How to Pick Gloves for Winter

When picking out winter gloves for welding projects or any other project in the upcoming cold season, you must first determine the balance between whether pure cold protection is most important or if maintaining your hands’ dexterity is critical. According to what degree of warmth and dexterity you need, consider the following components in selecting the right winter glove:

• Glove Style
• Exterior Material
• Insulation/Dexterity

Glove Style

A glove’s overall style greatly affects dexterity.

• Work gloves tend to be bulkier to keep hands warmer,
  but they can limit mobility.
• Mechanic’s style gloves will allow the most dexterity
  because of their spandex back, but they provide less cold protection.
• Drivers’ gloves fall somewhere in between, providing
  more warmth protection than a TrueFit glove and more dexterity than a work
  glove.

Exterior Material

When selecting a winter glove, internal insulation isn’t the only factor. The materials making up the outside of the glove can play a very important part in keeping your hands warm and dry.

• Top grain pigskin leather is naturally resistant to
  moistures like oil and water, so a glove like the 1419 would be
  great for heavy duty, lower dexterity handling.
• Top grain deerskin leather is naturally resistant to
  cold and gives superior all-day comfort. The 865 is a glove
  that’s perfect if you’re handling all day long. It’s so comfortable, you may not want to take it off when you get home.
• Polar fleece is a lightweight, warm alternative to leather. Polar fleece
  shouldn’t be confused with the fleece lining you see inside a lot of welding
  gloves. It’s not as hairy and is denser and softer than regular fleece. Tillman
  polar fleece winter gloves also feature either cowhide split or top grain
  pigskin leather on the palm.

Glove Insulation/Dexterity

Many winter glove linings are often quite bulky as they are less worried about your hand maintaining its flexibility and more focused on keeping your hands warm. Insulation works in two ways, by trapping air and by reflecting back the body’s radiant heat. If you’re most concerned with keeping warm, you want insulation with a lot of fibers, but if you need more flexibility, you’ll want insulation with fewer fibers, meaning more air will get through to your hands.

Cotton/foam insulation is a lightweight, economical option. It won’t provide the most warmth, but it will still allow you to maintain most of your dexterity. The A62 work glove, made of rugged cowhide split and canvas, is lined with cotton/foam insulation and is a great value.

Fleece insulation is a lightweight option that is warmer than cotton/foam linings and still less bulky than other insulations. Tillman lines some drivers gloves with fleece for added warmth without hindering too much of the hand’s dexterity.

ColdBlock™ insulation is Tillman’s own creation. It consists of a poly/cotton blend that keeps hands warm. Tillman polar fleece gloves mentioned above have a ColdBlock lining along with our selection of work style winter gloves.

Thinsulate™ insulation is a trademark of 3M™ that is breathable, moisture-resistant, and both machine washable and dry-cleanable. The fibers of Thinsulate™ insulation are very fine; therefore, they are more effective at trapping air. Since the fibers are so fine, many of them can be packed into a space to reflect back more body heat. Thinsulate™ insulations are broken down by grams per square meter of insulation. The colder the temperature, the higher gram insulation you’ll want. However, the higher the gram, the less flexibility you’ll have.

• 40 gram for cool conditions or high activity levels –  Some TrueFit™ gloves are lined with 40 gram Thinsulate™ to minimize the bulk while adding warmth to the glove.
• 100 gram for very cold conditions or light activity levels – Tillman uses 100 gram Thinsulate™ to line some drivers, work, and winter gloves to maximize warmth.

Other Glove Features to Consider