Zen Archery Thumb Insert

thingiverse

SAFETY WARNING Archery Equipment is subject to extreme force. Diligent Maintenance of equipment must be followed at all times. If an item appears weak it should not be used.Within the highly respected and ancient art of Kyudo, there are many forms of hand protection, as there are styles of archery, bow and arrow. The glove variants used are known as Yugake or Kake.To buy a decent glove the starting price is around $450. Antique gloves are highly sought after and can be found starting price $250.Naturally there are cheaper gloves available to the amateur enthusiast, however there are techniques that cannot be achieved with many of these gloves. This insert offers the chance to utilise such techniques with a cheap glove.My close friend is such an enthusiast and when she came across the youtube video of a superb craftsman called numairu aka www.numablacksmith.com; she asked if I could reproduce the video depiction using 3d printing?At first I thought it was beyond my skills, but I realised that the perfect visual reference of the video 'experiment making Yugake (japanese archery glove)' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-mqrwwbcU4 was enough for me to model in Blender. So I set to work.I honestly can say that this has been my absolute favorite commission. Whilst my 3d skills are modest, I was copying a craftsman and so the process was thoroughly enjoyable.The genius in the design is numairu's alone. As I am copying I have made this model accreditation only and non-commercial - as is the beautiful background art, courtesy of Alex Hurst - https://www.flickr.com/photos/alex-hurst/I have also added this as educational as we all know how sports activities can be prohibitively expensive, so for new students of Kyudo, this is a huge cost saver.Finally, was my friend pleased with the result? Yes! Absolutely thrilled. The item works exactly as it is meant to. Thank you numairu! The two pictures of the cheaper leather Yugake show how with a little pine resin, this $10 glove can achieve very good results. With the cost of the print coming in at appx 70c ... Well, let's just say - it is useful to know someone who can 3d print ;)