Cut protection has changed and it keeps getting better

High cut protection without the bulk

Protecting your hands at work is not only about getting through the shift safely. It is about making sure your hands are there for everything that comes after it too.

Over the past decade, cut protection gloves have developed at remarkable speed. Advances in technical fibres have made it possible to create materials that are stronger even as they become thinner. The result is a new generation of gloves that can provide high levels of cut protection without sacrificing the dexterity workers need to do their jobs.

“Not that long ago, protecting your hands from sharp edges often meant wearing a thick leather glove. The thinking was essentially: the thicker the glove, the better the protection. Today, we can achieve very high levels of cut protection in gloves that are considerably thinner, softer and more flexible,” says Karin Rundqvist, Product Development Manager Gloves at Ejendals.

From protection to precision

The development has been driven by both advances in materials and an increasing focus on preventing workplace injuries. New combinations of technical fibres allow us to engineer protection for specific risks while maintaining the dexterity needed for precision work.

Even cut protection level F, the highest level under the current EN 388 classification, does not necessarily mean a bulky glove.

For us at Ejendals, developing cut protection is not only about reaching higher protection levels. It is about finding the right combination of protection, dexterity and other properties for the work at hand.

Different jobs expose hands to very different combinations of risks. Cut protection may need to be combined with good grip, a barrier against oil and moisture, high dexterity or other properties. This is why breadth matters. There is no single cut protection glove that is right for every task.

When cut protection meets oil grip

A recent example of this development is the expansion of our TEGERA Oil Grip collection with three new cut-resistant gloves. TEGERA 8862 and 8863 offer cut protection level D with CRF® Technology, while TEGERA 8869 combines the highest cut protection level, F, with our more advanced CRF® Omni Technology.

All three combine cut protection with the TEGERA Oil Grip collection’s nitrile grip and triple-dipped construction, providing good grip and a barrier against oil and moisture while maintaining the dexterity needed for the job. It shows how different technologies can bring several important properties together in one glove, without making high cut protection unnecessarily bulky.

These models are not classified as chemical protection. Where chemical protection is required, a glove specifically certified for that purpose must be used.