Don't have to be an idiot to get tired, or have a bad day, or get distracted, or just be human and make an error.
-In that case, gloves are irrelevant. If you get your hand close enough for the machine to grab your gloves, you're only within a quarter of an inch at best, of letting the machine grab
ungloved flesh. For most gloves, it's typically less than an eighth-inch.
In that case, YOU made the mistake, glove or no glove.
Boy, do I look forward to the day when I cease to make mistakes.
But, until that day I must resign myself to the mortal world of stupid/idiots.
-Yessir. But don't hamper yourself by refusing to use valid safety equipment, just because some other guy got stupid or lazy and jammed his hand into running machinery.
Then there's that one time in 1000 that it is an issue. I prepare for that one.
-Yessir, again. You buy fire extinguishers in case you ever have a fire, homeowners' insurance in case you ever have a flood, and wear safety glasses in case that grinding wheel shatters and sprays shrapnel around the room.
Gloves are simply another kind of safety equipment. Rubber gloves protect you from oils and solvents, heavy leather gloves protect you from hot forge tongs or sharp steel edges, thin leather gloves protect you from the heat and UV of TIG welding.
But you don't wear the thin leather in the parts washer, you don't use the heavy leather when trying to sew Cordura, and you don't use the rubber gloves near the forge. It's a simple matter of application.
Again, just because some idiot jammed his hand into running machinery sometime in the past, is hardly a blanket condemnation of the
proper use of gloves.
Hey folks DON'T STICK YOUR HANDS WHERE THEY AIN'T SUPPOSED TO BE.
-That's all that needs to be said. Gloves have their uses, and gloves have their places they ought not be worn. But they do not, in and of themselves, or even in close proximity to running machinery, cause accidents or injury.
Some of us wear gloves around rotating machinery because we have never listened to a man scream while having a finger ripped out by the root.
-Did you stop driving the first time you drove past a car accident out on the highway? Did you sell off your rifle the first time you heard about a guy shot while hunting? Did you stop producing knives the first time you heard about someone being stabbed? Did you stop travelling by airplane after watching 9/11 on TV?
I listened to a man scream after lopping the first knuckle off his left index finger in a table saw- I was in the room but didn't see it happen. I saw the bloodstains afterward, though. No gloves, by the way.
Back in high school, one of my classmates in woodshop gashed himself badly with the bandsaw. He kinda-screamed, panicked, hyperventilated, and fainted before the EMTs could arrive. He damaged a nerve and some tendons, but no major impairment.
No gloves there, either. Ditto the kid that lost control of a chisel in the wood lathe- it kicked back, snapped the steel blade out of the wooden handle, and hit a second student at a nearby workbench. Nasty cut, but didn't need stitches.
The list is legion. The guy that took about 1/8" off the end of his left thumb while cutting a 2X4 in a small radial arm saw. No gloves. The buddy that somehow managed to stick his hand into the wire wheel in the bench grinder. No gloves there, either, but that one took $20K in skin grafts before he could use his right hand again.
All of those were
stupid mistakes. In almost all cases, gloves would not have helped, but weren't the cause, either.
There's enough information here for everyone to make their own, informed decision.
-Agreed. But demonizing gloves, or suggesting that machines can reach out and snag unwary passerby- apparently, especially if they're wearing gloves- isn't an informed argument.
They are useful pieces of safety equipment, that like everything else from safety glasses to hardhats, has their place, and their place they ought not be used.
Doc.
