ECN Forum Forums Safety Discussion and News Safety News and Product Recalls Work Gloves?

sparky66wv,
Man, are those gloves flash or what?! .
They look so good, it seems like a shame to get them dirty, eh?.
Had a bit of a problem, getting into the site, yesterday, worth the wait though!.

I could never wear gloves like those. My wife would take one look at them and I'd have to scrub the pots and pans--they look like Brillo®

I use a "Dremel Moto-tool" (those teeny tiny electric grinder/drills) frequently -- use them to file and shape the aluminium shafts on replacement potentiometers for radios (volume and tonality controls).

Once I was grinding out a small piece of iron and got a load of nasty iron filings in my arms, hands and legs....took AGES to get most of them with magnet and tweezers. I still have one stuck underneath the skin in my finger -- you can see the blue spot.

From now on I use gloves when grinding iron -heavy duty grey leather gloves....the problem is, as Ragnar said, small parts are a problem with the relatively stiff leather gloves. I wonder if they'll soften up over time?

At work I use these heavy cotton gloves with rubber spots on them for gripping. It's nice when you don't get splinters in your hands when handling a cracked-up old shipping pallet!!

For anyone who is likely to injure their hands, especially with the likelihood of infection due to contaminants, I have a recommendation based on first-person experience. My ex-husband is a machinist and on more than one occasion got significant slices in his hands from fast-moving metal. The good thing was that most of his cuts were 'clean' without jagged edges but he used some nasty chemicals along with the process and they were often recycled, adding more dirt and junk to the mix. We kept a couple of surgical scrub packets (sponge with the surgical scrub solution) and also some antisceptic soap like Hibiclens around the house. He got one really nasty gash that we both thought would disfigure his nail since it sliced through the nail bed and the cuticle but after soaking his hand for a couple of times per evening in the surgical soap, the nail healed amazingly well and it never got even a lump or anything on it.

In my experience some of them soften by time, but some get even stiffer. I haven't yet managed to find a way to tell them apart, price doesn't seem to make the difference. My favourite ones are real cheap, but unfortunately they stink, after wearing them your hands stink for hour, the stink even resists thorough washing.
During our renovation I did all kinds of jobs, chiseling in brick walls with a roto hammer (never worked without safety glasses, ear protection and gloves after I once got a brick splinter in my eye and it hurt for days, luckily no permanent damage), cutting old gas pipes with an angle grinder, working with old raw wood from a subfloor, etc. I never worked without gloves since I dont like splinters in my hands. However, connecting wires with strip connectors, etc is near impossible with gloves.