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Does anyone here have personal experience with using cut resistant gloves? I had a disagreement with the sharp end of a chisel yesterday and I'm thinking that if I had been wearing one of those on my non-chisel hand it could have prevented or minimized the damage.

From what I've read, this type of glove comes in 5 grades of cut resistance. They tend to be made of Kevlar or similar material. They look like dexterity wouldn't be a problem and reviews from users suggest that too. These kind of gloves aren't intended to prevent a puncture like stabbing a chisel straight into your hand, but they are designed to resist slashing or slicing cuts, which could have helped in my case.

Has anyone here had the "opportunity" to find out how effective they are against a chisel or what the dexterity is like?

Just to keep this thread on topic, I'm not looking for a chisel safety discussion. I know what went wrong.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Used to wear them all the time when I worked in tool & die shops and aircraft machine shops. Handling heavy chunks of titanium, inconel, waspaloy, stainless, boilerplate, etc., with sharp edges were no match for the ones the company supplied. I didn't have the dexterity I wanted all the time, but I kept my fingers intact.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Get "filet glove" from the Fishnet Co. They are about $15 (per glove) but you probably just need one.

Thanks Mike. I've read that these type of gloves tend to run one size larger than what you would usually expect. Would you know if the fillet gloves are like that?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Just beware of revenge effects.
A deck with no railing is far safer than one with a flimsy one. I'm not saying the glove isn't a good idea, Just food for thought.

I wouldn't dream of using a table saw without a push stick because a mistake is so catastrophic. It's certainly possible to do serious damage to yourself with a chisel, but letting the notion that your hand has some protection might work against you. Especialy on a day when your glove is just a little too far away for that one little cut.

When I first started carpentry a long time ago, everyone on the crew had their skil saw guard pinned back. I thought they were nuts and at first I refused. I soon realized that like it or not, when I had to use the nearest saw, My muscle memory better move as though there was no guard or I was at serious risk. I pinned mine back and just got used to he fact every saw was a death trap.

I bought one of these for my wife when she was doing some whittling. It's too small for me but I can jam my hand in it to sort of get a feel for it.

http://www.woodcraft.com/product/06I62/ ... m-7-9.aspx

I think it would be ok for holding the piece while you work the tool with the other hand. It is sort of thick but not bulky.

Your thread got me thinking that I may go get one. Seems like a worthwhile investment to prevent a cut, even a small one.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Yea, I'm very aware of the false sense of security problem, that's why I why I was asking if anyone had first hand experience with cut resistance gloves. If they wouldn't actually work, that could be more dangerous than not using a glove. I used to do rock and glacier climbing and a false sense of security there could be very bad so it's something I have thought about.

I think the pinned guard must have been standard practice in the past. I was a framer in the 70s and we did exactly the same thing with our Skil saws. The guard was pinned back with a nail. One guy I worked with had been working some years before about 10 feet up on scaffolding with his saw and somehow lost his balance and fell off taking the saw with him. The blade was still spinning down when he landed on top of it on his chest with the blade up. It was lucky he fell that far because the blade had time to spin down enough so as to not cut him too deeply. He still pinned the guard on his saw....

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

They fit fine Jay. Some as a rubber coated cotton work glove if you know what I mean. However! Never push a sharp chisel towards yourself. Coming from a guy with numerous scars on the hand that holds the work. Haha

Had the same 16d sinker pinning the guard on my skill saw (yep, framer) for 35 years. I went to use it a few years ago and asked myself why the heck did I still have that like that. Took it out.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Greetings, You might check out a company called Steel Grip, Inc. in Danville, Illinois. They sell finger tip protectors, gloves, forearm sleeves, etc. I use the forearm protectors when I am doing woodworking. Keeps my arms from getting bruised (blood thinner). Google them.
Ken

As a surveyor, I only use plastic dot cotton gloves to keep a machete from escaping. I have seen commercial fishermen using these "sycor" gloves and they swear by them

And they are fileting fish with a knife, not a chisel.

Anyone who would eschew using cut resistant gloves while wearing hearing and eye protection is kidding themselves. Sharp accidents happen. Just like loud noises and unexpected shrapnel. Wearing cut resistant gloves does not make u unwary anymore than goggles and or muffs.

Was the accident avoidable with a change to your usage scheme for the chisel? In other words, why was your control hand in front of the cutting edge, and was it possible to have moved that hand and still retained control?

I'm not trying to be argumentative or somehow suggest that all of the hazards of actually accomplishing work in the shop can be done without risk, but no glove is going to stop every edge - an awl or a sharp, narrow (1/8" or smaller) 'toothpick' of a chisel or a carving gouge is likely going to punch through even a fairly stout glove, so it's worth considering the question on how the cut could have been accomplished to avoid having your control hand in harm's way.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I agree with the prevention methods. Stabbed my hand thrice with a very sharp chisel and it resulted in a small fountain of blood gushing from my palm. I had to stand on my hand to staunch the flow.

I had simply forgotten to apply some wisdom an old woodworker friend taught me, "Hands always BEHIND the blade!"

The use of safety equipment is no reason to use unsafe practises.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I understand what you are getting at about prevention, but I would also argue that thinking that one is safe because one religiously adheres to safety procedures can itself be a false sense of security because s$%t happens. Taking steps to prevent or minimize harm when those occasions come along seems pretty reasonable to me. The American Alpine Club publishes an annual summary of most all the climbing accidents in North America with analysis of what went wrong. Some of the accidents are the result of shear stupidity, but many of them happen to experienced climbers even though they were doing all the right things by the book. This is because s$%t happens in ways that can't always be anticipated.

Not wearing a bike helmet might make you ride more defensively, but when somebody unexpectedly backs their car out of an angle in parking space right in front of you and you land on the pavement on your forehead, you are glad you were wearing a helmet. Guess how I know.

Yes, the accident was avoidable and I can avoid it in the future. I agree that analyzing an accident to see how to avoid it in the future is important.

I don't expect a glove to stop every edge. As I mentioned above, these gloves aren't intended to stop direct punctures, just slicing or slashing cuts. If they are capable of doing that, I would be happy to wear one while using a chisel even though I'm using a chisel in a safe manner.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Agreed.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

And yet in some situations, consciously or unconsciously, that's exactly what humans do. Even smart ones.
I don't think any blanket policy can answer safety questions.

It's hard to imagine hearing protection leading to risky behavior with your hearing. Yet football helmets now have kids using their spinal columns as battering rams. Two very different outcomes to safety equipment use. Not always obvious at the outset.





#$%&! Cars!

Because we work in a learning environment here, we are asked to take the time to consider the answers to three questions before using an edged tool:

- Is your tool sharp?

- Is your work securely held without depending on either of your hands?

- Is your control hand behind and clear of the cutting edge?

If the answer to any of these questions is a 'no' or a 'maybe', we are tasked with ensuring that the answers are 'yes, yes, and yes' before continuing. From my own limited experience, my 'no's' have usually been due to an attempt to use my control hand for clamping (thus, attempting to both control and power the edge with my power hand) or placing a portion of my control hand in the path of the edge (especially when paring to a flat surface).

Nora Hall's basic and advanced carving tapes (yes...VHS...really need to get these on DVD!) are mandatory viewing here as part of the 'big safety and tool use data dump' that the boss requires of students. Hall's very clear explanation of how the two hands have very different purposes in paring and carving is understandable even to people that have not had an opportunity to work with edge tools. The control hand does just that - controls the path of the edge and acts as stop or limit as required, but adds little or no driving force to the cutting edge, while the power hand provides the motive power in moving the edge, but very little control. View the tapes for more on this traditional European approach to edge tool use.

I'm not suggesting perfect safety is to be had with three questions or a couple video tapes, but thinking about power hand and control hand placement and use has helped me avoid mishap in the shop and even in my kitchen, where my yearly trip to the ER for holiday dinner stitches has been absent from the schedule the last two years. And other than Acadian Blood Sausage Stuffing (a favorite recipe from my years in Shreveport), who wants blood in their food, anyway?

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower