Is it worth it? Whats your experience?
Just keep playing and let your fingers toughen up. That’s my advice.
Not a guitar player, but I’ve done my fair share of climbing, which is quite punishing to the skin on your fingertips.
My immediate answer is a clear no. The skin on your fingertips adapts very quickly, and hardens within a week or two of being worn down regularly. If anything, you want to make sure that you keep your skin well cleaned (helps it heal faster). Some people have good experience using moisturiser, and say that helps their skin recover more quickly. I’ve also known people who will carefully sand down the skin on their fingertips if it starts getting too hard, or if they haven’t climbed for a while and it starts peeling (usually starts happening after 1-2 weeks of low/no exposure).
Regardless, the rawness of the fingertips is a quickly passing issue for people who have not worn down their fingertips sufficiently in recent time.
You can check out some of these skin products which are designed for climbers. Some are meant to improve skin healing time, and some are supposed to help harden your skin. If you want to use anything, I suggest something like that instead of glue.
Because the glue cracks instead of flexing, it’ll start flaking immediately and make playing more irritating than the normal scratchiness that happens when the edges of a callus starts poking up. Accidentally got super glue on one finger and playing without using that finger was less annoying than using it.
Absolutely not. Your fingers will develop the hard skin necessary to play for extended periods. Just trust your body’s ability to adapt and stop when it starts hurting. Using superglue or any other kind of protection only puts off the inevitable, and opens you up to other risks like accidentally supergluing your fingers together.
If you really can’t cope then guitar is not for you.
Lol my dumbass thought you meant glueing the strings to your fingers to force you to play
Superglue ends up hurting the skin in the long run as neither the glue nor the skin will withstand much fretting before peeling starts. It’s better to just keep at it.
Your fingertips will harden surprisingly fast, one of the few things to happen faster to beginner guitarists than trying to play Wonderwall. It only takes some practice everyday and after a week or two you’ll be fine.
Your fingers stop hurting within two weeks. Absolutely no reason to do it
Calluses build up fast if you keep at it.
The pain is just weakness leaving the body.
Got me curious, so I did some digging: from a dermatological perspective, I’d give a strong vote ‘no’.
This is a wordy article, and not from the kinds of medical resources I usually consider credible, but it passes the smell test and the question is ultimately about glue, so a website specializing in it makes sense - I’d recommend giving it a read:
https://gluesavior.com/why-do-super-glue-bond-to-skin/
Ctrl+F “Dangers of Super Glue on Skin” if you want to skip to the juicy bits.
Basically you’re looking at chemical burns and skin breakdown as a short-term consequence; and neurological damage long term. You 100% do NOT want neurological damage in your fingers if playing a guitar (or… doing anything that uses your fingers) is important to you.
I’d guess there are products made specifically for this that won’t kill your fingers - you could probably find some recommendations at a more specific community here - quick search reveals a good handful of options specific to guitar… no idea if any of them are active, but that’d be a good start.
Good luck, and don’t kill your fingers!
Thank you!
I believe these dangers will depend largely on the type of glue you use. I know that some super glue recipes are effectively the same ones used in surgical glues, which I would imagine would be safe® on your skin.
Either way, developing calluses naturally will be the best way to do it. They’ll form naturally to the right shape, but glue will be applied slightly differently each time, which could lead to consistency issues while learning to play.
surgical glues, which I would imagine would be safe® on your skin
Not necessarily. Some of the stuff we use in surgery is toxic as fuck. Like, in cases that use bone cement, any staff in the room who happen to be pregnant are required to leave the room once we get to that part of the case because just breathing in the fumes from that shit can fuck up the baby.
That said, it’s all about weighing risks against desired outcome: generally that super toxic shit is fine for the patient because they’re only exposed to it once and then sent on their way.
The closest thing we use to superglue is products like Dermabond (which is thicker, but otherwise I think it’s basically just superglue) to reinforce the sutures when closing a surgical incision. But same spiel - we put it on in the OR and send them on their way. It isn’t reapplied for any length of time, if there are any long term effects of Dermabond, we probably don’t even know about them because we never put on more than one application. …but even that will cause chemical burns to the epidermis; they’re just mild enough that they’re deemed worth it to keep the wound closed.
Huh, TIL about bone cement. I was curious so I looked it up, and for those who are also curious, it appears to typically be a mix of PMMA (i.e. plexiglass) and its monomer MMA (although some radically different materials have been developed). You mix the goo and it turns to dough and then eventually hardens into, well, plexiglass. The SDS for MMA doesn’t seem that bad, so there must be more to it than just that.
Thanks for sharing this! I never knew plexiglass was biocompatible-ish and was used in this way.
Here’s the specific stuff I’m familiar with:
https://www.zimmerbiomet.com/en/products-and-solutions/specialties/cement/biomet-bone-cement-r.html
99% of the cases that use bone cement I’ve been in, in all of the hospitals I’ve worked at, have used that specific product. With the exception of a shoulder surgeon I worked with who liked this goopy blue shit that got everywhere.
In any case, that stuff is, uh… pungent. Like even when I’m not in the ortho room, if I want to check on how far along their case is, I don’t even need to actually look in the OR - getting near the room is enough to tell me whether or not the implants are in, indicated by the presence or absence of that smell within about 15-feet of each entrance to that OR.
Pregnant or not, I can’t imagine breathing that shit every day is doing us any favors. >_>
…and that’s ignoring electrocautery smoke, radiation, and all the biohazardous shit we’re exposed to in there. I swear in 10 years we’re going to be featured in cautionary training videos about what happens when you don’t use whatever latest-and-greatest technique is being pitched to keep that shit out of our lungs.
Ahhh, hell yeah time to dig for a SDS!
PDF warning: https://imgcdn.mckesson.com/CumulusWeb/Click_and_learn/SDS_ZIMMER_CEMENT_BONE_BIOMET_R_1X40_1_BX.pdf
looks like it’s the monomer of plexiglass with hydroquinone to prevent premature polymerization and N,N-dimethyl-p-toluidine which is like, an adhesive or something? The latter is probably the issue.
Yeah, seems like people working in medicine have a rough time of it. My sister works in a cath lab and I worry about her exposure levels sometimes. I know she wears a dosimeter but like, man, it’s a lot of X-rays.
It’s been a long time since I played and I was never professional, but I just powered through. The calluses build up relatively quickly if you keep with it daily. Sometimes I wouldn’t even play, just form chords for as long as my fingers would let me to reinforce the calluses
You could also try lighter-action strings. I’ve had some that were very heavy and absolutely not worth the pain. But as the saying goes, “you’ve got to pay your dues to play the blues”
Coming from a point of complete ignorance - couldn’t you use a guitar pick instead?
On one hand yes, but what about second hand?
He’ll still need the superglue to glue picks to the ends of each finger.
Ah yeah, that’s where the complete ignorance came into play
I don’t think he knows about second hand, Pippin.
No, that would only “protect” your strumming hand and would do nothing for the other one. Besides finger/fingernail strumming/plucking/slapping/etc are useful techniques in addition to picking.
Right, right. It’s been long enough since I played guitar that I forgot that it’s actually the fingers on the non-strumming hand that takes the major punishment, not the strumming one.
My guitar teacher had me learn on a steel-string acoustic for this very reason. It sucked at first, but the calluses built up fast. Much, much better than superglue!
This may come off as rude, but I ask out of genuine curiosity: why would you think this is a good idea?
My pinky hurts and Lemmy Killmeister did it. Also others.
Damn he fucked up your finger so bad it still hurts 9 years after his death? What a legend.
Lets eat grandma
Why are you an exception to a long history of successful musicians and guitar engineers? It’s not an extreme sport. Is there something wrong with you?
Are you using superglue to close cuts on your fingertips? Or are you trying to create a thick pad of glue to act as a protective layer? Do you already have a blister or cut? Or are you trying to prevent one?
To close a cut or cover a blister, superglue works in a pinch.
As padding to avoid blisters or cuts, it doesn’t really work. If you’re playing enough to cause a new blister, it just cracks and flakes off anyway. It might get you through a song if you’re desperate. Long term, you’re better off getting your fingers calliused and learning to play with different fingerings to take the pressure off an injury.
Pros have to go on stage and play. If you’re playing for yourself, for fun, you can take a few days off and let your fingertips heal.
