As mentioned in a previous image, the act of pulling the woven rows up tight to their permanent home does a number on your finger tips. You get little cuts like paper cuts and the fingers that don't get cut still hurt from all of the pressure you have to use to pull them into place. I didn't know that a tool existed for this at the time I bought my reed, so I took some heavy 10-guage copper wire out of some spare house wiring that I had (pretty sure you can buy individual strands like this by the foot at Lowes/Home Depot though) and bent it into this shape to relocate the pressure points from my finger tips to mid finger. It's not exactly perfect, but it has helped!