With regards to selecting and purchasing the appropriate leather work glove for your project, the wide range of options may be overwhelming. How can you determine which kind of leather work glove can provide the protection that you need? And what about durability and dexterity? This article will supply the answers to those questions and provide you with the knowledge you will need to decide on the leather work glove that is suitable for you.
Leather Type and Quality
You will find four main varieties of leather that can be used to manufacture leather work gloves. These include: cowhide, pigskin, goatskin and deerskin.Every sort of leather provides different degrees of protection, durability, dexterity, and comfort based off of the inherent characteristics within the animal leather. In production, each variety of leather will be classified as cut or split, which denotes their level of quality.
Leather Type
Cowhide:
• One of the most available leathers, which makes it highly economical
• High amount of dexterity and durability
• High degree of abrasion and puncture resistance
• Best leather to keep hands warm
• Limited breathability
• Dries stiff after being wet,as a result it loses flexibility
• Appropriate to be used in a range of applications including industrial work, automotive, packaging, landscaping, and construction.
Pigskin:
• Known for being a soft and porous leather,that produces an incredibly comfortable glove
• Water and moisture resistant, leather stays soft and un-cracked after repeatedly getting wet
• Does not keep hands as warm as cowhide
• Higher amount dexterity and breathability than cowhide
• Out of the four leathers, it offers the greatest level of abrasion and puncture resistance and is also the most durable
Goatskin:
• Very soft and flexible glove
• Stays pliable after repeatedly getting wet
• Greater amount of dexterity, flexibility, and breathability than pigskin
• Lower degree of durability
• Similar puncture and abrasion resistance to cowhide
• Does not keep hands warm as well as cowhide
• Appropriate for applications where dexterity is especially important
Deerskin:
• Very soft and supple, much like pigskin
• Offers great dexterity and pliability
• Leather forms to the hand over long periods of usage
• Can get wet repeatedly without stiffening the leather
• High flexibility contributes to decrease in shape under rough wear
• Most comfortable, but least durable and least puncture/abrasion resistant
• Breathability is much like cowhide, in that it is limited
• Equal to cold temperature protection with goatskin and pigskin leather
• For particular use in welding applications where dexterity as well as heat resistance is required
Leather Quality
Full-Grain:
• Also identified as “top-grain” leather
• Finest raw material
• Has natural outer waterproof skin
• Thick and durable glove
• Offers superb puncture and abrasion resistance
Split:
• Created by splitting the rougher interior from the supported exterior of the animal skin
• Offers pliable gloves with great dexterity
• Side split leather is considered the most durable and uniform split quality
• Shoulder split leather is comparatively economical and possesses the greatest abrasion resistance of the split quality
• Belly split leather is the least consistent in texture and appearance, yet the most cost effective of the split quality
Leather Work Glove Features
Leather work gloves are typically classified in three categories: driving gloves, palm gloves, and welding gloves. These three categories focus on the style of the glove; all kinds of leather could be manufactured in these three styles.
1. Driving gloves are frequently the most rugged and comfortable style appropriate for just about any application.
2. Palm gloves are particularly popular due to their low price and can also be used in a wide range of general industry applications.
3. Welding gloves tend to be more heavy duty and possess extremely high heat resistance.
In addition to the correct style of leather, various features like linings, glove cuffs, and thumb types provide more customization and distinctive advantages to leather work gloves.
Varieties of Glove Linings:
• 3M Thinsulate is a synthetic material which offers quite effective insulation minus the added thickness of a natural material
• Pile is a man-made wool which is inexpensive, and bears resemblance to natural wool, making it extremely popular
• Thermal Linings are a manufactured double layer of material which delivers really great heat insulation
• Fleece is the most common glove liner composed of napped cotton
• Thermo lined gloves have heat insulation of the thermal linings, and are also waterproof
• Wool linings deliver protection against cold no matter if they are wet, and are also odor resistant
Varieties of Glove Cuffs:
• Knit wrist cuffs give you a snug fit that prevents debris from getting inside of the glove
• Shirred cuffs are designed with an elastic band that provides an effective fit, but not nearly as good of a fit as the knit wrist cuff
• Safety cuffs have a great level of wrist and arm protection since the cuffs are 2 ½ inches long.
• Gauntlet cuffs are fundamentally the identical to the safety cuff, but boast a 4 ½ inch cuff
Types of Glove Thumbs:
• Keystone thumbs are stitched separately from the other part of the glove. This offers the maximum degree of flexibility and comfort simply because the thumb is kept in its natural position.
• Wing thumbs do not possess a seam between the thumb and the rest of the glove. The thumb is designed to be positioned diagonally across the palm, which adds comfort and maintains natural movement.
• Straight thumbs work best for jobs that demand gripping since the thumb is designed to