High-visibility mechanic gloves featuring goatskin leather palms, para-aramid lining, and breathable fourchette inserts between fingers. These durable gloves moreover offer ANSI Level A3 wear resistance.

Before we swoop into the specific components of safety gloves, let’s first squint at the fundamental characteristics and construction methods that help categorize these gloves.

There are five main types of work gloves:

Each glove type offers various benefits and features that make them the largest option for specific tasks and hazards. However, they each have their limitations that moreover need to be considered surpassing choosing those best-suited in your work environment.

The table unelevated provides a quick comparative summary of the defining characteristics and limitations of each type of work glove. Later, we will discuss each of them in detail.

Most safety gloves are either leather or string knit, or a combination of the two (mechanics). Other gloves include chemical and removable gloves. Let’s take a closer squint at their unique construction styles, and key features and attributes.

Seamless knit style describes all string knit gloves that are knitted on a hand form using will-less glove knitting machines. During the process, there is no point at which the yarns have to be sewn together—hence, they are seamless. A goody of having no seams is that it improves glove strength by removing stress points where they can be ripped. Flipside wholesomeness of this construction style is that in using yarn (as opposed to leather), the finished form is increasingly dexterous, softer, and pliable.

Knitting it virtually a hand form moreover allows glove manufacturers to integrate ergonomic considerations, like the curves of the fingers, which makes these gloves increasingly well-appointed to wear. It is moreover a increasingly cost-effective and quicker method compared to the cut-and-sew style used in the manufacturing of leather and mechanics gloves, which we will discuss next.

Leather and mechanics gloves are manufactured using the cut-and-sew method. What this substantially ways is that variegated pieces of material are cut out and then stitched together to manufacture these safety gloves. An wholesomeness of this style is that it allows glove manufacturers to unzip variegated sizing requirements increasingly easily. But stitching pieces of materials together moreover ways that these gloves will have seams and impact the finger and dexterity of these gloves.

How variegated pieces are stitched together in a cut-and-sew construction style is unswayable by the glove pattern used. And when we say pattern, it’s the way the fingers and other pieces of the material are attached.

Let’s explore these patterns.

Hover to learn increasingly well-nigh the variegated patterns.

Essentially, when constructing leather gloves, the goal is to unzip durability, dexterity, and maintain a sense of feel. And, when constructing mechanics gloves, the goody of this method allows for zoned or targeted protection in areas that require it most.

Another full-length you might have to consider when selecting safety gloves is mitten styles.

There are various styles of cuffs to protect and support your workers’ wrists and stovepipe on the job. For safety and ease of use, it is important to ensure that the glove cuffs are towardly for the task at hand.

Now that we have a vital understanding of the types of safety gloves, the next step is to unravel them lanugo to their plug-in components and see how each influences protection levels, dexterity, and comfort. This requires a deeper understanding of:

The glove shell, or increasingly specifically, the glove shell material, is considered the foundation of all safety gloves. It is the cadre frame that is built upon by incorporating additives and other treatments to remoter enhance glove performance and comfort.

Glove shell materials for most glove types (leather, string knit, and mechanics) can substantially be divided into two major categories: leather and knitted yarn. Materials used for other gloves (chemical and disposable) will be discussed later in this guide under glove coatings.

Grain or split leather? Gloves made with cow, sheep, goat, or flipside hide? How do you segregate between all these options?

The wide variety of options misogynist for leather gloves doesn’t unchangingly make it easy to segregate from. By understanding the key nature and the differences between each type, it can help you make an educated decision.

As noted earlier, leather offers upper tautness and wear resistance and nominal cut and puncture resistance. But not all leather grains are created equal. When choosing leather gloves for specific tasks, it is important to pay sustentation to:

In animals that have a thick hibernate like cow and buffalo, leather can be separated between the upper “top grain” and the lower “split” leather.

It is moreover important to note that leather harvesting is a byproduct of supplies production. And the quality of leather directly impacts the forfeit of the gloves.

Cow leather is the most worldwide type of leather used for safety gloves and offers high-abrasion resistance. Goat is a tropical second, due to its soft and supple finger and upper dexterity. Other leather types offer varying levels of durability, dexterity, and wear resistance. A quick overview of each type of leather is listed below.

As you notice, when selecting between the variegated types of leathers, the key tradeoff is between tautness and dexterity—how rugged the hibernate is versus how supple it is. And choosing the right safety gloves depends on the task you’re using the gloves for. For instance, tasks that require a greater sense of motion or dexterity, elk skin, deerskin, or goatskin should be the nomination of leather for those gloves. For tasks where there is a upper risk of arc flash, a increasingly rugged material like cow split, horse, or buffalo will offer the necessary protection. Liners are usually sewn into leather gloves to offer spare protection from hazards, and other additives and treatments can moreover be integrated to enhance glove performance. To learn increasingly well-nigh hazard-specific materials, additives, and treatments used to enhance glove’s mechanical protection, trammels out our wares on understanding hazards here.

Let’s take a quick overdue the scenes squint at how yarns are engineered. This will help understand how variegated gloves materials tousle together to enhance glove performance.

All knitted gloves start off as fibers, whether natural or synthetic. These fibers are then either combed, melted, or engineered into yarns. From there, various yarns are spun together using a yarn spinning machine onto a spool (cylindrical device on which thread can be wound). The spools of yarn are then unfluctuating to flipside machine that twists and knits the gloves.

The fundamental yarn materials used in manufacturing safety gloves include:

Additional materials are usually engineered into the supra primary materials for mechanical protection and other benefits, including cut, puncture, flame, heat, dexterity, and comfort. Other additives and treatments can moreover be integrated to enhance glove performance. However, these spare materials do not make up the majority of the glove and are widow to complement the protection workers need for specific hazards. To learn increasingly well-nigh hazard-specific materials, additives, and treatments used to enhance glove’s mechanical protection, trammels out our wares on understanding hazards here.

Additive and treatments are incorporated into safety gloves to complement existing features or add features that may be missing. These can include:

Palm coatings serve as an spare layer of protection on safety gloves that can be tailored for specific tasks and work conditions. When it comes to mechanical protection, all palm coatings offer some stratum of wear and puncture resistance (depending on the thickness of the coating). Palm coatings moreover contribute to improved grip and durability.

We’ve listed unelevated the most popular coating materials with their benefits and limitations to help guide you better.

The same palm coating materials listed whilom serves as the glove shell for chemical and removable gloves, in which the unshortened glove is primarily synthetic of that coating. Let’s review the key considerations to alimony in mind when selecting materials for chemical and removable gloves one increasingly time.

Glove liners serve as an spare layer to enhance comfort, warmth, or mechanical protection for the wearer, depending on the task and work conditions. Read on to learn how.

When we say glove insulation, we’re substantially talking well-nigh preventing the external temperature from interfering with the hand’s temperature—also known as thermal control. And we use variegated materials to unzip this.

For gloves meant for shoulder or summer season, the lining is made of materials that resist heat i.e., materials resist transpiration in temperatures and prevent the loss of tomfool air trapped inside the gloves. A good example of this type of material is para-aramid (refer to the section on glove shell materials to review the features, attributes, and limitations of variegated glove materials).

For winter gloves, we use materials that indulge to trap in as much warm air as possible. And the increasingly air it traps, the warmer the glove will be. The two most worldwide glove liners used to alimony workers’ hands warm in the winter seasons include:

Membrane liners, moreover known as impermeable liners, are used for waterproofing safety gloves. In this method, a layer of waterproof membrane (plastic base) is inserted into the gloves to create a windbreak that prohibits the water drops from passing through. This helps alimony the hands well-appointed and dry in wet working conditions.

When it comes to safety work gloves, there are two wontedly used construction methods to unzip waterproofing gloves:

This triple-layer diamond is considered the most durable (i.e., less wear and tear) and breathable, but it is moreover increasingly plush to do when compared to other construction methods.

The way the membrane is fastened in between the two layers differs for variegated types of safety gloves.

• • For leather and mechanics, the waterproofing membrane is inserted in between two layers. The inner layer is stitched with the outer layer without the stitches going through the membrane to stave puncturing and rabble-rousing it. A drawback of this technique is that considering there are three unshared layers, it can lead to slippage between materials which reduces the gloves’ sense of finger and dexterity.
  • For string knit gloves, the waterproofing membrane is laminated in between the outer and inner layers. This process allows all three layers to unify as a single layer, so there is no slippage between any materials.

Glove fit is crucial in determining its wearability and hazard protection. If the gloves are too small, it can restrict movement of the hands and discourage workers from wearing them. Similarly, loose gloves can slip off at the slightest movement and make handling tasks difficult. In either case, the wearer is exposed to risk of serious injury.

There are two measurements that determine the size of gloves:

• • Distance virtually your knuckles
  • Overall length of your gloves (palm to fingertips).

And there are ways to identify if your gloves fit poorly:

1. Overall finger length—if the finger crotch does not fit to the wiring of your fingers, or if you have glut material on the fingertips, this indicates you should size up or size down, respectively.
2. The palm—if the glove’s palm doesn’t imbricate your palm fully, this indicates that your gloves are too small and you should size up.
3. Excess material—excess material virtually your hands or bunching in your palms when you tropical your hands indicates that the gloves are oversized. This ways you should size down.

Measure your hands and refer to the orchestration unelevated to find your platonic glove size.

Laundering gloves can help in saving costs. Gloves made from high-quality materials can be laundered to increase their wear life without impeding performance.

Read on to learn some vital considerations to alimony in mind when laundering gloves.

Not all safety gloves protect equally. Gloves designed for one type of hazard may not sufficiently to protect versus another, plane though they may squint similar. And the nature of the hazard will stupefy the selection of your gloves.

So, how do you determine which gloves offer the right level of protection for your worker?

To solve this problem, industry standards were established that refer to specific test methods to assign protection levels for safety gloves, including cut, impact, puncture, arc flash, heat, flame, vibration, abrasion, cold, and chemical. These standards were introduced to create a worldwide language for safety managers, distributors, and manufacturers to pinpoint protection levels and be held subject for their claims.

Industry standards that govern protection levels for workplace hazards include:

1. 1. In North America, the ANSI/ISEA 105-2016 and ANSI/ISEA 138-2019 North American Standard
   2. In Europe, the EN388 European Standard (CE)
   3. In UK, UK Standard (UKCA)—developed when the UK split from the EU
   4. NFPA 2112 (The National Fire Protection Agency Standard)

By now, you should have a clearer understating of what goes into manufacturing safety gloves, its meaning, and the complementary features and nature that influence their performance. However, glove knowledge does not end here. The next step is to learn well-nigh gloves designed for various hazards and how these gloves protect the wearer by counteracting the underlying forces that lead to injury. To learn this, and more, stay tuned for updates on our resource page for new and upcoming posts.