Finger Protectors - Steel Guitar Strings

Intro: Finger Protectors - Steel Guitar Strings

I used to play guitar some - a sweet electro acoustic steel body.
Metal strings - THE HORROR!!!!!!

Well the missus just bought herself a pretty acoustic - with the steely torture devices - we where having none of the old pains so came up with this pretty simple but effective method to thwart the blood n weeping.

STEP 1: Tools N Materials

Not much

Tools = scissors

Material = bike inner tube - one from a racing wheel - one from a larger mountain bike type tire

STEP 2: Steps

Take your racer inner tube and cut a piece about 10mm long

Take the larger inner tube and cut a piece about 5/6mm depending on the size of the front portion of your finger ya wish to protect
Make a single cut through the larger ring - see pik

STEP 3: Fitting

So - take your small hoop and push the floppy ends of the big one just through untill they come out about 10mm, fold them back and kind grip the who;e thing.
Taking care slide the whole thing over you finger, untill the small ring is just over the first knuckle.
re adjust - pull gently on the floating ends till the whole thing is snug but not tight - - see piks
Move on to the next digit.
Simple, cheap, easy to replace and ya get loads of material in case you break or lose a cover.

One thing - depending on the size of the smaller ring/hoop ya might find your fingers start turning red/blue - three ways to help/stop this
Before fitting the covers, gently stretch the finger hoop to expand it a little
Use bigger tire tubes
Instead of inner tube some form of tape should work as well , but be a little more fiddly fitting into place

STEP 4: Fini

These worked great - they where fully adjustable - did not ride upwards as the nail was in the way - tight enough not to ride down - did not stick out anywhere and catch other strings - only covered the required area.

Hope they work for you guys too.

All the best

Comments

[Texas Starr]

Neat Idea, will it stay on your finger if playing fast? For those of us who has lost the tip of the finger I use a Galaxy Guitar FT-1 Finger Protector, it is basically a finger prosthetic that can absorb pressure. I experience pain & sensitivity especially in cold weather, check them out if you need full protection. I have a few of their FT-1's and just placed a custom order for their FT-1 XL. I lost my finger tip a few years back. I discovered them on this website on a different forum page. Here are a few links, hope it helps you if you have an injury or missing finger like mine. Some one helped me on this site. Anyway if you're searching hope I can help a few folks as well. https://www.galaxyguitar.com/ft1.html they have a facebook page & Videos on Youtube https://www.fb.com/galaxyguitarfingerprotectors Good Luck.

[Soose]

Thanks so much. I haven't played regularly in a long time and am going to use this strategy to extend my practice time while I build up some callouses.

[Freakyuser396]

pretty neat idea except one thing. Metal strings may hurt in the beginning but after some time you build up a cornea on your fingertips and it stops hurting. with this technique you keep your body from building that up and it will still hurt after years if you play without those bands even once

[darrenhall]

Hi - cheers for the comment - - your quite right - - - a request was made by my missus to produce finger protectors so that when her fingers got sore from practice she could carry on twice as long and the pain would drop off when the covers where applied - more often than not now though she removes them after about and hour and carries on without again - seems a good system and she has two goes at building up her resilience/stamina without stopping.