Been working lately and realized how many little cuts and scrapes I get on my hands...and how nice and easy it would be to have a nice pair of leather work gloves in the pick-up and work kits.

Right you are! For extreme work, where I need wrist protection (from debris, not strain) I use leather gauntlet welding gloves. Extra heavy duty and they cover all the way back to the middle of the forearm. Definitely not for EDC though!

I always pick up a pair in home depot. I love the calf skin or deer skin. Very supple. I always wear them when working. Have multiple pairs in my truck, BOB's, desk at work, cellar, shed, etc.

If you have access to an equestrian supply store, look for cloth riding gloves. There is a store here that sell a glove that is like a driving glove with a velcro closure, very close fitting, more of a tough nylon blend, and with little traction dots on them. I have used them for a long time for riding, but now I carry a pair all the time. Best of all - they are cheap. I can't give you a name - they are 'no name' chinese ROC, and the store buys them in bulk from a west coast vendor that gets them along with a bunch of other stuff.

Sometimes you need a good pair of leather work gloves, but for most chores, I'm a fan of nomex flight gloves. It's got leather where you need it, and you retain a great deal of dexterity over regular leather work gloves. They're flame retardant, and lightweight as well.

I carry a pair of thin leather "roper" gloves. These are designed for working with rope as when roping cattle etc.

I find here in Brazil that when hiking in the rocky terrain that my hands get pretty cut up on rocks and thorns. My gloves are actually blood stained in many places because I tend to put them on only after I've cut myself, Doh! Mac

I concur. I'm partial to the Stanley brand goatskin gloves. Nice and thin, but very tough, and survive water well.

I always carry a pair of leather drivers on my person. I get odd looks from people when I pull them out of nowhere and put them on, but I'm resigned to that now.

-- Craig

I buy the three packs and put a pack in each vehicle as well as several in the garage. Put a three pack of gloves in the trunk of my wife's car with the spare tire and jack so he has them if she ever needs them for anything.

I've been on a quest for quite some time to find gloves that work well for me. For some reason, I have a lot of difficulty finding gloves that fit well. Basically, if the glove is tight enough around my palm and fingers to provide the close fit I prefer, they won't extend all the way to my finger joint. This results in them comming apart in the joint area fairly quickly.

The best I have found is the Geier Glove Deerskin gloves. I stumbled on them at a local feed store and they fit pretty well.

Living in the northwest, the wet can really mess with leather, so I've spent a fair amount of time trying to find an effective way to waterproof the gloves. It turns out it is really hard to get something waterproof and have it last for any significant amount of time.

The two best solutions I've found at this point are to:

1) Heat the gloves in the oven (not too much!). Put them on and then "wash" your hands with Sno Seal, working it into all parts of the gloves until the leather is saturated with the melted Sno Seal. Then wipe all excess off with a cloth or paper towels. Wait till the gloves are cool, then wipe them down again. This approach works well and lasts pretty well, but the gloves can be a bit sticky. I tend to rub them in dust, then wipe them off to dull the stickyness a bit. One useful thing about this is since it isn't water based, you can touch them up in the field by putting your gloves on and working in a small amount of Sno Seal.

2) The other approach that seems to work is to buy a couple of bottles of Nikwax leather waterproofing treatment and pour it into a tupperware container. Then "scoop" the gloves through the liquid so they are full on the inside, then submerge them and let them sit about 10 mins. After this, remove them, drain them and hang them up to dry. Warning, this is a messy process. Put some newspapers down or do it somewhere easy to clean. Once they are dry (this takes a while since this stuff is water based) put them on and rub them down with a cloth. Note, this can leave a milky looking coloring on the gloves, esp. noticable on black leather. This solution takes longer, but the gloves are not sticky. On the other hand, it doesn't last as long as the Sno Seal IMO.

Both solutions will make the gloves slightly stiff, although this mellows with use.

I've not found any silicon treatments that last nearly as long as these two approaches.

Anyone else have any waterproofing tricks?

Does anyone else have this fit problem and found other gloves that work for you?

The other thing I'm interested in is high tech gloves. It seems with all this materials technology we should be able to do a bit better than cow and deer hide.

One that really caught my interest is the "Turtleskin" material from Warwickmills.com. Basically they weave Armid fibres so tightly that it provides puncture protection, even from needles.

So I ordered a pair of their law enforcement oriented gloves. These had a stretch knit fabric back, and it worked out really poorly for me. Basically, to get the right size around the fingers and palm, the knit fabric was very loose and uncomfortable and did not secure the gloves on my hand well.

So I ordered a pair of their "Search" gloves. These fit a lot better than knit backed gloves. However, it's not perfect. The Turtleskin material is very thin, but it is much stiffer than I expected. After getting them, it made sense, but I wasn't expecting it. Also, the gloves don't have full Turtleskin protection. With these particular gloves, the full palm and "business side" of the fingers is protected, with a little bit of protection rolling back over the fingernails. However, the sides and backs of the fingers and back of the hand are only protected by a (very) thin layer of leather.

In hindsight, it is easy to see why. This stuff is so stiff that making a full glove out of it would be difficult and probably uncomfortable. Despite the claims, dexterity is compromsed. On the other hand, the Turtleskin material does appear to be super tough and I do think they would provide almost bulletproof protection for the business side of the hand. It just doesn't protect the sides and back with the same level of protection which would be desirable in an earthquake toppled building escape (my test case scenario).

All in all, I haven't found anything better for this type of application and they are light, so they are the glove that lives in my daily carry kit.

So, does anyone have experience with other high tech gloves you could share? Or does anyone have a natural materials solution they think is as good or better?

Thanks,

-john