should i wear gloves when finishing wood

I think you need to be able to feel what you are doing as much as seeing it. Did you ever get your sleeve or shirt tail into the jointer?Ĭabinets are one thing, but when doing furniture and you run your hand along a planed edge to see how it feels. I agree that gloves on machines that feed like planers are bad. I wear rubber finishing gloves to hand feed melamine faced panel through the tablesaw, this really helps me get a good grip and a straight rip. That’s true about tough hands and few splinters. All you have to do is see one person trying to get a glove off their hand before the board goes into the blade of a ripsaw to ban them forever. Obviously, gloves cannot be near any auto feed equipment like ripsaw, shaper, molder, etc. Not wearing gloves is fundamental, as taught in every trade shop for the last 100 years. Wear gloves and you will always be at risk of nuisance splinters, blisters, etc.

Let the hands toughen, and the splinters decrease to near zero. The only place gloves can be allowed in a shop is handling rough lumber, and even then, I discourage it. Rough fingers are better than no fingers. We should all probably stop wearing gloves around machinery. I wear gloves for certain operations in the shop but was always taught that gloves as well as long sleeves were just an accident waiting to happen. I issue two pairs a week to each of the guys.

We buy them at Ellettesville Indiana True Value in 12 pair packs for $15.00. The ones we like are called 'The Assembler'. I am now uncomfortable hand feeding a board without them because I feel like I have less grip and control then when wearing the gloves. They give you better grip on everything and fit well enough you can tie your shoes with them on. We wear woven polyester gloves that have the palms dipped in grey nitrile.

Should i wear gloves when finishing wood