New Weirdness, plastic work gloves ....you older mechanics....

[Silber Adler]

I don't know It seems like I see a lot of photos with the owners having on either blue or black plastic gloves. Many of them are not doing anything too messy just bolting parts together. I see web sites offering them when you buy parts.

I wear plastic gloves when using some paints and leather gloves when I am using a grinder or welder but for general work I work bare handed.

Seems like a growing trend, perhaps it is about the feminisation of todays males. I still eat my candy bars with my fingers and don't use a fork.

Soap and water work great for most types of car juice.

I don't mean to offend but I don't recall this being a factor even 5 years ago. Where is this coming from?

[dieselmania]

Yes I remember the days when we would wash our hands in a bucket of gasoline. I think there is more of an awareness of personal safety now days. I keep a box of rubber gloves for when I am working with fuel just because it stinks so much. Also sometimes it's nice to keep your hands clean when going back and forth from the engine to the interior.
But for the most part, I work bare handed like you. It's a lot easier to start bolts and stuff.

[sleepstar]

feminisation? wtf? its about diesels being messy as hell, and not wanting to

a) have to scrub your hands down with pumice soap or that gooey crap after every repair
or
b) not wanting your hands soaked with solvents, chemicals, diesel fuel, etc.

maybe the trend has become popular because nitrile gloves are cheap and readily available anywhere now.

also, women work on cars too. i know. its a shocker.

[Jim H]

I suspect that latex/vinyl gloves have caught on because they now exist and are so inexpensive. I mean, why not keep the gunk off of your hands if all it takes is a few pennies worth of disposable gloves?

Time it used to take to pry the gunk out from under fingernails can now be used for more important things like posting on message boards...

[lorainfurniture]

It seems the grease on my car stays on my hand for days. I now use gloves fairly often. If they fit, they are just as good as bare hands.

[auspumpen]

I've been wrestling with mechanical stuff for over 30 years now, and I rarely start work on a project without some kind of hand covering nowadays. It's become the new normal for me. I can't ever imagine going back to the bad old days of naked wrenching.

[pgringo]

i use 'em when i know used fluids will be involved...because i'm messy.

[MBeige]

I work in a lab, so it's natural for me to wear gloves. This means I also like to work clean, especially on my car. Plus, there are certain nitrile gloves that provide more grip on certain oily components than our hands can handle, but need the delicacy of handwork. I'm a very hands on person, but I know when to glove up and when it's not needed.

Yep, it's about safety, safety, safety. Can't emphasize that enough.

[Diesel911]

I have the Blue Gloves but wear them sparingly.

But, I worked for a Fuel Injection Shop 1975-1980. Sometime around 1987 I went back to work there part time. My Boss had developed some sort of skin condition from having his hands in Diesel Fuel and Calibration Oil for years and years.

My Boss hired a Women to do the one type of Injectors and after She had been there several Weeks the Skin on Her hands started to Peel off. She was a good worker but My Boss let Her go for health reasons.

After My First 2 weeks at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard I found Lungs Full of Green Mucus and a resonably high Fever. I took 1.5 Weeks to get over that.

A Month or so after I got back I got a milder case of the Same Problem.

I started to think about what I was being exposed to and realized I and My Co-workers used this stuff called Nut Buster as a preservative and lubricant.

Apparently I could not take that stuff in my Lungs. When anyone in the Room used it I left and when I had to use it Myself I took what needed to be sprayed down out in the main area where there was like a 50 foot ceiling.

After that I had no issues with the stuff.

The one thing that I did protect was My Hearing; wore the Head Phone type Hearing Protection as often as I could and took a lot of criticism for that.

Anyway the safety issue of being exposed to nasty Chemicals is a real thing that shortens your life or can ruin your Health; often catches up to you when you get older and are not even working in that type of job.

And, different people have different reactions to exposure to stuff. I worked for the Fuel Injection Shop for 5 Years and My hands never peeled; the Girl was there for several weeks and Hers did.

I worked as a Welder for a year or so and later 18 years as a Mechanic. How many years did I cut off of My Life because of stuff I was exposed to? No way to tell.

I would actually like to wear the Blue Gloves more often when I work but I never did have good cordination and I fumble stuff very easily.

When I was in School for Respiratory Therapy and working in the Hospital I pretty Much wore Gloves anytime I was handeling a Patient, their equipment of stuff in their Area. That is for the Patient and also for your own Safety.
That also did not use to be the case. Back around 1973 I worked as a Hospital Orderly and Gloves were only worn during special proceedures.

[uberwasser]

For me, working on my car is not my job. And my job would object to dirty hands. So I wear gloves.

[KAdams4458]

Well, the ladies I know object to soot-stained hands. Heck, I object to them! I think gloves are a good thing, especially after a few attempts to work on a half a million mile thirty year old diesel engine. The stains take a week to wear off! Nothing about wearing gloves is emasculating in my eyes; after all, you're still wrenching on something.

[Can't Know]

I've been wrenching more years than I care to share (or recall) and have been using latex and nitrile gloves for about 20 years. Aside from not scrubbing my fingerprints off and poking holes in my nail beds with various brushes (the ladies liked fingernails to be clean before allowing them to wander), I've also avoided further exposure to carcinogens that leach through the skin, though I do remember that burn/tingle from washing parts and hands in gasoline.

Spending two minutes to wash up after changing a water pump on a small block Ford is a vast improvement over days of yore.

If you don't want to wear gloves when working with oily, greasy parts, don't. No one's going to make you, after all. But why be confrontational and insulting about it?

[compress ignite]

I've found...
That passes the Barrier of inexpensive Nitrile gloves is NC Brake Cleaner.
[Tells me THAT stuff is Toxic!]

[tram]

Originally Posted by Silber Adler

I don't know It seems like I see a lot of photos with the owners having on either blue or black plastic gloves. Many of them are not doing anything too messy just bolting parts together. I see web sites offering them when you buy parts.

I wear plastic gloves when using some paints and leather gloves when I am using a grinder or welder but for general work I work bare handed.

Seems like a growing trend, perhaps it is about the feminisation of todays males. I still eat my candy bars with my fingers and don't use a fork.

Soap and water work great for most types of car juice.

I don't mean to offend but I don't recall this being a factor even 5 years ago. Where is this coming from?

I've been using the gloves for 20+ years.

How many elderly mechanics do you know? There are reasons for this and they're called carcinogens, toxins, and not taking safety precautions. There's nothing "feminine" about consciously avoiding these pitfalls, either.

Not a lot of people realize how toxic for your system automotive fluids and chemical cleaners really are. The worst way to find out about this is the wrong way, too.

[Simpler=Better]

I wear gloves so I don't chip my nails