This is Dave’s amputated finger.

Dave lost his finger due to a spider bite. A really poisonous nasty spider bite that made him incredibly ill. I have not posted any photo’s of what Dave’s hand and arm looked like after the spider bite or the surgery as they are very, very gory. But this is the end result. Dave lost most of his index finger on his left hand.

Robofinger for the left hand too? Yes. Robofinger has been developed for left and right handed people. Although Rich lost his fingers on his right hand and developed the Robofinger originally for the right hand, we have created it for lefties too!

Richard had to create Dave a special ring as the standard ring did not fit due to Dave’s stump being slightly shorter.

Richard had chosen a medium size finger and that was the picture we posted on our Facebook page as the one for Dave, but Dave required a small, so Rich had to start with anodizing first before putting the finger together. The anodizing is quite a lengthy process which took up a major part of the day.

While the parts were anodizing Rich started with moulding the hand cap for everything to attach to. It’s slightly different creating this hand cap to the one for the full Robohand as thumb and other fingers are still in tact.

Preparing the hand cap is also a complicated and lengthy process. We advise this be done by an Occupational Therapist. The hand cap takes a lot of cutting, sanding and moulding. On, off, on, off, a tweak here, cut a bit off there, make sure the palm is not completely covered and so it goes. But finally Rich had it perfect.

Rich put the anodized parts together and so the Robofinger began to take its shape. While sitting with Dave, we discovered that he is an avid astronomer, a musician, a painter as well as holding his day job in Electronics. He is a very busy man so having a Robofinger is a top priority.

Once the piece began to take the shape of Robofinger Rich began attaching everything to the hand cap. Many fittings on and off to ensure no pinching and the fulcrum is correct.

After a long hard day for Rich, seeing Dave’s smile when he tried on his finished Robofinger was well worth it. Welcome to the Robohand Family Dave!