I first heard about ROBOHAND in early February 2013, on Talk Radio 702 when John Robbie telephonically interviewed Richard [Rich]. I sent an Email to Rich who had lost 4 fingers whilst using a circular saw and told him of the loss of the top two segments of my left hand index finger after being bitten by a Violin spider on 28th August 2011.

I had investigated a prosthetic finger, but as my finger and hand still needed corrective surgery, I was waiting for my hand to stabilize after this surgery.

Rich telephoned me back that same day and I made an appointment to see him the next day.

He turned out to be a straight talking no nonsense family man, with a great sense of humour [which I pushed to the limit], a charming and supportive wife Beth.

Rich took measurements of my ‘stump’ and the angle of movement I was capable of and said he would work on a ‘ROBOHAND’ and contact me when it was ready.

On Sunday [no rest for the wicked] 21st April 2013 I arrived at Rich’s house where Rich assembled the prosthesis step by step. His Robohand was the first one he had produced and mine was number two.

Rich has a workshop at his house with everything he needs to produce the finished article. His workbench has dozens of spare parts for mechanical fingers.

The prosthesis is custom made one step at a time with checking measurements being taken as each step is progressed. It consists of several parts that have to be aligned correctly in order for the ‘finger’ to be functional. The ‘finger’ is straight when the ‘stump’ is straight, but as the ‘stump’ moved towards the thumb, the top of the finger curls inwards to meet the thumb giving the ‘finger’ gripping power.

All that remains is to ‘decorate’ the glove, then train the brain to recognize and use the Robofinger.

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!