Friday, October 25, 2013

A Brief Look At Work Gloves

By Elena McDowell


With professions becoming ever more safety conscious there will often come a time when you will be required to wear some form of hand protection. Yet with all of the different forms of work gloves that are available which ones will be the right ones for you, and will they be suitable for all circumstances. They are ultimately designed to protect the wearer from some outside influence.

As an example think about those in the medical professions. Many will have seen surgeons, physicians and dentists all wearing those latex ones. They are there to prevent contamination between patient and doctor, and serve to illustrate this idea of personal protection. These are providing protection, but due to the material thickness, no sensation of touch is lost.

Although they are not so common now, but they can still be found, there are the old fashioned butchers. They spend their days cutting up meat with a variety of sharp knives and cleavers. To protect their hands and fingers while doing this, they will often wear a covering made from what looks like old fashioned chain mail.

Also consider the refrigeration units where the meat carcases are stored. The sides of meat where often hung up on big hooks. To prevent the butcher losing his feeling in his fingers, and so possibly his grip lifting the sides of meat down, other safety hand coverings would be worn.

Another useful example demonstrating different forms and styles of hand wear are the military. They perform a variety of tasks in a wide range of climatic conditions. Imagine someone working on an aircraft, on an exercise inside the Arctic Circle in midwinter. Every day will mean that a variety of challenges have to be faced, and overcome.

If you haven't experienced these conditions they can be very bitter, and any skin which is left exposed will soon suffer. Now modern aircraft have metal surfaces, but below a certain temperature skin tends to stick to these surfaces. So it is important that the correct hand wear is worn to allow work to be done.

There are different styles for different tasks. For ordinary everyday tasks there are versions which have small rubberised blisters over the palms and fingers. With these blisters an individual can use tools and work on the aircraft as normal. Tools will not slip, or fall, from an individual's grasp.

Even such routine operations involving fuels and oils take on a new challenge. At those temperatures even a small splash of fuel onto the back of the hand can cause a cold burn. There has to be a separate pair of hand coverings, which are fluid safe, which are used at these times. Even generally moving about throughout the day requires the hands, and everything else, to be kept covered.

So the requirements for work gloves are many and varied, and much depends upon who will be wearing them. Too thin and they might not provide the required level of protection. Too thick and the wearer might not have the degree of touch which they would wish for. Also if they are made from the wrong material then they will not be suitable for the purpose.




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