my favorite design has been a ring on the bottom, fitted to your fingers, and then just a band of elastic at the top of your finger... but then you can't bend them- it would be super cool to see some sort of jointed skeleton glove... yummy

I don't like the glove, the glove scares me. I've seen drippy fuel dripity drip onto hands ensconced in fingers - I've seen fingers on fire, and put out easily and quickly, and I've seen unintentional fires easily prevented on bare fingers. The idea of having all that melting gloves to my hands gives me the willies. I have similar feelings about the elastic - but that's just me being totally paranoid, I'm sure many people ave good experiences with the gloves and elastic.

I like 4 strands of wire twisted together to make the finger, more than I like 2 strands, but either will do. I like the 4 because they stand up to wear longer than the more delicate 2 stranders. And I like the 4 stranders because all in all they seam to be easier to put wick on than the 2, but this is just me. I'm certain others have had a fine time with 2 strands.

How crafty are you? Are you arty crafty or practical crafty? Do you have and use tools? Are you tough as nails, or a little bit of a wuss when it comes to your hands? You can make 2 strands with no tools, but the process hurts, IMHO, but I'm a wuss about my hands ;-) you can make them without assistance, but it's much easier with a pal

to make 4 stranders

Materials and tools
12 or 14 ga wire, 100 foot spool (just in case ;-)
corded drill, WITH a chuck
wire cutters
needle nose pliers
white glue
2" wide kevlar wick, 3-4" long for each finger
OR 1' wide wick 6-8" long each (nowa days you can get that)
fine wire 16-20 ga
kevlar thread and big needle


take 2 lenths of wire about 4 feet long
fold them each in half tightly
using a corded drill - battery drills seam to fail....
place wires in a drill chuck (no bit) and tighten reeeeaaaallllyyyy tight, use the chuck key,
secure the loose ends of the wire to something stable - door knob, pillar
pull trigger
the wire will begin to twist
as it twists the wires will begin to shorten some
try to get a nice tight twist
no loosey twist you could have achieved by hand
hold on, it's gonna wanna fight you a little, pull back on it.
twist until the twisted section is how long you'd like your tool to be. Mine are about 10"
unchuck your wire,
snip the other ends, giving yourself enough working material for the rings

This part is gonna be hard for me to describe, I'll do my best.
at one end you've got the "looped" end that was in the drill, at the other end you have tentacles of pokey madness. Splay out the loose ends so they look like this (I hope the little pic works)
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you have twisty wire to a T where 2 strands branch off
and 2 strands continue to twist to another T

these Ts become your rings

Place that thing on your finger, where you'd like it to fit, then wrap the wire under your finger and twist just once, like a twist tie, snip loose ends. Do the same for the other ring.

I like to, use needle nose pliers to bend that mess around, flatten it out so it fits nicely on my finger, clean it up so there are no snaggy edges, shape the ring well - this is where my craftiness and Martha like perfection comes in. Mess with it until it's fitting well on your finger, comes off nicely, goes on, you know, works and stuff.

okay, to other end.
Take the two loops and bend them out at 90 degrees to make a T
I use the T to secure the first wraps of my wick.

I use a 3-4" length of 2" wick, folded in half, length-wise
I also use a bead of white glue on the cut edges to prevent fraying - the white glue will harden with heat.

place your folded wick on the finger
fold one side of the T down to hold it in place
wrap wick around, fold down the other side of the T at some point where you'll get one more wrap of wick over the metal, as to not have exposed wire bits.

at this point secure your wick end with a li'l piece of masking tape, or wrap it once with some fine wire, fuck, wrap a rubber band around that thing to hold it in place for the next step.

....again I'm ultra mega craftirific, I shamefully expect others to be as crafty

Using kevlar thread, sew the loose end down to the marshmallow of wick you've got going on.

OR, if you don't ever thing you'll do body work, or eat with your fingers, you can use the fine wire to wrap around your wick to secure it. I say just go there and sew it down.

You can also use kevlar string or yarn for wick, but I have found through experience, that I spent a lot of time fucking with the condition of my wicks during tool checks before shows. I switched to the tape and have had far less repair to do if any repair at all, in the three years since I switched.

Now, mine are all super de dooper with a snazzy harness, but the finger is constructed the same way
qathi.com/fire/backdoor...s/fingers3.jpg