The appliance of science
December 1st 2005

The appliance of science - how fibre technology is playing an increasing role in hand protection. Here, John Thorne of Marigold Industrial highlights some of the latest materials being used in the hand protection industry and the benefits they are bringing to workers across the UK.

The last decade has seen the greatest developments and advances in the history of hand protection, thanks to the evolution of a range of fibres and materials that have brought new benefits to workers in the UK. Fibre technology that was originally developed and used by scientists at NASA, by the military and police forces across the globe and by the marine industry to protect their staff is being used to create the latest breed of hand protection for thousands of workers in a wide range of industrial sectors. In fact, such has been the development of knitted industrial gloves, that it is now the fastest growing sector of hand protection in the UK.

The birth of this new era of hand protection can be traced back to developments made within the space agency and the requirements of the armed forces which saw the evolution of bullet-and stab resistant vests, shrapnel resistant helmets, armour plating on vehicles, planes and helicopters, anti-mine boots and tethers used to strap astronauts to the shuttle during space walks.

Modern manufacturing techniques

Take a visit to the Marigold Industrial glove-knitting plant in Portugal and you will see just how this technology is being embraced by glove manufacturers, shaping the way that cut, abrasion and thermal resistant knitted gloves are made today.

More like a science lab than a manufacturing plant, row upon row of hi-tech knitting machines, watched over by highly trained technicians, all synchronised to computer programmed glove designs, operate at a blistering pace 24 hours a day, seven days per week to create the latest high level hand protection.

The advances in fibre technology really have opened up the glove market, providing flexible, highly protective materials that are helping to protect ever increasing numbers of employees in the UK against the threats of cuts, burns and the cold in industries as diverse as food processing to heavy engineering and sheet metal work.

Within minutes, the fully automated machines at Marigold Industrial can knit a glove or sleeve capable of safeguarding the hands and arms of people handling razor sharp metal sheets or working in sub zero environments.

Until the development of fibres such as Dyneema® - claimed to be the world's toughest fibre, the hollow core thermo active fibre being used in Marigold Industrial's latest glove the PX Insulator for those working in sub zero temperatures, the highly cut resistant Texcor fibre and the more established fibres such as Kevlar and Spectra, protecting hands from cuts, heat and cold meant wearing large, often cumbersome and uncomfortable thick gauntlets, which lacked both comfort and dexterity.

Today, we can not only provide greater levels of protection against cuts, heat and cold hazards, but we can do it with a range of knitted gloves that are comfortable to wear, provide high level protection and allow greater dexterity and improved grip.

A decade ago knitting safety gloves with steel and glass fibre was unheard of. Today these fibres are incorporated into our knitted glove range and play a central role in our specialist cut resistant solutions.

For many people, the difficulty they have at first is accepting that something as light and flexible as a knitted glove can provide better protection than a thick gauntlet.

But the reality is that they do and the use of these fibres has quite literally transformed the hand protection industry, enabling leading manufacturers to provide increasingly specialist solutions.

Such is the pace at which fibres are being developed that we are constantly looking at the next generation of knitted fibre hand protection. It is highly unlikely that the hand protection market will change so dramatically over the next 10 years in the way it has over the past decade. What is guaranteed however is that fibre technology will continue to play a significant role in the hand protection, providing solutions where none currently exist. At the forefront of this development will be the drive to increase the levels of hand protection offered to employees across the UK.

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