So I know we’re all going through a lot right now. This whole distancing thing is really starting to wear on us and that’ll never be truer than during this holiday season. That’s why I invented these. Stay 6’ away from your friends and family while doing all the activities just like you used to. It’s almost like they’re not even there! The build all starts by planing down a bunch of basswood lumber that was reclaimed from a friend of mine. I chose basswood specifically for this project because of it's light weight and also because the grain is very even and straight, which makes it easier to carve. Each of these boards gets planed down and then sanded with the drum sander to exactly an inch thick.

1. instructables
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing)
by JackmanWorks
Step 1: Notable Tools
So I know we’re all going through a lot right now. This
whole distancing thing is really starting to wear on us
and that’ll never be truer than during this holiday
season. That’s why I invented these. Stay 6’away from
your friends and family while doing all the activities just
like you used to. It’s almost like they’re not even there!
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 1

2. Step 2: Preparing the Materials
Step 3: Cutting Out the Parts
Inventables
► X-Carve Pro CNC https://bit.ly/3pwLKQo
► 1/4" Upcut Bit https://bit.ly/3kBUEZ4
Arbortech power carving tools (code "JackmanHands"
gets you 20% o )
► Mini Carver https://bit.ly/2IMRTqu
► Power Carving Unit (NEW!) https://bit.ly/3pzNrfQ
► Turbo Plane https://bit.ly/3lFCqr9
► Power Chisel https://bit.ly/3nuLoIb
TotalBoat epoxy, varnish, etc. (code "Jackman15" gets
you 15% o )
► Thixo Epoxy Adhesive (fast cure)
https://bit.ly/2IEWQSa
► Halcyon Clear https://bit.ly/3psBXL3
ISOtunes bluetooth hearing protection (code
"Jackman10" gets you $10 o every pair!)
► https://bit.ly/3kvodLJ (XTRA 2.0 shown in this video,
available for preorder now)
The build all starts by planing down a bunch of basswood lumber that was reclaimed from a friend of mine. I chose
basswood speci cally for this project because of it's light weight and also because the grain is very even and straight,
which makes it easier to carve. Each of these boards gets planed down and then sanded with the drum sander to exactly
an inch thick.
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3. Step 4: Cleaning Up the Parts
These are my pile of "prototypical ngers", which is still
seems like an uncomfortable phrase to use for some
reason. It took a little while to work out the best design
to make the nger function both by letting me collapse
it down by pulling a string and then using a bungee cord
to return it straight again. Luckily, the CNC router is
perfect for something like this because I can tweak the
design and cut ngers until I get a working prototype.
But now that I've mentioned CNC, feel free to skip the
rest of the album because the o cially means this is no
longer a real woodworking project any more.
With that gured out, I'm able to design all 5 ngers
using the original pointer nger as a guide. I also
separated out the holes that are the pivot points and cut
those out rst so that I could utilize those holes to insert
screws to hold the board to the table while the CNC cut
out the pieces.
Then I just let it cut out the ngers x10. The basswood is
an easy cut on the X-Carve, it just frays a little bit, but
that'll be easy to clean up later. You can also see the
channel now where the string and bungee will live to
operate each nger, which will both be almost entirely
hidden from view when it's done.
Each board was good for one nger, so I cut down 10
boards, clean up the mess that my robot slave leaves
behind, and then cut the tabs with a router that are
holding all of the pieces together.
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4. Step 5: Assembling the Fingers
I organize all of the pieces into each nger and keep
them in place temporarily with some carriage bolts
through the pivot point holes.
The edges of all of the pieces are smoothed out using
the bench top belt sander. This removes the frizz from
the CNC, but also smooths out the surface so that things
will slide smoothly later. I gure this is easier to do now
instead of after the glue-up when some of these edges
will no longer be accessible.
For each nger, I line the lower slot with a thin copper
pipe. This pipe gives me a smooth tube for the paracord
to slide down later to reduce the friction as much as
possible.
Then the top slot in each nger gets a bungee cord. One
end of the bungee is pressure t into place in a circle at
the end of the slot and then I crimp down the other end
with a thin nail and cut it to length so that it's short
enough to t with a joint missing, that way when I install
all the joints the bungee will always be in tension.
With all the preparations done, the ngers can nally be
assembled. The copper tube is held in place with some
epoxy adhesive, and then the rest of the nger is glued
together with regular wood glue and then held together
with an excessive number of clamps while the glue and
epoxy dry.
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5. Step 6: Cleaning Up the Fingers
After leaving everything for the night, the clamps can be carefully removed from the ngers.
With a little bit of glue squeeze-out to clean up, each of the ngers is run over the belt sander again to remove that and
any small inconsistencies in the glue-up.
There is also some squeeze out between the joints, so I take the chance now to scrape that o with a chisel so that it
doesn't interfere with the pivoting movement later.
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 5

6. Step 7: Creating Block Connector
Step 8: Creating Splaying Connector
With the ngers complete, the last parts I need are the
ones that will connect all of the ngers together so that
this thing at least vaguely resembles a hand. I start by
gluing up a block of basswood that will connect the
thumb to the rest of the hand at an angle.
This joint is going to remain rigged for the sake of
simplicity (as if the rest of the build is simple), so I I cut an
angle in the blocks that is precisely equal to whatever
angle I think looks right at the time.
Then I trace out the pro le of the thumb onto this block
where the thumb is tilted at another precise random
angle to give the thumb a compound angle to the hand
overall. The excess from the outside of this block is
removed on the bandsaw.
Now to splay the rest of the ngers out, it's a little simpler of a solution. I get some more blocks of basswood just over an
inch thick and re-saw them down at an angle by temporarily attaching a block to the piece to hold it o the fence.
This creates a bunch of massive wedges that I then trace out from the bottom section of the ngers just like the rst
piece. These are cut to size all the way around on the bandsaw.
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7. Step 9: Carving the 1st Hand
Step 10: Carving the 2nd Hand Parts
Now o camera I carve down the rst hand using some
power carving tools that I'll show in a bit. This allowed
me to re ne the shape of the hand using my large hand
print-out (in the background) as a rough guide and my
own hand as reference for what contour happened
where. I was able to do this by hot gluing the hand
together to carve it and then I could still pop the parts
apart for the next step.
With the pro le of the rst hand set, I wanted to copy
that exactly for the 2nd hand and it was fairly easy to do
since I was able to pop the hand sections apart and then
use those to trace the pro les on the sections of the
hand that haven't been carved yet.
And now back to carving! The 2nd time was much easier
than the rst since I was able to basically connect the
dots from one side to the other using the reference lines.
To carve all of this I use the Arbortech Turbo Plane in
their new Power Carving Unit angle grinder.
With the palm of the hand carved down to rough shape,
I then do the same hot glue technique to temporarily
fasten the sections of the hands together along with the
wedges.
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 7

8. Step 11: Carving the 2nd Hand
Step 12: Gluing the Thumb
From there I'm then able to carve the wedges down to size to meet the rest of the palm of the hand, and also re ne the
shape of the edge of the hand and of the thumb.
This is the connection piece between the thumb and the rest of the hand, but I though it was just an interesting shot to
show the di erence between carving with the grain (left side of the photo) vs carving against the grain (right side of the
photo).
I decide at this point to glue the thumb in place before I
lose too much clamping surface. I make a big wedge and
hot glue that to the bottom of the thumb connector part
and then use that as a clamping surface to clamp and
glue the thumb in place with wood glue.
With the thumb dry, I'm then able to separate all of the
pieces again and remove the hot glue. Some come o
easy by just slamming the hand on the table, but some
require a putty knife in the joint along with a bit of
persuasion.
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9. Step 13: Hollowing Out the Palm
Step 14: Carving and Sanding the Fingers
The 4 main ngers are brought back down to the CNC so that I can cut a cavity out of the palm section of the hand. This is
simply to take weight o the hands to make them as usable as possible, and now that the pro le of the hands is
established, I'm able to safely carve away this material without worrying about carving into a hollow part later.
The last part to carve down to shape is the ngers. This is
a little tricky since they want to move around so much,
but I just take light passes and clamp the nger to the
table from the palm section. The bolts through the pivot
holes also help keep things steady for carving.
I then switch over to the sanding disk in the grinder to
do some rough sanding of the ngers. These surfaces are
going to be di cult to reach after the nal glue-up of
the hand, so I want to do as much sanding now as
possible.
And I follow up the rough sanding with some nish
sanding with my random orbit sander. Don't ever
neglect the tip, of your ngers.
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10. Step 15: Assembling the Hand
Then one last step prior to the nal glue-up is spreading
wax inside the joint to lube things up before pinning
that joint in place with a 1/4" wood dowel. This joint will
be inaccessible after the glue-up, so I have to do it now.
Now this is one of the trickier glue-ups that I've ever
done. The best process I gured out may or may not be a
trick I invented (I de nitely didn't, but I'm a genius, so I'm
going to assume it's an original thought). The wedges
are glued and fastened in place to one side with pin nails
and then I shoot pin nails in the other side but allow
them to protrude by 1/4". The pin nail are headless, so
this allows for me to push the pieces together and the
pin nails sink into the other piece and hold that join
steady while I clamp (instead of everything sliding
around and creating an inevitable nightmare).
After that dries, I then do the second nal glue-up using
the same technique to attach the thumb, but this time
it's held together with a parallel clamp and a band clamp
while the glue dries, since it's such a funky shape.
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 10

11. Step 16: Sanding and Adding Pivot Point
Step 17: Creating Pocket for Arm
With everything glued together and all the glue dry, I'm
able to do some palm sanding...... get it? A palm sander is
a type of sander, but I'm also sanding a palm! A rare
woodworking joke, and as we all know, the only way to
make a joke better is by explaining it.
At this point I also do the nish sanding on the ngers
and wash and pin all of the joints like I did to the rst
joint. For now I leave the palm rough sanded since
there's still a little bit of work to do there.
A giant hand needs a giant arm to go with it right? Well I
wanted to keep the arm simple to keep it easy to hold
onto and also to not distract from the hand (or maybe
it's just my millennial laziness, I'll neve tell). It's kind of
hard to show in a cramped space, but I made a little
router jig out of 1/2" plywood with a recess so that my
router follows it and cuts out a 5" wide pocket for the
arm (jig cut on my CNC because I wouldn't be a
millennial woodworker if I didn't). I take about an 1/8"
o at a time until I get down to an inch deep pocket.
Here you can see the pocket a little better, it's also funny
you get to see the hollow posts again when I clean it out
with a leaf blower. I planned it though so that I'd have
just enough meat to bight into to hold the arm in place
(or maybe I just got lucky, I'll never tell).
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 11

12. Step 18: Creating the Arm
The arm needs a curve shape to t comfortably against
my arm since strapping a 15lb wooden hand to my arm
is going to be uncomfortable enough as it is. This
technique is known as cove cutting, you set up a fence at
an angle to your table saw blade and raise the blade up
about 1/16" at a time to carve out this curved recess in
your workpiece. You can control the steepness of the
curve by changing the angle of the fence relative to the
blade and change the location of the cut by just moving
the fence closer or further from the blade.
Once I'm happy with the depth of that cut, I re ne the
end of it by hand with my Mini Carver grinder, since the
cutting on the table saw leaves a triangular shaped
section that I still need to remove.
The at spot that is left is then t inside the pocket in the
back of the hand and glued/screwed in place.
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 12

13. Step 19: Adding Handles
Step 20: Final Sanding
Step 21: Adding Lines to the Palm
I still need some way to hold onto this hand and also to hold the strings that operate the ngers, so I scribe and cut some
blocks to t that coves that I just cut out.
These blocks are glued and clamped in place and will later hold some eye-bolts that will holds the paracord strings near
my ngers. At this time I also install a drawer handle on each arm that I will use to hold on to to keep the hand steady in
my... hand.
Now the nal palm sanding can commence.... and this time it's an actual palm sander on the palm... comedy!
Last little bit of detail to add was the lines on the palm of my hand using the Power Chisel. These are copied from the my
actual palm, so if you can get a clean shot of the lines, then you can gure out my social security number (I think that's
how that works?).
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 13

14. Step 22: Adding Finish
Step 23: Use Cases!
Nothing weirder than seeing giant handles dangle from your shop ceiling right? It's a privileged problem, I know. It was
getting to cold outside at this point to spray nish, so I moved everything out of the way and did this instead.
A handful of coats of TotalBoat varnish later and the hands are all wrapped up before things get too out of hands.
Now let's nally answer the question "why?" It's people's
favorite question to ask when they see my work, and my
opinion of that is that if not one person who sees a piece
of my work and asks "why?", then that piece of work was
a failure. Any way, let's skip past my weird self-obsession,
it's for social distancing of course! They worked great for
trick-or-treating.
Then Thanksgiving dinner was a breeze (we had a lot of
Halloween candy left over, don't judge...)
You'd better believe that our annual Thanksgiving day
football game isn't going to end just because of a
pandemic.
And shout-out to Santa for coming for a visit early to lm
this scene with us, this was before he even got the
vaccine! We really don't pay essential workers like Santa
enough, it's almost like we don't even pay them
anything (way to end this fun post on a downer,
Jackman).
Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 14

15. Step 24: Glamour Shots
Hope you enjoyed the build! As always, for the full
experience watch the full build video:
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Building Giant Articulated Hands (carved From Wood for Social Distancing): Page 15

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