There are times gloves make all the sense in the world to use when using a knife and times they don’t.

The old saying goes that two things might “fit like a glove” or “go hand in glove.” But just maybe another question involves exactly when the “glove fits.”

Since mankind began working with tools, stone, bronze, steel and even in conditions that might be less than ideal, such as clearing trees and brush, dressing an animal, building a structure, or handling heat and cold temperatures, the idea of protection has been second nature. At first glance, the glove has its place and always will. But there are, in fact, other considerations in using hand protection, especially when it involves using a knife.

The time and place for gloved hands is the choice of the user, and thoughts on the topic vary.

“As you might expect, the answer ‘yes or no’ to gloves is ‘it depends,’” declared Craig Powell, general manager of TOPS Knives. “There are a lot of different reasons to wear gloves or not, depending on the use case. In cold weather, the gloves are more to keep your hands warm than they are necessarily for safety or grip. I wear gloves if I have them on me whenever I’m doing heavy-duty cutting like chopping firewood or other tasks that have a lot of impact involved.

“I also usually have a few pairs of latex or nitrile gloves handy when hunting just to keep things a little cleaner when gutting or skinning an animal,” Craig added. “If I’m doing tasks that require fine control of cutting, I don’t usually wear gloves. One of the reasons I use Micarta® or G-10 on TOPS knives is specifically to provide a good grip for when you need it. Micarta is one of the best for grip even when wet and whether you have gloves or not.”

Situational awareness, then, drives most decisions to use gloves or go barehanded when using a knife. There are times when working with steel in the shop or making camp in the field that gloves are indispensable, and then there are other tasks that require the most intricate feel and finesse that can only be achieved with the bare hand.

Reuben Bolieu, BLADE® correspondent, outdoor adventurer and designer for ESEE Knives, recognizes when and where the glove provides that necessary advantage.

“Gloves are the unsung hero of my camping trips,” he remarked. “They provide a momentary boost of superpower when handling hot pots or skillets taken directly from the campfire. Gloves also give you a second chance if you accidentally nick yourself while retrieving a big blade or axe from its sheath.”

Joe Flowers, designer for TOPS Knives and Condor Knife & Tool, answers emphatically regarding whether he uses gloves.

“Most of the time I do not, unless I am doing a highly repetitive motion or am working a particularly scaly or dangerous animal or material. This is general, as I can feel the blade and manipulate the tool more for the tasks at hand. The pro of wearing gloves, especially if you are not used to working tools, is the absence of concentrated friction that can lead to blisters. Even if you work a farm all day, you can get blisters doing a repetitive motion.

“After hanging out with Anders Haglund, formerly of Helle Knives, I appreciated the idea of a larger handle for mitten manipulation,” Joe added. “The legacy of Sami reindeer herders who use large gloves helped him convince me. I don’t always design large handles, but if it is a design that could work with a Nordic culture I pay attention and put a larger handle on the blade. Sami culture sometimes calls their survival kit ‘a big knife, a small knife, and a reindeer.’ That’s all they need to survive.”

Gloves, Knives And Safety

Safety is always a factor in wearing gloves to use knives. Removing a knife from a sheath or deploying a folder blade always has a bit of hazardous duty involved. The same is true in the shop or the field, though the gloves themselves can sometimes present a hazard.

“Gloves get wet. This is wasteful,” explained longtime BLADE field editor and High Endurance Performance Knife master smith Ed Fowler. “They may be too loose and can get you caught up in machinery. The skin on our hands is very sensitive, and this sensitivity can help improve the quality of our knives, as well as our health. When buffing or grinding a hardened blade, our hand can communicate the temperature, where your heat treat might not remain just as you planned it to be. Friction is the enemy of our heat treats.”

At the risk of stating something readily apparent, the positive aspects of wearing gloves when using knives include minimizing a cut or slice that could require stitches or worse, managing heat and cold, reducing the build-up of friction that can create painful blisters, and possibly even improving grip and purchase in the hand.

“The obvious pros of gloves are safety from materials and the tools you use,” Bolieu related. “However, gloves are fumbly! This brings us to the cons: clumsy dexterity. Fiddling in the dark or cold is the worst when working with sharp tools or lacking time. Gloves can slow you down big time! Sometimes you need to take a stand and say, ‘The gloves are coming off!’”

When Powell is at work, he takes stock of the task at hand, and gloves may or may not be part of the equation.

“Gloves can keep your hands from getting torn up when you’re doing a lot of heavy-duty cutting. They can also keep your hands clean when they need to be. Then, of course, there are gloves that will help prevent or at least lessen the cut you might receive if there is an accident. The cons are mainly the loss of dexterity and fine control. Depending on the type of glove, your ‘feel’ of the knife just won’t be as good as with a bare hand.”

Feeling the handle of a knife against bare skin in the user or maker’s hand is considered the acid test for utility. The glove is sometimes a barrier to truly getting the feel of the knife and developing an intuitive awareness of its capabilities.

“A good way to see if a handle is going to be comfortable for you to use is to give it a good, hard squeeze and hold it for a few seconds,” Powell commented. “Once you release it, if you feel some uncomfortable spots on your hand, that is a good sign that it will have some hot spots. Everyone’s hand is different, so while some knives might feel great for some, that same handle might feel terrible to others. A knife that looks great aesthetically doesn’t always do the job when it comes time to start cutting. So, a bare hand on the handle is a must whenever you can.”

Habit And Repetition

For those who wear gloves regularly when using knives, personal preference weighs in. The influence of habit and repetition contributes, too.

“Here’s a good analogy for this,” said Craig. “Most people wear shoes every day to keep their feet from getting cut or injured in some way. People that spend lots of time barefoot, especially outside, tend to have tougher feet. Basically, the same rocks that would cause some people a lot of pain don’t do anything to those who walk barefoot often. The same will be true for gloves. If you wear gloves every time you use knives or other hand tools, your hands don’t build up some of the toughness to be able to handle using knives often. A good handle will absolutely make a difference, but so will using tools often in general.”

Choosing whether to wear gloves or not shouldn’t be a difficult decision. The best advice available involves balancing risk versus return, hazards in relation to control and manageability.

“If gloves are the remedy, crack on!” Reuben offered. “Gear is terrain and weather-specific. I use leather gloves made of cowhide, the type you would see a ranch hand or cowboy use—nothing fancy. These gloves are excellent general-purpose gloves when handling wood, bamboo, hot cookware and dirty work.

“In winter, I add a thin fleece glove under them,” he noted. “This adds warmth but makes things extra fumbly. If I need more dexterity for making feather sticks or carving, I remove the leather glove and work the best I can with the fleece glove. It’s always a tradeoff. Safety first! More than anything, try with and without, see what works for you and have a blast!”

Flowers is strong in his opinion on the gloves themselves, but acknowledges there is a time and place for them when working with knives.

“Gloves do not determine how hardcore you are,” he advised. “I hate gloves but I wear them sometimes when the environment dictates it. I like to work beehives without gloves and I applaud anyone who does. Dexterity is very important when you manipulate and use a tool with a fine edge. Find gloves that you can move in … Gloves can help, but ultimately it is your time with a knife that is important, and, honestly, part of our human story.”

Experience is a great teacher, and familiarity with knives, their utility and hazards should drive the decision whether to use gloves.

“To each his own,” Powell concluded. “If you prefer to wear gloves when using knives, do it. If you don’t like wearing gloves don’t unless you’re doing something where there is a really good reason to have gloves on. For just regular daily use, I feel gloves are totally unnecessary, but I’ve also been in the knife world for over 25 years now.”

The use of gloves while working with knives does, then, involve the nature of the task, its brawn and repetition versus its intricacy and detail, control versus power. Having a pair of gloves handy is probably a best practice. Using them when and where appropriate enhances the knife experience.

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