"Nearly" inpenetrable work gloves

[M.D. Vaden]

Along with a pond and plants I'm installing this week, I included in the estimate to remove 4 piles of cactus branches that were cut last winter for this lady.

I bought some gloves to do the job, but the cactus still puncture them - but not by much. I ended up burning the cactus. Anyhow, the gloves were from a feed and garden store and are designed for working with barbed wire. These are amazingly light weight and flexible. I'm going to try them out on roses next time I need to prune some.

Thank-God this lady had a lot of old wood laying around, because burning is easier than hauling. There was about 10 cubic yards of the cactus - I'd say near 5000 lbs of it in the heaps. I alternately put cactus (still wet and green) and wood on the pile and literally cremated them.

Basically I "cooked them down" until they dried and would burn.

I did not use the gloves much at all, but I'm glad I learned about them. They will come in very handy in the future. I used a pitch fork most of the time.

The label on the gloves says that they are up to 100 times more puncture resistant than some other types of gloves.

My guess for palm material is something like Kevlar. They were $29.99 for one pair.

 

[doggonetrees]

What brand name glove were these? I had to remove 7 prickley pear cactus and tried thick welding gloves to no avail. Finally had to use blaksmith tongs to move the pieces.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

I'll see if the tag is still in my tool shed trash can tomorrow. I didn't dump it yet.

The gloves are a fabric with a synthetic material palm; about the same weight as light deerskin gloves. The cactus did penetrate a little, but it was minor penetration. My split leather gloves were penetrated like butter 2 days earlier. I'll bet these new ones will be great for certain spiney trees too.

 

[Big A]

i too have tried to find gloves that dont allow the spines of various shrubs etc to penetrate, used the heavy duty welding gauntlets and barbed wire gloves. The only trouble is that you cant feel the saw when wearing them. they are so cumbersome to wear! God knows how to get along with cacti, I'm just glad we dont have that problem here in the UK.