A Hack for Sore Hands
Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2020 8:51 am
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
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
