This instructable shows how to transform the bark of an common oak to a wearable hand/glove for your left arm. In general this intent is not very difficult. The only thing you need is bark, a few tools, a glove and a little bit craftsmanship.

The difficulty is to maintain the flexibility of the joints of your hand. In this case we all together have 15 joints, in addition we can rotate our hand through the wrist. While putting everything together, it is necessary to leave these positions blank where the joints compress and stretch the glove, otherwise the whole construction will be to inflexible.

Wood hand in action:

Step 1: Materials & Tools

Materials:

Bark
Adhesive
Gloves
Zipper

Tools:

Hammer
Chisel
Knife
Pliers
Pepper mill

Step 2: Fragmenting the Bark

At first i removed all wood fibers from the backsite of the bark. After that i had the pure bark layer. To maintain the natural look i tryed to fragment the bark to small pieces which i transfered in the natural formation to the surface of the glove. The size of the pieces was adjusted to the length of my fingers.

Step 3: Inking the Gloves

This step is unnecessary if you use appropriate textile colors. I advise to use dark materials for the glove and the extension. As i used gray materials i had to prime the textile with brown and black color.

Step 4: Bark Puzzle

Then i mounted piece by piece on the glove. In the last step i filled the gaps between the bark pieces with "bark powder".

If you have the few tools you need and a little bit bark already at home, this project costs only a few bucks (glove, adhesive). Depending on the adhesive you choose, it can be a little bit time consuming. As i choosed a slow curing adhesive (which stayed more or less flexible after curing) i had to wait after each mounted piece for 2 hours+.