The Truth About Leather Gloves from SuperiorGlove
Webinar from Superior glove:
Don’t have time right now? That’s okay, here is the cliff notes version.
The Natural Properties of Leather:
As we discussed in “The Bad-Ass Guide to Leather Work Gloves“, leather resists three things better than any other textile on the market.
- High temperatures
- Flame and fire
- Abrasion and friction
High Temperature:
Without any special treatment, leather can withstand 430°F without charring or cracking. If the leather has been tanned with chrome it can tolerate 600°F before any charring or cracking.
The interesting thing that Michael pointed out in this webinar is that split leather will char and crack less than grain leather because of the excess oils found in grain leather. Learn more about split and grain leather.
Flame and Fire:
Leather will shrink and curl from flame and fire but it wont catch fire, which makes it the preferred option for welders and oil and gas workers facing risk of arc flash or flash fire.
Abrasion and Friction:
Leather is known for having excellent abrasion resistance but not all leather is created equal.
Michael gets asked frequently “what’s the best leather?” and when he was first in the industry, he made it a mission to figure this out by using a Taber machine.
What he found was amazing.
Cowgrain, the favorite in construction and oil and gas at the time, only withstood 5,644 rotations on the Taber machine before the abrasive disk wore through the material.
Goatgrain withstood 13,000 rotations on the machine without any wearthrough.
The Benefits of Oilbloc™:
Oilbloc™ is an exclusive offering from Superior Glove and the difference between this treatment for oil resistance and most other treatments is that Oilbloc™ is added during the tanning process of the raw material.
This means that oil will not penetrate through. Michael described a pair of work gloves with Oilbloc™ in his work shed that have had oil on them for 13 months and it’s congealed but it has not soaked through the leather.
Other oil treatments that are applied on the finished product will need to be reapplied after wearing and washing.
In comparison, Oilbloc™ will not wash out. Learn more about Oilbloc™.
Webinar available can offer advice on glove selection from his decade-plus experience with Superior Glove.
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