Whether you’re a professional mechanic or just like to dabble with your own cars, a good pair of mechanic’s gloves can help you quite a bit when it comes to keeping your hands safe. However, how can you determine whether a pair of mechanic’s gloves are doing the necessary work to keep you safe on the job?
The most obvious way to protect your hands from injuries while on the job is to get yourself a quality pair of mechanics gloves. You will need to consider the materials they are made of, their overall durability, the amount of nimbleness they provide, and more.
Let’s get into how you can determine whether or not a pair of mechanics gloves is a worthwhile investment for you or not. You’ll want to pay attention to many things, but we’ll try to cover what’s most important. There are so many options for work gloves on the market, and you’ll want to be sure that the ones you’re investing in are worth it.
In this guide, we’ll break down the different parameters you will want to look at when evaluating mechanic’s gloves. We’re also going to want to address the obvious – how mechanics’ gloves can help prevent workplace injuries from occurring.
How Prominent Are Hand Injuries in the Workplace?
Out of all the workplace injuries in the United States every year, hand and finger injuries are by far the most prominent. According to a study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, over one million Americans a year are treated for finger and hand injuries that occur on the job.
This makes sense, as your hands are what you use to interact with and utilize power tools and other potentially dangerous equipment. It’s particularly obvious how carpenters, plumbers, construction workers, electricians, mechanics, and tradespeople would regularly sustain hand and finger injuries.
There are many different kinds of hand injuries that people encounter when on the job. These include crushing accidents, lacerations, and broken or fractured bones. Lacerations comprised about 64% of all hand and finger injuries, and many were caused by using nails, saws, and other basic tools.
It seems reasonable to assume that many of these injuries could have been avoided using a thick pair of mechanics gloves. However, not everyone wants to inhibit their ability to work by wearing gloves. We’ll get into this more later.
Mechanics Gloves Materials and What Matters
Mechanic gloves can be all sorts of materials. You might come across a pair of leather work gloves, pure cotton gloves, or gloves reinforced with rubber. There are tons of options you can find in stores and online, but what’s most important is to find a material that will work best for you.
Leather
Leather is a quality material for a pair of work gloves because of its durability. It is highly resistant to puncturing and tearing and can stand up against most sharp objects it runs across. If you’re constantly digging your hands around in a car’s undercarriage or handling sharp tools, leather gloves could help you in the long run.
You’ll want to ensure you’re wearing leather gloves when dealing with any power tool, as it’s one of the best materials for stopping an active saw blade.
However, if this is a significant concern for you, you will probably want to ensure that the gloves you’re checking out are genuine leather – synthetic leather or pleather isn’t nearly as tough as the real thing. While it might be cheaper, it isn’t worth your safety, so make sure to shell out the few extra bucks you need to spend on the best leather available.
There are a few issues that can come up with leather gloves that you will want to pay attention to. One of the big ones is that leather unless explicitly treated to be so, isn’t usually resistant to liquids.
Not only can water exposure cause staining and the like, but it can also cause the leather’s integrity to deteriorate over time. Keep this in mind if you’re using mechanic’s gloves in any wet environment or working with liquids in any capacity.
The other issue with leather in general is that over time, it will naturally dry and form cracks. While you can repair this, it’s essential to be on the lookout for whether your leather gloves show any signs of wear and tear.
This can lead to all kinds of safety issues you will want to consider, as a cracked leather surface is much more susceptible to damage. In other words, it’d be much easier for that active sawblade to penetrate cracked leather than fully intact leather.
Another downside of leather gloves is that they can inhibit your overall mobility. You might find it harder to have your full range of dexterity if you’re wearing a clunky pair of leather gloves, so if this concerns you, you might want to avoid leather in general.
This is because if you need your fingers to be able to perform precise tasks while also remaining protected from all kinds of power tools and industrial equipment, then you probably are not going to be able to get the results you want with leather.
Here is the Amazon Link to the Mechanix Wear Cow Leather With Durahide Water Resistant Technology which is the most durable water resistant leather gloves we tested.
Coated Gloves
When you’re a mechanic, construction worker, or any kind of skilled laborer, coated gloves will be a common sight that you’ll see on the job. Coated gloves refer to gloves that are a mixture of materials. They often have a leather base coated with materials like polyurethane, latex, or PVC for durability. These coating materials can give the wearer improved grip resistance to liquids, heat, shock, and more.
Here is the Amazon Link to the Infimor Rubber Latex Texture Coated Mechanic Gloves which we found to be the most durable with superior grip.
Coated gloves are a great choice if you’re looking for a pair of mechanics gloves that can protect you from common injuries or slight accidents and provide you with the level of dexterity and flexibility you’ll need for more precise work. While not typically as durable as thick leather gloves, coated gloves are still a quality option.
Staying Safe on the Job
One important thing to remember is that no matter how strong any pair of mechanic’s gloves are, you can’t protect your hands from all the possible injuries you might sustain on the job. There’s a reason that your industrial-strength bandsaw is cutting through carbon steel sheeting like it’s nothing.
Even with the most expensive pair of gloves, you can get your hands on, you aren’t going to be stopping a hook-toothed blade with them any time soon. It’s important to remember that you still need to act like you’re not wearing any hand protection at all when on the job.
This means fully understanding the tools that you’re using. Ask questions of your supervisors and coworkers so that you’re always confident before entering a job you might not fully understand. Never get involved in a task that makes you nervous unless you’re 100% positive that you know how to do it.
Diving headfirst into something is a great way to learn how to swim – not necessarily a great way to learn how to operate power tools.
Finding the Right Pair of Mechanics Gloves for You
Try out as many pairs of gloves as you can before settling on a pair. If you can try out multiple pairs in a store, we recommend bringing a Rubik’s cube or some other task that requires dexterity in your knuckles. Try to do it with a pair of gloves on. This will help you balance hand protection, a full range of motion, comfort, and a secure fit.
We hope this guide proved helpful to you when deciding how to find a good pair of mechanics gloves. It can be tough to navigate all the information available online these days, so we hope that this straightforward information we provided cleared things up on what you should look for in your next pair of work gloves.
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