Finger Protection While Grinding

 Grinding lots of glass pieces often leads to a number of small cuts on the tips of your fingers. There are several things that can be done to reduce these cuts and the tenderness that comes from lots of grinding.

Various methods of protection are used.

Altering the fingers used to press the glass to the grinding bit.

Gloves –  It is not recommended that you wear gloves around rotating machinery. There is too much risk of injury, even on a small grinding machine. Some of the alternatives to gloves include plasters (band aids), masking tape, electrical tape.

Finger protection you can buy include rubber finger protectors, finger tip pads, finger caps (as used in counting money).

Other tools are made to hold the glass such as the grinder cookie

and Nick's Grinder's Mate 

Prevention
The sore fingers are usually caused by tiny cuts from the glass. So, all these methods are ways of putting something between the glass edges and your fingers. More importantly, you need to think about your practice if you are getting sore fingers while grinding.

The first thing is just to lightly grind all the way around the piece. This can be quick, and should use minimum pressure. This to is to take the sharp edges off the glass.  You can do a simple, light grind all the way around the piece. This removes the extra sharp edges that often remain after breaking the glass.

You can go a step further and do a light arris around the piece. This is just lightly holding the glass at about 45degrees to the grinding bit and going all the way around on all sides. This does not take off the shape of the piece, but gives a more rounded feel to the piece.

An illustration of the effect of holding the glass at an angle to the grinding head, although it need not be so much.

If you have to press hard to achieve the effect you want, it may be that your grinder bit is badly worn. It may also be that you need to have a coarser bit to achieve the amount of grinding that you need.

You should not be pressing hard in any case. This will wear out bearings on the motor and reduce the life of the bit.  Let the grinder do the work. Many people seem to put huge pressure on the piece to grind away the waste more quickly, but this is actually counter-productive. Less pressure means less fatigue, less chipping at the edges, fewer broken pieces, and most importantly, fewer cuts to the finger tips.

You should use medium pressure to allow the diamonds on the grinding bit to do the work. This will be about the same pressure as scoring the glass.  Fine work requires a fine grit, removing a lot of glass requires a coarse bit, not more pressure.  

If you frequently have to remove large amounts of glass, you need to review the accuracy of your cutting. You should not be relying on the grinder to do more than tidy your cuts.

Remedies
There are several remedies to relieve the soreness:

Cucumber melon
Vitamin E
Tea tree oil
Germolene
Antibacterial hand lotion