Woodworking Gloves

Lately I've been handling a lot of rough wood in the process of buying timber and dressing it. I've noticed lots of little cuts and splinters on my hands and a blister every now and then.

This doesn't unduly bother me, but I work in the medical industry where my hands are important. I'm not sure how comforting it is for the patient when they see my rough hands, and having breaks in my skin is an infection risk for me...

So gloves...

I need some that are comfortable, don't become gross with sweat, tough on the palm for planing, covers the tips for splinter protection, allow me still to have fine control, are not too expensive, and don't make me look like a fool.

Any ideas on suppliers?

How about soft leather work gloves?

Go to the gardening section of your hardware store.
they have gloves that have a rubber gripping section in the fingers and palm of your hand and the backing is an open weave material.
Ideal for all the jobs described.
And gardening if so inclined.

How about Riggers gloves
Don't know what there retail name is but it the trade they are simply called rigger glover or pigskin gloves (don't think they are made of pigskin).

http://www2.blackwoods.com.au/infoBA...3257&P=2023684

Some where like an industrial wholesalers or maybe an electrical wholesaler may stock them.

Boz,
I'd go along with Nev25. I use riggers gloves for handling most stuff but they are not "delicate" enough for you to keep on when doing fine work because they"don't fit like a glove" as it were. Because of this I think there's a safety issue because there's a danger of them getting caught in rotating machinery and the like.

Ian

yep
riggers gloves work for me too
probably wouldn't stop a decent splinter (a go to the doctor one)
but stop all the those little nigglers

Go down your local motorbike shop and get some off road gloves. I use 'em all the time, a bit more expensive ($30-$40) but they're light, they breath and they give fairly good finger control..... and they come in all sorts of pretty colours:D:D:D

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Originally Posted by nev25

How about Riggers gloves
Don't know what there retail name is but it the trade they are simply called rigger glover or pigskin gloves .

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Bunnings have them usually about $14 or free from SIL in my case :2tsup:

Riggers gloves are a good thing..... just try to get the pale coloured ones.

The darker yellow ones shed their dye when they get wet.... that'll turn your hands.... well.... yellow:o

Buy several pairs at a time.....I wear them when i'm handling anything rough.

I find I wear the tips of the fingers out on the right hand without too much difficulty..... better than wearing out the tips of your fingers.

cheers

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Go to the gardening section of your hardware store.
they have gloves that have a rubber gripping section in the fingers and palm of your hand and the backing is an open weave material.
Ideal for all the jobs described.
And gardening if so inclined.

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Also, (in ours) in the dishwashing glove section at Coles. 3 sizes, breathable woven stretchy material with rubber section over fingers and palm. Brand is Ansell HyFlex, looking at about $5 a pair. Worth every cent. They come in different colours, red, pale blue, and black (my fave, which sells out the quickest)
A total reccomendation for them, they are totally great, (from a small handed sheila's perspective, for who all riggers gloves are way too big)

For handling rough stuff use the riggers gloves

For general work I'd try some cotton gloves from the supermarket.
They fit nicely and you won't lose much sensitivity
They won't last long but you can get a packet of 4 pairs under $2

SWMBO bought me a pair of those very expensive ironclad? riggers gloves. Yes the price is ridiculous but they are by far the most comfortable gloves I have every owned. I wear them when I'm handling big timber slabs, especially boxwood which seems to offer up many more splinters than anything else I mill.

For chainsaw work I started suffering from whitefinger of the trigger finger so bought an even more expensive pair of gel padded gloves - they are a little bulky and not as comfy as the riggers but they sure do reduce the vibes and the whitefinger has now gone. If I need to do any extended angle grinding or ROS work I've started using them as well. My ROS is an - ozito! - it works fine but the vibes are handnumbing. I used to borrow my brothers festool ROS - now that's a nice bit of kit - but with the antivibe gloves I can tolerate the ozito.

Inside the shed I use the arm length pigskin for welding and short stints of angle grinding and latex ones when I'm painting, otherwise no gloves so the calluses can build up otherwise my hands are too soft to do anything useful.

I use vinyl when epoxy gluing white cotton when oiling and riggers gloves when handling large roughsawn timber.

When I am carving with a Dremel, I use leather golfing gloves ( or leather driving gloves). The driving gloves seem to be harder to come by now days.

Don't use them for shifting larger rougher timber, but seeing that they stand up to that occasional slip of the burr/sander, I wouldn't be surpised if they were thick enough to stop splinters.

Gloves are fine when handling timber etc. but they should not be worn when using any type of machinery that has moving parts.

I had a fieldhand injure himself while using an auger to drill holes in soft ground (he did breach operating procedures mind you). The auger wasn't spinning fast (luckily) but it did grab his glove (the yellow rigger's gloves that people are mentioning here) and wrench his arm around the auger. Fortunately the operator was fast on the kill switch.
He ended up with a very bruised and strained wrist.

Now imagine if you were wearing these and you were using a drill press, drop saw etc. and your glove got caught - it does not bear thinking about. And you probably won't have an offsider to press the kill switch.

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Originally Posted by Geebung

Gloves are fine when handling timber etc. but they should not be worn when using any type of machinery that has moving parts.

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Absolutely!

Geebung, This might seem obvious but I wouldn't blame the gloves for his accident, I'd be asking why his hand was that close to a spining auger

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Originally Posted by China

Geebung, This might seem obvious but I wouldn't blame the gloves for his accident, I'd be asking why his hand was that close to a spining auger

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Any time there is machinery operating there is the possibility of loose clothing, hair, etc. to getting caught and hauling its wearer into the workings. I wouldn't be wearing gloves near any of it.

Ian

Yeh there was an extensive discussion a while ago about gloves and machinery.
As a general rule, not smart to wear gloves around machinery.

However.( and there was some discussion about this)
There is certain machinery that wearing gloves inconsidered beat practice and specified safety equipment.
Chainsaws was one of the prime examples.
others included were brush cutters, chippers and large hand grinders and many metalworking situations.
The overriding issue was that the hands should not be anywhere near the rotating cutting parts.... AND..... there was a significant risk of hand injury from, material being handled or waste being thrown from the machine.

Would I wear gloves using most stationary woodworking machines..... most certainly not.
Would I wear gloves using a chainsaw, much of the time yes.
Would I try telling a boilermaker he shouldn't be wearing gloves while working with hot, sharp metal......No I value mey good looks.

Would I use gloves at the drill press...... HMMM...... the vast majority of the time no....... If I was working with hot, sharp, metal parts.......in many cases yes I would..... but......I would be thinking long and hard first and making sure I was using proper work holding methods.

cheers

I agree 100% with soundman - there are machines and machines - and circumstances and circumstance.

Just like you don't put your hands near a TS blade of CS chain anytime its moving, when you wear gloves you don't put your hand anywhere near the rotating bits anytime.

The big one for me is chainsaws - I'd heard about whitefinger and when I experienced it I found the gloves very useful.

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Originally Posted by soundman

However....

cheers

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Point taken Soundman...there are circumstances which dictate that one should wear some protection. I was just thinking of the types of tools that are commonly used by people in this forum such as table saws, lathes, drill presses and the like. I too wear gloves when using my whipper snipper etc.

And Yes China - the guy was a bit of a lug nut - despite being told numerous times not to put his hand anywhere near the auger while it was rotating he seemed to think that he knew better.

Bunnys and some of the other toolies stores now sell more hi tech work gloves for all sorts of jobs, leather/swade palms with stretch backs etc so they are a nice tight fit, no loose flapping bits of leather. They also have good sensitivity. You can get general purpose gloves, heat resistant, car repair etc. They are around the $30 - $40 a pair is the down side but if you only usethem when you realy need them and look after them they should last a while.

Never wear gloves around workshop machinery. Never ever ever..EVER wear gloves when operating a drill or drill press. The very nature of these machines mean that your hand must at some point come into contact with the chuck and the workpiece. The risk of serious injury whilst wearing gloves is much greater than most people ever expect.

As for large machinery, I do not think that I fancy being dragged bodily into a large noisy angry machine by my tough riggers gloves.

prozac

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Originally Posted by prozac

Never wear gloves around workshop machinery. Never ever ever..EVER wear gloves when operating a drill or drill press. The very nature of these machines mean that your hand must at some point come into contact with the chuck and the workpiece. The risk of serious injury whilst wearing gloves is much greater than most people ever expect.

As for large machinery, I do not think that I fancy being dragged bodily into a large noisy angry machine by my tough riggers gloves.

prozac

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I agree with all the comment above and those similar. Surely the callused hands of someone in medicine has no bearing on being able to competently go about their work, nor should their patients feel negatively towards someone who does? :?

(please don't interpret my comments as being in anyway meant to be offensive)

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Originally Posted by prozac

Never wear gloves around workshop machinery. Never ever ever..EVER wear gloves when operating a drill or drill press.
prozac

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Yeh you just try to tell that to anyone in heavy engineering.
If you are sticking big heavy, sharp hot pieces of metal into a drill press all day, you will be guaranteed a hand injury if you dont wear gloves.

No it isn't a given that you will contact or handdle the chuck or the drill.
A worker in a production situation may not need to change a bit or so much as touch the chuck for hours.
Then a glove will almost certainly be needed to handle the very hot drill.
As I said before in these sitiation there are very specific safety measures, in particular workholding methods that will be used.

No body in their right mind would try to drill a 3/4" hole thru a piece of 50 x 10mm flat mild steel without it firmly clamped........likewise it would be foolish to try to handle a workpiece like that after it had several holes that size drilled in it.
the hands gloved or not should not be anywhere near the rotating parts.

This is the same issue that was raised last time.

There are many "safety" dogmas from the past that arise from the use of dangerous practice.... you only have to hear some of the US derived insistances concerning "table saw safety" to realise many of them derive from having no guard or riving knife on the blade.

These "never ever" insistances are just not helpfull.

So handling very splintery rough sawn timber on the saw bench.......would you rather have guaranteed serious cuts and splinters or use good pracitce wear gloves, have the proper guards fitted and keep your hands well away from the blade.

cheers

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Originally Posted by soundman

Yeh you just try to tell that to anyone in heavy engineering.
If you are sticking big heavy, sharp hot pieces of metal into a drill press all day, you will be guaranteed a hand injury if you dont wear gloves.

No it isn't a given that you will contact or handdle the chuck or the drill.
A worker in a production situation may not need to change a bit or so much as touch the chuck for hours.

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I think that you are jumping ahead of yourself there Soundman. I doubt very much that anyone on this forum has a fully automated machinery setup in their shed for hobby woodworking.

prozac

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Originally Posted by prozac

I think that you are jumping ahead of yourself there Soundman. I doubt very much that anyone on this forum has a fully automated machinery setup in their shed for hobby woodworking.

prozac

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err . . . hang on, your original statement was "Never wear gloves around workshop machinery." and now you want to change the baseline to "hobby woodworking"?

So what do you classify as (hobby) workshop machinery? I generally wear full length leather gloves when using my $99 welder and my $39 angle grinder, and short leather gloves when using my rescued out-of-the dumpster 12" chainsaw.

However, I don't wear gloves when using a TS/BS/DP, lathe, mill or planer/thicknesser.

I am certain there will be quite a number of people with common or garden drill presses who may have the ocasion to drill several large holes on a heavy piece of metal.
There will also be a great many who have grinders and use them on metal.

There most certainly will be those who handle very splintery rough sawn hardwood and would be inclined to push said same thru a table saw.

If you hadn't already experienced this several of the australian hardwoods produce very sharp and agressive splinters with great ease and in good quantity.

Gloves are an important piece of personal protective equipment, like all protective equipment, carefull thaught is required when using PPE, not inappropriate generalisations.

cheers

I have had a career on shipping and in the offshore oil and gas industry working on projects such as the underwater pipeline for Woodside, to dredging and oil rigs. I have seen many injuries in these industries, some of the worst by personnel wearing gloves whilst using machinery as innoccuous as a drill press.

To establish the boundaries in this discussion it is only necessary to look through the posts in this thread which by and large suggest home workshop situations. My comments were based on this premise and upon injuries that I have observed.

prozac

In a past life of 25years as a refrigeration and air conditioning mechanic (large commercial systems) I ended up with a condition on my hands from years of using hygroscopic refrigeration oils. My hands would calous up and then peel, crack and bleed, leaving pink soft skin where the layers had peeled away. Very painful and unpleasant when you have to use your hands to make a living. So yes I learned to use gloves around all manner of spining hungry machinery. It boils down to awarness.
You have to allow a greater safety zone around your hands and be very concious where you put them. Now with purpose made gloves for mechanics and machinest the risks are less but non the less still there. Use them with caution if you have no other choice.

Ah you see thats where the problem lies........people consider this or that machine more or less dangerous...... that may be the case but a drill press has never been inocouous.

It has a lot of capacity for doing wrong.

One has to consider the WHY of wearing gloves with machines.
If you are wearing gloves to protect from rotating risk.....bad move, wrong choice
example.....wearing a glove because you are hand holding someting whist drilling and you know there is a rotation related risk.
In this situation a vice is what is needed not a glove.

If however you are wearing a glove because there is a risk from heat, or sharp edges or simply to keep hands clean whilst handling the material that will be placed in a vice or otherwise properly held...... that is reasonable.
In this case the gloved hand shoud go nowhere near the rotating parts.

In the first case the most likely primary cause of injury would be..... failure to use proper work holding methods.
The vast majority of drill press injuries are due to improper workholding.

Another case that started the previous argument was wearing gloves with an angle grinder........yes there are many instances of injuries involving gloves and grinders.
If a glove is used to protect the hand from the rotating disk, in an operation suchb as hand holding parts whilst grinding with a hand grinder... bad move wrong choice.
I know a bloke who acidentaly cut most of the way thru his own leg with a 9" grinder, a leather glove is very poor protection against such things.

better put the part in a vice or something or hand hold the item at a bench grinder.

If the gloves are used to protect the hands from hot metal, the hot waste stream, vibration, or to simply keep the hands clean.... reasonable choice.
But the hands shound not come near the rotating disk, in fact in most cases both hands should be on the body of the machine.

This is one of the main problems with PPE, to many people use it to protect themselves from a risk that should not exist and in many cases the PPE will be inadequate or inappropriate protection.

cheers

I wear gloves when I'm welding and grinding and you are exactly right both hands should be on the grinder etc and the job should be held with vice, clamps or anything but your gloved hand.

Don't you wear medical gloves when dealing with patients Boz ?:?

Ahh medical gloves..... that's another misunderstood glove issue.

Most people don't realise that the modern view is that the primary function of medical gloves is to protect the wearer, not the patient.
Yeh there are other issues associsted with infection controll and such.
But medical gloves are primarily PPE, because the greates risk is FROM the patient.

Again we are looking for the greatest risk.

cheers

Yeah. I just got out of surgery actually and kinda glad of my sterile double gloving.

Soundman is right though... gloves in med are to protect me. Might sound strange, but when you're taking blood, putting in lines, and other things, you get exposed to a lot a peoples blood. and you don't know if they've got HIV, HCV, HBV... anyway... i'ved finished work for the week...

hmmm... onto that next project...

Go the Ironclad, different sizes, different styles. I use the orange ones full fit for handling wood, steel, gardening, raking, shoveling, chopping etc. Dont use gloves around working machinery.

IRONCLAD, THEY FIT LIKE A GLOVE

Nope, I dont work for them, Bunnies have all the range.

D D

Nope dont wear gloves for woodworking... UNLESS... its when Im finishing a peice and dont want smears or hand finger to mark the finish then its ONLY thin cotton gloves... UNLESS... Im using epoxy or some such chemical shyte THEN I wear whatever the manufacturer recommends :2tsup:

Other than that only wear leather GAUNTLETS not gloves when welding or grinding WITH long sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled DOWN :doh: yeah got the burns to say DUMBASS!! :q

Gloves have more tendancy to hinder rather than help... and Ive never seen a point to those fingerless gloves gloves are for keeping digets warm thats it!! and without the fingers them fingerless gloves are bloody useless at keeping ones fingers warm :roll:

Personally I think theres an OVER RELIANCE on ppe in the workplace... more emphasis should be put on BRAINS and COMMONSENCE before ppe... if your brain is in gear and your commonsence is at home in the brain packet then one WILL take more care and think safer... its when those two things are absent for whatever reason that most accidents happen ppe will 9 times out of 10 not help a hell of a lot if the brains not at home and focused on the task at hand.. in fact in the case of gloves around machinery it could CONTRIBUTE to accidents more than help stop them... think glove snaring on rotating blade pulling fingers hand into said rotating blade that sort of thing... like wearing a tie around machines or loose clothing... stupid dumb mind out of gear shyte... THINK THINK THEN THINK AGAIN!!... the old work place saying of "Take 2" Doesnt mean take 2 for a fag or a yap to your mate it means take 2 to CONSIDER your job at hand what is needed what dangers there are and what you have to do to make it SAFE!! So Take 2 and put your brain into gear your commensence in place and THINK!!

But then were all guilty of doing dumb stupid idiot things from time to time... says he who has sliced diced drilled and generally bloodied up the shed so the orange tools have a reddish tinge man some of the "accidents" Ive had out there you'd think my name was Homer Simpson instead of wild dingo eh? :doh: :doh: :doh:

I mean who in their RIGHT mind actually DRILLS a peice of timber on the bench holding it with his hand when theres a drill press within 5ft of him? AND who with their BRAIN IN GEAR does so KNOWING that its Jarrah and that the damned FORSTNER BIT in the power drill is SHARP and will almost definantly hit a snag in the timber and jump out and drill THROUGH the finger nearest the bit?... I MEAN WHO WOULD DO THAT???... eerr um guilty as charged sir :C as I said just call me dumbass :doh: BUT!! Ive learnded I have! Im a saftey in the shed NUT now :2tsup:

Cheers
Shane

ahem... finger has healed by the way but has a permanent angle and cant be straightened fully anymore... mind you I was actually damned lucky not to loose my ring finger through that surgury... no it was the first finger left hand that I drilled through... the bloody dopey nurse and doc left my wedding ring on my finger... 6 WEEKS later after my constant screaming about the damned pain and turning up to the hospital every second night (to be given panadol and sent home without a single bloody glance at the fingers!!) they finally took the bandage of and theres this TINY thin band of yellow gold peeking through the swollen ring finger!!... had to wait another 2 weeks before the swelling had gone down before the nurse could get their little grinder far enough under and past the skin to cut the thing off.. bloody near got gangrene and whatever else happens when that sorta thing goes on... bloody idjuts!! ppe didnt help them get it right did it? NO IT DIDNT!!... Brain into gear people commonsence in place and THINK!!!

:U see even smartarse docs and nurses can make brain farts!!