A novel animal preparation for studying hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) is described. Rats were trained with operant conditioning to pull on a bar in sessions conducted 5 days per week. Following training, which lasted approximately 2 weeks, vibration (147 m/s 2 at 63 Hz) was applied to the bar in a single exposure session that lasted up to 5 hours. The cumulative duration of contact with the vibrating bar was determined as well as other behavioral measures such as response rate, force, and duration. Results showed that the rats easily learned the bar-pulling response and accumulated on average approximately 2 hours of contact with the vibration stimulus. The present animal model may make possible many new and important avenues for HAVS research.