Hand Maker

If you have lost a hand, an ear or the side of your face in battle or in an accident, a Detroit sculptor named Beaver Edwards can make you a duplicate, in three weeks, so lifelike that only close observers can tell the difference. Like Hollywood's Jack Dawn (TIME, July 12), Beaver Edwards makes his realistic faces and ears of a rubbery plastic. Jack Dawn learned his methods as a Hollywood make-up chief. Beaver Edwards developed his by teaching sculpture at the Michigan College of Mortuary Science.

Sculptor Edwards' specialty is hands. He can take an impression of a man's good left hand, make him a right-hand copy of it so realistic that even the fine skin lines show. The hand will hold a pencil or cigaret (see cut), and the fingers bend naturally if leaned against something solid. The coloring is lifelike (if it wears off, it can be touched up temporarily with leg make-up). An Edwards hand and arm costs $275.

Edwards hands are not articulated because standard mechanical hands are lifesize, and when covered with Edwards' special plastic would look monstrous. Last week Edwards was planning to make an articulated plastic hand by using a smaller than life-size mechanical model.

Sculptor Edwards says he does ten times as much business as anyone else in lifelike anatomical restorations. War is booming his business so heavily that he gets a new order every day, works seven days a week, has practically abandoned sculpturing.

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