Social media. A place of sharing, liking, and connecting with people all over the globe. As we all know, sometimes this sharing leads to discussion and debate in the form of comments and replies. I’ve realized that if ever you want to illicit a strong response from the safety police on social media, simply post a photo or video of doing various woodworking tasks while wearing a pair of gloves. Yes, gloves! In some cases, I disagree with the wisdom of wearing gloves, but that has more to do with the type of gloves and the task being done. For the purposes of this post, let’s refer to the left-hand glove as “lefty” and the right-hand glove as “righty.”

To the left

Not long ago, there wasn’t much choice when it came to work gloves. When most of us of a certain age think of work gloves, we often think of lefty—thick, leather, often loose-fitting gloves that could be used for almost anything from gardening to handling rough lumber. I used these gloves often for many heavy tasks to protect my hands from scrapes and minor nicks, and in some cases the gloves would add an element of grip to help with the work. They came on and off quickly and a nice pair would age well, breaking in like a nice pair of shoes. 

All that said, you would never wear them to put wood through machines. They have a lot of material between your fingers and the blades, which makes it difficult to judge how close your digits are to the blade. As well, the loose, floppy material could get pulled into a machine, taking your hand with it. Not a great thing to imagine; I’m flexing my hands as I type this trying to shake the feeling. It feels dangerous just thinking about it and it is, in fact, very dangerous. Try not to ignore those gut feelings when you get them.  

To the right

If we turn our attention to righty, we have a completely different situation. To start, righty is form-fitting and hugs the fingers, hand, and wrist. The material is normally stretchy, which provides this fit. The fingers and palms have a rubber-like coating on them which provides the wearer with great grip and friction. This non-slip aspect is great for handling wood at machines and, depending on the type of gloves purchased, there is an element of cut-resistance. This cut-resistance is not designed to prevent an amputation at the bandsaw, but it can be helpful when carving to prevent an errant slip from drawing blood. 

The most important aspect of righty is the snug fit and thin material they are made of. You can see where your hands are while wearing them and the extra 1-2mm of thickness poses no additional danger to being pulled into a machine than your bare hands. Hands should be nowhere near any blade on any machine. Full stop.

Trust your gut

Ultimately, you have to do what is right for you and how you work. I like wearing tight, rubberized gloves when milling because I feel like I have better grip and therefore, more control over what I’m doing. If you don’t feel that way and prefer bare hands, then don’t wear gloves. Just understand that wearing the right type of gloves is no more dangerous than working without them. The choice is yours, but work safe and have fun in the shop.

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