Jeweler's Bench Armrest

Greetings,

I just made my jeweler’s bench and am looking for the design/plans
for moveable armrests or armrests that I can purchase and mount
(preferably under the benchtop).

Have any of you tried the “Jeweler’s armrest” from Sep Tools? Here’s
a link to the page with this armrest:

Item SKU: SEP-444

Best Wishes to all,
Margaret

Some of my peers actually go into a sports store, or hardware store
and buy ‘strap-on’ elbow pads. Its even better with the mad
Christmas shopping coming up…–excuse me-- get my drift? LOL. But
these things are padded on the inside and hard plastic on the outside
to PROTEXCT the Ulner nerves right at the inside elbow. If there is
any long-term squeezing of that area, nerve damage ensues…gotta
get to work now, it just snowed 6 inches of the white stuff up here
in Toronto area or 15.24 cms.

Gerry Lewy!

The one protection against issues with hand and nerve injuries is to
take regular breaks. This is something we almost never do, as we tend
to get involved with the work and hours fly by like minutes. Stretch
your arms. Maybe a post with some good arm exercises might be needed.

-k

Karen Christians
M E T A L W E R X
50 Guinan St.
Waltham, MA 02451
Ph. 781/891-3854 Fax 3857
http://www.metalwerx.com/
Jewelry/Metalarts School & Cooperative Studio

Im lucky enough to have this problem, but mine came from having
several spinal surgeries over the last couple years. Its subdued over
time, but still causing pain once is a while. The technical name is
Cubical Tunnel Syndrome. It’s the same nerve that causes what is
called the funny bone pain. Nothing funny about this though.

When bed ridden after the surgeries, like most people do, I would
sit up in bed using their elbows to push up, and then my hands. It
wasn’t until after it caused a problem did my doctor suggest rolling
on my side, and then pushing up. The surgeries are over for now, but
the elbow pain isn’t. Oh, and if someone says they can fix it with
surgery, don’t do it. I found out that what they do is move the nerve
from your elbow, and pull it around so it doesn’t get pressure.
Apparently most people have more pain after the surgery than before.

On my bench Im using some make shift forearm pads to keep my elbows
up when I can. I mounted my forearm pads on blocks so I can move them
around. A company use to make a chair that had hydraulic and spring
assist forearm pads, so when you moved, then moved with you, but they
don’t make it anymore, and it was expensive as you could imagine.

Another thing to watch out for if you have this problem is when you
sleep. If you sleep with your arms folded that will not help you at
all either. My doctor had me wearing cheap elbow pads, but on the
wrong way, so the elastic was over the elbow. This kept me from
bending my arms in my sleep. It wasn’t fun and I never did get use to
them, but it did help ease the pain. I finally trained myself to
sleep with my arms straight, most of the time.

If you don’t take care of the problem it can affect your hands and
fingers as well as cause a lot of pain in your elbows. You can lose
your grip and finger control, numbness, tingling, tremors of the
hand, all of which are no good at all for a jeweler.

I still have the problem, and a doctor told me it is really hard to
make go away totally once you have it, but you can keep it under
control and get along just fine with it. If you catch it in time and
take action. But its all up to you to do it as un fortunately, it’s
most likely going to be with you the rest of your life.

About 30+ years ago, I started dropping pots and pans, had no
feeling in my last two fingers, numbness of hands, lower arms, and
pain in my elbows. At the time I was working at the race track and
galloping horses, and working them on a longe line. I spent quite a
bit of time being dragged along when a two year old decided that he
wanted to be galloping away from me instead of trotting quietly in a
circle. :slight_smile: (Training procedures have changed over the years-LOL). I
also realized that loading and unloading tons of hay and straw during
the Summer didn’t help, had no control to lift anything heavy above
my shoulders and finally I had two Ulnar Nerve Transplants.

I’ve not had any problems since then. I still train horses, still
load and unload tons of hay, straw, shavings, and was an independent
truck driver loading and unloading trailers boxed meat and produce
for almost 15 years. I’m almost 63, and still work with horses, still
shovel snow, and work just as hard, and still no problems even in the
cold weather. I do, however, have two pretty nasty scars under each
elbow from the surgery, but have no residual pain. I’m also typing on
the computer for about 6 hours a day.

I am careful of my diet, workouts (which I get here at the farm),
and take no meds. I think the aftercare procedure that the
orthopaedic surgeons give you are the biggest part of the key to
healing.

Dinah in Windy Snowy Cold Wyoming County, NY, where riding my horse
is on hold for a while but cross-country skiing is in-YIPEE.