A Hack for Sore Hands

Storebought or Homemade: Tell Us!
Post Reply
Diane Kauffmds
Posts: 3246
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

A Hack for Sore Hands

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

I have had 2 surgeries on each of my hands, plus I have neuropathy in each. Using traditional hand tools can be a challenge and downright painful, so I try to repurpose tools.

One of the most painful, if not the most painful, things for me to do on a guitar is scraping the bindings and purflings. I have the traditional size scrapers and miniature scrapers. I've used razor blades and I have a binder scraper.

I've used my miniature block plane, which works great and is less painful, but you have to be very careful how you use it so that you don't end up planing beyond the purfling, gouging a top or back, an easy thing to do considering their radius.

I saw the Veritas miniature edge plane and thought it might help, so I bought it. To control the width of the cut, to keep it right on the binding/purfling, without going further, I just cut a piece of wood and used double sided tape to hold it.

The plane gave me a good hold that is a lot less painful than using scrapers or blades. I had the box done in no time, without damaging my hands further, and without pain.

Although I tried attaching a curved piece of wood to the plane, it still won't reach into the waist of an OM. But, I only had a couple of inches to finish on the waist compared to 120" of total scraping, which was vastly easier.

The edge plane kept the cut at a perfect right angle. It did a beautiful job. I bought the miniature edge plane from Lee Valley for $39.

https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/to ... edge-plane
IMG_3092.JPG
IMG_3098.JPG
IMG_3097.JPG
IMG_3095.JPG
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
jread
Posts: 560
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2019 9:52 am
Contact:

Re: A Hack for Sore Hands

Post by jread »

thanks for this and for your offline advice. After a year of building, I find I need to change several of my hand damaging methods as it rapidly got worse w/ my crazy idea to do 4 builds at once. Way too much repetitive work coupled w/ bad techniques. Your posts are incredibly useful.
Diane Kauffmds
Posts: 3246
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

Re: A Hack for Sore Hands

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

You're welcome John. I'm glad the information helps.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
Stray Feathers
Posts: 677
Joined: Sun Sep 08, 2013 11:39 pm
Location: Ladysmith, BC

Re: A Hack for Sore Hands

Post by Stray Feathers »

A very useful tip for those of with aging working parts! Also - um - a reason to go to Lee Valley . . .
Diane Kauffmds
Posts: 3246
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

Re: A Hack for Sore Hands

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

Stray Feathers wrote:A very useful tip for those of with aging working parts! Also - um - a reason to go to Lee Valley . . .
True. Actually, their miniature planes have been very helpful. I love the new mini jack plane.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
JLT
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 9:13 pm
Location: Sacramento, CA USA

Re: A Hack for Sore Hands

Post by JLT »

Another tool I've found useful for this is a scraper holder:



Image

It's a lot easier on the hands than trying to hold the scraper and bend it to the proper configuration at the same time.

Veritas makes one (and Woodcraft sells it) but it costs over twice as much.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/wood ... 65930008c9
Post Reply