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Frequently Asked Questions
What injury do impact gloves actually prevent?
Being struck or crushed on the back of the hand - which cut-resistant gloves do nothing about.
A large share of serious hand injuries in construction, oil and gas, mining and heavy maintenance are impact and pinch injuries rather than cuts.
Typical mechanisms are a hand caught between a load and a fixed object, a dropped tool, or a spanner slipping.
Fractures and crush injuries take far longer to heal than most lacerations.
Cut protection and impact protection are separate properties and separate ratings.
A glove can be excellent at one and offer nothing of the other.
How is impact protection measured?
By a test method that strikes the padded area and measures the force transmitted, with the result expressed as a rating.
Before such methods were widely adopted, one padded glove could not be compared with another at all.
A rating tells you what the pad actually does rather than what it looks like it should do.
Some schemes rate the back of the hand and the fingers separately, which is a meaningful distinction.
Marking is normally on the glove itself, so the rating survives the packaging being discarded.
Test methods, scales and marking requirements differ between markets, so ratings should be read against the scheme they were awarded under.
Do the pads have to cover the fingers?
For most of the tasks these gloves are worn for, yes - fingers and thumbs are where a lot of the injuries happen.
Knuckle protection alone leaves the most exposed part of the hand unaddressed.
Pinch injuries in particular tend to catch fingertips and thumbs rather than the back of the hand.
Finger padding has to be segmented, or the hand cannot close around a tool.
Some rating schemes report finger protection separately, which makes it possible to check.
Thumb protection is the element most often omitted and worth looking for specifically.
Do impact gloves reduce dexterity?
Padding adds bulk, and how much dexterity survives is the main difference between products.
Pads are segmented and shaped precisely to preserve movement, and the quality of that design varies widely.
Palm material and thickness affect grip and feel as much as the padding does.
Knitted-back designs are more flexible than leather or synthetic-backed ones and breathe better.
A glove that is too bulky for the task comes off, and an unworn glove protects nothing.
Trialling with the actual work, rather than assessing the glove on a bench, is the only reliable way to judge it.
Can one glove combine impact protection with cut or thermal protection?
Yes, and combination gloves are common - but each added property costs bulk or flexibility.
Impact and cut resistance together is the most frequent combination, since many tasks present both hazards.
Cold-condition insulated impact gloves add a thermal liner, which is the bulkiest combination of all.
Each property is rated separately, so a combination glove carries multiple markings.
A high rating in one property does not imply anything about the others.
Where the hazards genuinely coexist, a combination glove is better than swapping, because swapping tends not to happen.
How should impact gloves fit?
Closely enough that the pads stay aligned with the knuckles, and loosely enough to be worn all day.
A glove that slips moves the pad off the joint it is protecting.
Too tight and the hand fatigues, which leads to the glove being removed for fiddly work - exactly when injuries occur.
Hand shapes vary, and a size range that suits one workforce may not suit another.
Cuff style affects both retention and how easily the glove comes off if it is caught.
Fit trials across the actual users are worth more than any specification when choosing for a site.
How long do the pads last?
The pads outlast the glove in most cases - the palm and the stitching fail first.
Thermoplastic rubber pads are durable and are usually still intact when the glove is retired.
Palm wear, seam failure and contamination are the usual reasons for replacement.
A pad that has taken a heavy blow may be damaged internally without showing, so a glove involved in a significant impact should be replaced.
Pads that have delaminated from the backing no longer spread load and are a clear replacement trigger.
Chemical exposure and high temperatures degrade both the pad and the adhesive, which may not be visible.