Hand Size - Biggest and Smallest?

[David Weaver]

Hand size is a minor interest to me because it dictates the size of a handle on a plane if you're making one for someone how how large the handle must be if you're buying a used one.

I have fairly small hands, 3.5 inches across the web, which means that for the most part, i can use almost anything that I can find. My jointer handle has 4 inches under the handle, which technically is a little bit too large for me, but it's actually very comfortable to use, more so than a handle that is a close fit.

I have seen women say that their hand across (right below the knuckles) is 2.75 inches.

But the biggest I've seen so far is the guy who got me into woodworking, who is a fellow who otherwise doesn't need to have large hands for any reason (he's an engineer), has a hand web that is 4.75 inches across. I asked him that because I told him I'd build him a try plane.

I do recall that before I had tools (he's got the typical woodworking characteristics of an engineer), he had all kinds of fixtures set up in his shop for power tools and my hands were never big enough to use the fixtures and hold the work pieces. He always had a great time with that (I won't repeat anything that we otherwise say to each other, there is no bottom level of respectability to our humor or derision of each other).

I told him I'd build him a double iron try plane that I was sure he wouldn't be able to use properly, anyway, and that would collect dust once he figured out that he couldn't set the cap iron and get the plane set both at the same time. (aren't i nice? )

Anyway, though. 4.75 inches across below the knuckles...wow! That's going to make for a very odd looking plane. And I thought my scaled up 4.25 inch tall handle (with 4 inches under the horn for hand room) looked fat in the JT brown pattern....His handle's going to have to be another inch.

Anyone with bigger or smaller hands than that?

[John Coloccia]

I don't have tiny hands, but they're fairly small, especially for a musician. They're quite flexible, though. I'll tell you that I find Lie-Neilsen's saw totes cramped and by and large it's why I tend towards Veritas. They're a bit roomier. It's funny because for whatever reason, everyone thinks I have large hands until I we compare them and they see for themselves. I'm not sure why that is.

So anyhow, I guess my point is that I'm not sure just going by a measurement is best. I like big totes, fat guitar necks, fat drumsticks, etc. You'd never guess that just taking a measurement.

[Derek Cohen]

Interesting that you posted this, David. I was about to make reference to this area in an article I am preparing.

My hand is 4" across the web, which should place it in the larger category. However it is 3 1/2" across the base of my fingers, which places it in the medium range according to the system that Lee Valley are using for their Custom planes.

Hand size does affect the handles and planes I use. For example, I have a Lie-Nielsen #3. I bought it with a 55 degree frog (pre-chipbreaker setting) and this allowed me to install the larger #4 handle, which fits my hand. Now I would prefer a lower angle frog, however there is a limit how low the #3 frog can go and still make room for the #4 handle. 50 degrees is the best I can do.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Ron Bontz]

Hi Dave.
The short answer is no. That's the biggest I have heard of. Hand sizing is a persnickety little critter in itself.
I have never tried to build a plane. ( bucket list project ) But adjusting the size of the tote while keeping the tool itself the same size is sometimes a bit tricky. Most hands I have found rarely go over 4.25" wide across the web/ palm of the hand. But I have encountered hands 4.5 to 4.75" across. I haven't gone around and looked at pro basket ball players hands, however. They may think me a bit strange, indeed. What I have found is the hand fit of any handle is a 3D fit. Not just the height of the handle or just the distance from the back to the front of the grip area. But also the over all circumference of the grip area. A slight variation in the height of the hump or prominence of the hump can make a difference to the fit and feel of the handle as well. Fortunately we tend to adapt to various differences and most hands are of average size. ie: 3.75" to 4" tall with the distance from the center of the palm to the tip of the middle finger about 5". Good luck with your endeavor.

[David Weaver]

Good luck with your endeavor.

Endeavor might be overstating it. This is all free stuff, that way nobody can complain about what they paid!

I figure you've probably come across a wider cross section of hands (or a deeper cross section maybe) than most of us. This guy is about 6'1", not abnormally tall or anything, but he's probably 300 pounds and even so, his hands look freakish at that size.

I'm going to scale the handle so that the hump is in the right place for him. Overall height might be a little more critical on a wooden plane than a saw just because on a wooden plane of legitimate type, there is no relief at the bottom of the handle, and if the fit is even just tight, it causes an uncomfortable rub on the outside of the hand, almost like a bruised feeling. Not that a saw handle is comfortable if it's the wrong size, but you can get away with a little bit more because it's not sunk into a perpendicular flat surface.

The first plane he ever got that someone suggested to him was a lie nielsen #2 Needless to say, he hasn't used it much.

When I was in college, I sat next to calvin booth in an economics lecture a couple of times. His hands weren't particularly large width wise, but his fingers were long (he was 7 feet tall, but thin). I've seen other folks, like a kid who I just met who went to the round of 16 in the US amateur last year, and his hands were unusually large. There probably is some usefulness in sports to having hands that large.

the other thing I noticed, is that kids who grew up on farms in my dad's era, and who were exposed to manual labor early, seem to have really thick wide hands, even if they're not that big of a person. Fat fingers, too. My dad's hands are another 3/4" wider than mine, and I'm generally bigger than him otherwise, and my mother's father's hands were bigger yet (he was a life long farmer). both of them grew up with a lot of heavy hand type labor, so I'm just assuming the fact that my hands are smaller and lighter are due to the lack of regular heavy work that kids growing up in the last 3 or 4 decades were exposed to. I've seen studies before of kids who grew up in families that do a lot of climbing, and their hands are shaped differently (and bigger) as they grow up, including the girls.

As john alluded to, the fact that my hands are both narrow and my finger span isn't that large (pinkie to thumb tip maximum 8.5" stretched) made it harder for me to play guitar when I was younger, and I never knew why until I'd already played guitar for about 10 years - there are just some things I can't play without accidentally muting the strings because my hands are at the limits.

I have never tried to build a plane.

It's easier than building folded back saws!! you never build a plane and find an unexpected wave in part of it when you're done. the hardest part is locating a respectable looking iron and cap iron and finding good dried quartered beech stock.

[Daniel Rode]

I've never measured my hands before. Across the knuckles, I get 3 11/16". Across the web, if I'm measuring correctly, I get just under 4".

[David Weaver]

The biggest hands I've ever seen:



I can't find a good set of measurements from andre's hands, but I know that bronze castings were made of them, and there is an impression casting of the same.

It looks like from middle finger to wrist, his hands were 13".

images (1).jpgcac2004c.jpgAndresHand.jpg

At the same time, i had a friend, normal sized girl, who had exceptionally small hands. narrow and short. A friend and I were out at my parents' house shooting a 1911 .45 auto, and she wanted to try and even with two hands and a proper grip, she could not keep a hold of the pistol, we had to cut her off.

I don't know if folks with hands that small think much of tools, because my jointer is technically a fair bit bigger handle size than my hand should have, but like I said, it's comfortable. The hump is within striking distance of where it should be, and my jack is made dead on to my hand size and it's less comfortable.

I think at this point, I'll build my planes so that they're at least 4" tall at the handle height, which gives them a little over 3 3/4" under the horn. Somewhere between a quarter and a half inch of extra room on a wooden plane seems to be nice. I built (out of kits) most of the saws that I use, and I did build one too small, but it's usable. If my jack was any smaller, it wouldn't be.

[Sam Murdoch]

My Mother tells of meeting a man who could pass a US silver dollar (38.1mm) through his wedding ring .
My hands are in the 3.5" + wide with short and stubby but strong fingers. Always have been good working hands without issues with any tool I can think of, but a real disadvantage for properly spiraling a football.

[David Weaver]

I hear you on the football thing. Narrow hands are good for working on cars and appliances, though - I'll say that much.

[John Coloccia]

As john alluded to, the fact that my hands are both narrow and my finger span isn't that large (pinkie to thumb tip maximum 8.5" stretched) made it harder for me to play guitar when I was younger, and I never knew why until I'd already played guitar for about 10 years - there are just some things I can't play without accidentally muting the strings because my hands are at the limits.

Flexibility helps an awful lot. On guitar, I've actually never had a problem grabbing chords, even ridiculous ones. There's so much space between adjacent notes that having a larger hand really isn't a huge advantage unless they're truly enormous. The only thing that gives me trouble is that sometimes I'd like to wrap my thumb over the top to grab the A string, and if the rest of the chord is a big stretch too, I can't do it.

Piano, on the other hand, is a different story. Notes are generally much closer together, and an extra 1/4" can make all the difference in the world. There are some voicings that I have a very difficult time hitting. For example, if I have an C in the bass, and I want to stick an E on top, it's a serious stretch. I can just barely do it, and depending what's in the middle, I can't do it at all. With an extra 1/4", it would be downright easy. That kind of voicing comes up all the time in jazz arrangements, so I just have to leave something out. Octaves are no problem, though. Many many years of ragtime playing fixed that right quick. There's a serious advantage to larger hands, even just marginally larger hands, on the piano.

[paul cottingham]

4"+ hands here. Bad for handsaws, and plane handles, good for bass playing.

[Curt Putnam]

About all I can add to the thread here is that finger length & thickness have as much to with handle fit as does palm width. My fingers are 9.5" thumb tip to pinkie tip and the palm is at a fat 4.25". Not the largest hands I've seen by any stretch but large enough to create issues with fit. Stanley handles tend to be quite uncomfortable. My LN # 4 tote wanders around in there and that makes it tough to hang on to. Obviously I prefer the LV totes because they fit and feel good. OTOH, their saw handles hurt because the lower horn digs into the palm. I had the chance to try Issac Smith's larger handles and surprisingly the smaller of the two works better (despite being a tight fit) because, for whatever reason, my fingers could not get as a good grip as with the smaller.

Once you get past the 95% point on any fit curve, life gets difficult quickly. Tall folks have trouble getting in and out of cars and small folks have trouble reaching the pedals. I used to be 6-4 but have shrunk lengthwise and expanded widthwise and have even more trouble with cars and trucks. Normally cannot go to the BORG and buy a pair of gloves, and so on. It costs too much (I guess) to inventory stuff for the 2.5% at either tail. Sigh

[Charles McKinley]

Hi David,

Try taking a piece of wood a bit thinner and narrower than the handle will be. Cut the angle the tote will be on the bottom. cover it with modeling clay and set the bottom on a flat surface and have you friend grab it tight enough to push the extra clay out of the way and you should have a very reasonable profile to base the handle off of. if you use a clay that can be hardened air or baked it would make it more durable to work with than clay that stays soft and would deform just from being laid down.

[Judson Green]

I've got long skinny fingers, I'm also long and skinny 6' 3" and usually south of 150 lbs. If I'm measuring right 9" from pinky to thumb tip, 3 5/8" across the knuckles and 3 7/8" at the web.

Curt, I totally know what you mean about getting in and out of cars.

[Shawn Pixley]

I don't have tiny hands, but they're fairly small, especially for a musician. They're quite flexible, though. I'll tell you that I find Lie-Neilsen's saw totes cramped and by and large it's why I tend towards Veritas. They're a bit roomier. It's funny because for whatever reason, everyone thinks I have large hands until I we compare them and they see for themselves. I'm not sure why that is.

So anyhow, I guess my point is that I'm not sure just going by a measurement is best. I like big totes, fat guitar necks, fat drumsticks, etc. You'd never guess that just taking a measurement.

John, I think that there is a "feel" that individuals look for. My hands are slightly on the small size but with broad palms (3-7/8" mid palm, 9" thumb tip to pinkie tip) across. I prefer my guitar necks thin, chisel handles thinner, but big totes, and big pistol grips. I used to be a climber so I have pretty strong hands. I am tallish and athletically built and I hit my head on the roof of cars regularly The difference may be where each of us prefers to carry the strain in their hands.