Is it worth it? Whats your experience?
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”
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!
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.
Calluses build up fast if you keep at it.
The pain is just weakness leaving the body.
Your fingers stop hurting within two weeks. Absolutely no reason to do it
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.
