More Top Technician Tools
By Steve Hill, CO

A couple of months ago, I wrote a short article about popular technician tools and the response was enthusiastic. Thanks to all of you who took the time to share your favorite tools and inventions with me! I promise to add installments to this series as long as you keep sending me your suggestions. 

My favorite tools are ones that were created by those in the grass roots of our industry. Those tools, of necessity, were made with the materials at hand by true craftsmen. They range from the classically simple to Rube Goldberg-complex, but each has its place. This month we turn our focus to such homemade tools.

1. Arch support shaping tool.
Anyone who has ever had to modify an arch support cast can appreciate this tool. It’s used to bring the toe area of a foam foot mold down to the same level as the metatarsal heads. 

Simply shape the toe box with this tool prior to filling the mold and you’ll save yourself untold hours of filing and shaping it flat. 

The tool can be made by shaping some spare plastic or wood to an appropriate design and adding a wooden, plastic or metal handle of some type. You can make it in different sizes based on your needs. I find that having three or so different sizes covers my needs. 

2. Foam pad shaper.
One of the most frustrating tasks is shaping foam pads, especially small round ones. We’ve all removed a fair amount of valuable knuckle skin in the process. Even if we can shape the pad to be approximately round, all is lost once we start beveling. This tool, created by Mark Thullen of OrPro in Ohio, solves the problem and works very simply. 

First, attach an oversized piece of foam to a round metal disc via double-sided tape. The tape holds the foam in place, yet is easily removed. Then chuck the disc into a drill or router and set it on high speed. Hold a piece of old, scrap sandpaper up to the spinning foam, shape the foam to the size of the metal disc, then sand and bevel as desired. 

3. Motorized pad shaper.
Made by the same inventive technician as the pad shaper above, this tool is self-contained and dedicated to smaller pads. The technician found himself shaping many small foam pads to cover the screw heads on the inside of KAFO uprights. He made this time-consuming process much simpler with a small, motorized version of the large pad shaper. He simply wired up an old motor he had and attached a small metal disc to it. Problem solved. 

4. Cast/mold stabilizing strap.
Each end of this elastic strap is attached to a table. When you need to stand a cast or mold upright to check ankle position or determine orthosis height, you can slide the toes under the strap and the cast will be held upright, freeing your hands to measure or mark. 

5. Band finger.
This tool acts like an extra finger to hold a metal band in place. Used primarily to fabricate metal AFOs with molded leather cuffs, this neat rig is easy to make and to adapt to any special situation. By using an outrigger like this, you can avoid drilling unsightly holes in the leather cuff normally made by attaching the band to the cast during metal bending. A section of stainless steel bar that’s bent to reach the band and vice gripped to the cast pipe is all that’s required. Avoid drilling unnecessary holes in the leather and make your own “band finger.” 

6. Custom workstations. 
There are many excellent workstations for sale right now. Some are specific to orthotics and some to prosthetics, but most are multi-use. Although most of these workstations are well worth the money, they may not address the challenges you face. In these instances you might want to design and build your own.

Some of the custom-made workstations I’ve seen are as simple as a pipe vise mounted to a bench. Others are carefully designed and constructed, incorporating features of several commercial workstations. I’ve even seen some that are so customized they could be used by only one person. 

If you design your workstation so that it can be adjusted for height, it can be perfect for anyone’s use. Height adjustments are critical because of the wide span of “technician overall length” found in the workplace. We can range between 4 feet 10 inches and 6 feet 10 inches tall, and that’s a lot of adjustment. 

Beyond that, your own imagination is your only limit. I like to make sure custom workstations have an air line, power receptacle and, if possible, a water tap (separating it from electric, of course). Whatever your specific needs, you can accommodate them with a custom workstation. 

7. Easy-grab knee joint bushing tool. 
This tool is handy to have if you “bend in midair” like I do. The alignment jigs, whether internal or external, hold the knee joints together through the bending process. But in free bending, you usually have to invert the bushing with the bushing screw threaded in backwards to attach and remove the joints during contouring. These can be difficult to grab for some of us older technicians who have destroyed our hands over the years.

Instead of struggling with such a short arrangement, make this dedicated tool. Select an old, unused bushing. Take a 2-inch bolt of the same thread pattern and apply some surgical tubing over it, leaving about a quarter-inch of thread. Run that extra thread into the back of the bushing, and you have a knee bushing tool that’s much easier to grasp. 

These seven tools and adaptations really impressed me from the suggestions I received. I hope they help make your technical work easier. And please, keep those technician tool ideas coming! 

Steve Hill, CO, is secretary of OPTA and CEO of Delphi Ortho, located in Asheville, N.C. and on the Web at www.delphiortho.com.