with both!!

Alan

[steve1]

I have never heard a sensible and logical reason for forcing left handers to write right handed. I suspect (hope) that if any educational establishment tried that now there would be such a serious fuss made and it would be stopped.

 

steve (right handed, although my wife thinks I should really have been a left for some reason.)

Edited December 12, 2018 by steve1

[newbryford]

I have never heard a sensible and logical reason for forcing left handers to write right handed. I suspect (hope) that if any educational establishment tried that now there would be such a serious fuss made and it would be stopped.

 

steve (right handed, although my wife thinks I should really have been a left for some reason.)

 

Because the hand follows the pen for left handers, there's a danger that the ink may be smudged. Which I guess is why I've seen left handers write with a wide/high elbow and curled wrist looping around the fresh ink - which looks so uncomfortable.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Zomboid]

Is left-handedness more common in Japan/ China etc where they write right to left?

 

Though those scripts were invented when it was all written using a brush.

[laurenceb]

Most so called left-handed scissors are a con, being right-handed ones fitted with faux handles so that they are not much use to anyone. When I started school my mother told the school that I am left-handed, "dont worry we will soon cure him of that" said they, they were told otherwise. The

[Stubby47]

My mother has a pair of left handed scissors - the blades are reversed to a standard pair so the natural effort of squeezing the blades as they cut is maintained.

 

Which leads md to say that both my two sister, my mother & myself are left handed - my father was the odd one.

 

Mum had a complication at birth meaning her right arm was mostly useless. Whilst we were young Dad worked shifts, so we were home with Mum mostly. And we are all left-handed....

Edited December 13, 2018 by Stubby47

[rab]

I'm left handed and soon after starting school

I developed a stammer (I managed to sort of

conquer it in my late teens, but it still catches

me out sometimes).

 

Much later in life I heard about the link between

stammering and being forced to write right handed.

I don't remember being made to use the right hand

when learning to write, but I've often wondered if

I was (it obviously failed).

 

I used to find ring binders a pain.

While right handed people can happily fill one up

with blank paper then write in them, I had to take

the paper out in order to be able to start writing

at the left hand side of the page.

Edited December 13, 2018 by rab

[lapford34102]

Rab, you're not the only one.

 

The reason for Left handedness makes for interesting if occasionally disturbing reading.

 

https://www.google.co.uk/search?source=hp&ei=izESXMuLB8qWsAePypPYDw&q=why+are+some+people+left+handed&oq=why+are+some+&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0l10.151.5702..8487...0.0..0.3086.10893.5-1j1j1j0j3......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0i3.8r5JtuagnAw

 

Stu

[njee20]

The problem with most scissors (for me) isn't so much that the blades are handed, it's that the handles are 'profiled' to fit the right hand only, like this:

 

 

Which just makes them uncomfortable. In reality I just find 'flat' scissors, or deal with the fact they're a bit uncomfortable!

 

I'm the same as many in having my cutlery the 'right' way around, but if I only have a single implement (be it knife, fork or spoon) I still have it in my left, which is the opposite to right handers, which is weird IMO! Why do you have a fork in your left hand if you have a knife as well, yet if you only have a fork hold it in the right hand!? I have my drink on my left, but use my computer mouse right handed.

For writing I personally turn the paper through 90 degrees, so I'm effectively writing perpendicular to the edge of the desk. Deals with the smudging and is a bit less awkward than doing the 'claw' thing where you write from above. Still tend to avoid using fountain pens just in case though!

At uni there were fixed desks with a small fixed table on the RH armrest which was a massive pain. Cake forks are always right handed - the wide tine is set up for right handed use. I've seen a few lists of "things that left-handers find difficult" and honestly most have never occured to me (taps and door handles go the wrong way apparently), you just learn one way. I imagine those who change from being right handed may well find things a bit more awkward. I still enjoy joking with mrs njee20 that I'm disabled by society though!

[Fat Controller]

Lynne was far too modest to mention that she's an accomplished knitter. Her mother despaired of teaching her to knit, so it was left to her father (also left-handed) to watch how her mother knitted, and then translate the movements into a form that could be used by a left-hander. 

Left-handedness seems to have run in the paternal side of the family; curiously, her grandfather was left-handed, but was able to write different things with his two hands simultaneously.

My handwriting is terrible with both hands; a girl-friend (another left-hander) used to regularly send my letters back to me with the bits she couldn't read underlined...

[Fat Controller]

If you've left-handed kids in the family, the implications for their education and confidence can be serious - see this post (in 2018 not 2108 ) from Left n Write;

 

https://www.leftshoponline.co.uk/this-child-is-left-handed-and-last-year-during-school-nursery-the-keyperson-tried-to-get-them-to-switch-hands-for-writing/

 

Guidance from the Left n Write shop is available, since there's no statutory obligation to support handwriting for left handed kids

[The Johnster]

This thread has made me notice which hand I hold my controller in when I am operating, and the answer is that I hold it in whatever hand I happened to pick it up with until I need that hand for something else; I can control my trains equally well with either hand, and the controller, a Gaugemaster HH, is not designed to be used in any specific hand.  I cannot praise the HH highly enough, brilliant control and it 'disappears' from my awareness when I use it, as if there was a direct connection from my brain to the locomotive.  Best I've ever had.

[Trains4U]

Folding tablecloths after a show is easy though,  If the other person is right-handed, you always instinctively turn the folded cloths the same way.