- Joined
- May 7, 2023
- Messages
- 2,156
Nitrile medical exam gloves are a far cry from those gloves your pictures show, mate.
The brand I use, are made from material 0.00275" thick (0.07mm) and despite the pictures they laughingly show of people yanking on them, a pinch and tug will make them tear like a paper towel very fast.
Obviously, I didn't assume anything (that's not in my nature) so I tested their lack of durability (for once, a lack of durability that is desirable!) in a couple of ways. I held a glove like you'd hold a strip of emery cloth on a lathe and got it to snag very briefly on a drill in my drill press but it tore and separated into two pieces. Even holding it loosely and getting it to snag by flipping it near the rotating drill point led to it tearing. In both cases there was hardly any tug on my hands.
Neither test was particularly realistic mind you since, like @pontiac428 , I never, ever put my hands near live work (since reading his post I have started to practice the "giving idle hands work" technique too just to be even more sure and I rather like it).
These aren't the kinds of gloves you see auto mechanics wearing (I have those too, but wouldn't dream of wearing those anywhere near any machine tool; I use those for when I'm Evaporusting or wire brushing or disassembling things). The gloves I have are intended for medical examinations or surgical use.
The size I wear when using machine tools are just very marginally on the small size for my hands and they're tight against my skin, there's no bagginess at all. Pretty much like a second skin, there's little to no chance of the material being able to bunch up. That just under 3 thou of thin latex like material is all the durability that these gloves are going to have.
They're not for keeping my hands warm; they'd be pointless for that.
Their only use is for keeping oils, cutting fluid and MEK off my skin (I also use Rozalex DryGuard barrier cream). If I'm working on brass, I generally don't bother wearing them.
Now, if I worked in a high school or college shop as an instructor, or I ran a workshop where there were likely to be young untrained people working, I'd be dogmatic and not allow any gloves but I'm in my own workshop on my own and I'm a reasonably intelligent person, with a fairly long career in the analysis of problems, specifically looking out for potential trouble down the track. I can keep to the essential spirit of the safety advice but not the letter of it.
This isn't a dig at you mate, I think you know the respect I hold for your skills and experience. Nobody, least of all me, would say you're ignorant of the underlying principles and just mindlessly parroting safety advice (leaving aside the fact that you're the kind of person who wants to know the whys and wherefores and understand things properly, you've seen these principles demonstrated, as per your pictures above and no doubt elsewhere besides).
However you are doing a very human thing, and it is based on a dogmatic approach, just in a different way. You're seeing what I'm saying only in terms of what you know of as 'gloves'; you're not allowing for the fact that in this case, the characteristics of gloves you're not particularly familiar with mean the risk that normally would be present are so reduced that they're negligible.
And of course, I hope you take my disagreement in the genuinely respectful and goodwill filled spirit it's meant.
You used all the words!!!
Neither you nor @pontiac428 could offend me, no worries there, we have always had good productive discussions even when we don't see eye to eye. And I know the exact type of nitrile gloves you speak of, I just prefer to not use any, and that will always be my recommendation.
Ive been in shops long enough to know the effects of the "Bad" stuff. Solvents that actually gave you a buzz simply through absorption through your skin, fun stuff like Trichlor, Tetrachloroethylene, Tywol (Xylene) and others, so wearing gloves as a barrier.....That ship has sailed for me and I wouldn't be surprised to wind up with a brain tumor some fine day.
Fun fact, I used to go race tether cars with my uncles who had Hydrazine in gallon jugs.
2nd fun fact, Dihydrogen monoxide is my favorite solvent and I've literally drank it by the gallon with mostly beneficial effects.
The part above in bold is how I see this entire forum. We have crusty old salts who know the risks and can pick and choose what they do personally, but there are also "Big ears in the cornfield" if you get the phrase.
As Charles mentioned, we don't want to set bad precedents to the "Green" guys and have them get hurt before they could even learn the whys and why nots.
What were doing here is productive and its the way these things should be discussed, and you would be surprised to find how often these discussions come up in an industrial setting.
I still have a " couple " pairs in the 3 containers . 
