Cliff Stamp
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 5, 1998
- Messages
- 17,562
I became curious about cut resistant gloves some time back but never seriously looked into the various brands until recently. There are, as far as I can tell a few basic types; Kevlar, Spectra, Kevlar+Spectra, stainless steel thread, and chain mail. As with just about anything there are tradeoffs in design. If you are willing to cope with the loss of precision handling and tactile sensation, you can get a very cut resistant glove just by using very thick layered material. In fact I hacked one together awhile ago using some glue, 3/8" poly cord and an old work glove. The result is a glove that will resist even a very powerful slash, and will take near a full power chop to cut through. However due to the stiffness of the poly, there is a huge loss of function for precision work.
After doing some web searches, one of the more interesting designs that caught my eye were "Armor Paw" gloves. They looked to be no more bulky than a simple cotton glove, however because they used stainless steel thread they offered much greater cut resistance. I had some reservations about the flexibility of such material, having no experience with it, but it seemed obvious that the potential was there for high cut resistance. Ref :
http://www.polygenex.com/armor_paw.htm
The glove actually has a number of very strong features. First off it really is just as slim as a simple cotton glove so it can be worn as a liner. It also is not in any way slick so it will function well as a working glove. The biggest weakness, which is very obvious, is that because it is a weave, it has little to no puncture resistance to small objects. I could stick a pin through it with no more effort that it took to puncture a cotton glove. The pin would simply go through the weave. However in terms of cut resistance, well this was a different matter altogether.
As a test blade I was using the Sub-Sniper with geometry and sharpness specified in the following thread :
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1445053
I first cut the fingers off of a cotton glove under a 1000 g load. The glove would only move a fraction of a cm along the blade before it was sheared through. Three runs resulted in cut lengths of 0.5, 0.5, 0.8 cm . Assuming that the "Armor Paw" glove would be far more cut resistant I increased the load to 2500 g. The first thing I noticed was how difficult it was to draw the blade across the knife as compared to the cotton glove, the increased load of course was an influence . Drawing the blade across the full length of the Sub-Sniper (4 cm), only produced a cut through 3/4 of the width of one of the fingers on the Armor Paw glove, which was 2.8 cm wide, same as the cotton glove.
Because the cut was only partial, and because not all of the width of the finger got the full length of the blade, I would estimate it took about 3.5 +/- 0.5 cm of edge to make a cut. Thus the Armor Paw glove would seem to be about 15-25 times more cut resistant than the cotton glove (a crude estimate indeed) with basically no added bulk or weight.
I was all ready to do a few more cuts so I could get a better estimate of the increase in cut resistance, however a simple check of the edge on the Sub-Sniper showed a huge loss in sharpness. To get specific, before the glove cutting the blade would push cut light thread only requiring 65 +/- 4 g of force. However after the one cut through the glove the blade was severely blunted and now required a staggering 335 +/- 46 g. It had decreased in sharpness down to about 20% of its initial ability. A check of the edge revealed this was not edge roll either, it was wear.
Anyway because the material is so abrasive, which isn't surprising considering its stainless steel, I will be using stock utility blades for testing which I'll simply buy in packs of ten, since the blades can only take basically one cut and then have to be sharpened. I also have some Kevlar and Spectra gloves that I will be cutting up, and I have puncture tests planned as well. It would be very nice to have this material in bulk for testing edge retention since it is so abrasive.
Suggestions for tests welcomed as always.
-Cliff
After doing some web searches, one of the more interesting designs that caught my eye were "Armor Paw" gloves. They looked to be no more bulky than a simple cotton glove, however because they used stainless steel thread they offered much greater cut resistance. I had some reservations about the flexibility of such material, having no experience with it, but it seemed obvious that the potential was there for high cut resistance. Ref :
http://www.polygenex.com/armor_paw.htm
The glove actually has a number of very strong features. First off it really is just as slim as a simple cotton glove so it can be worn as a liner. It also is not in any way slick so it will function well as a working glove. The biggest weakness, which is very obvious, is that because it is a weave, it has little to no puncture resistance to small objects. I could stick a pin through it with no more effort that it took to puncture a cotton glove. The pin would simply go through the weave. However in terms of cut resistance, well this was a different matter altogether.
As a test blade I was using the Sub-Sniper with geometry and sharpness specified in the following thread :
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1445053
I first cut the fingers off of a cotton glove under a 1000 g load. The glove would only move a fraction of a cm along the blade before it was sheared through. Three runs resulted in cut lengths of 0.5, 0.5, 0.8 cm . Assuming that the "Armor Paw" glove would be far more cut resistant I increased the load to 2500 g. The first thing I noticed was how difficult it was to draw the blade across the knife as compared to the cotton glove, the increased load of course was an influence . Drawing the blade across the full length of the Sub-Sniper (4 cm), only produced a cut through 3/4 of the width of one of the fingers on the Armor Paw glove, which was 2.8 cm wide, same as the cotton glove.
Because the cut was only partial, and because not all of the width of the finger got the full length of the blade, I would estimate it took about 3.5 +/- 0.5 cm of edge to make a cut. Thus the Armor Paw glove would seem to be about 15-25 times more cut resistant than the cotton glove (a crude estimate indeed) with basically no added bulk or weight.
I was all ready to do a few more cuts so I could get a better estimate of the increase in cut resistance, however a simple check of the edge on the Sub-Sniper showed a huge loss in sharpness. To get specific, before the glove cutting the blade would push cut light thread only requiring 65 +/- 4 g of force. However after the one cut through the glove the blade was severely blunted and now required a staggering 335 +/- 46 g. It had decreased in sharpness down to about 20% of its initial ability. A check of the edge revealed this was not edge roll either, it was wear.
Anyway because the material is so abrasive, which isn't surprising considering its stainless steel, I will be using stock utility blades for testing which I'll simply buy in packs of ten, since the blades can only take basically one cut and then have to be sharpened. I also have some Kevlar and Spectra gloves that I will be cutting up, and I have puncture tests planned as well. It would be very nice to have this material in bulk for testing edge retention since it is so abrasive.
Suggestions for tests welcomed as always.
-Cliff
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