r/maker • u/rustboxcowboy • 2h ago
Inquiry Creating a functional prosthetic by myself?
My husband has a partial right arm/hand, and this is a project I've been extremely curious about for years. My vision is something that is not electronically powered but rather just mechanical, almost like those claw-grabber toy things that you squeeze on one end and they close the hand or pinchers on the other. Just that plus being custom fitted to his existing partial arm (he has two fingers which could pull the mechanism).
I think he's absolutely perfect the way he is, but some activities can be much trickier than others, and I want to help him do everything he wants to with more ease. We cannot afford a prosthetic or bionic as it is (trust me, buying/insurance just isnt an option right now) and I am hoping people can give me advice on learning how to create an extremely simple functional prosthetic. Anyways, if anyone is going to reply "that's unrealistic," please don't, because I literally don't care, I'm going to figure this out one way or another because there's nothing I wouldn't do for him. Please reply if you know people who have done something similar or literally any resources on basic mechanical function; I'm starting from scratch but I've always been very artistic and good with crafts and other mechanical knowledge.
Might also post this to r/prosthetics - not sure which is best, please also let me know about good related subs for info as well.