Many people use insulated gloves and protectors for hand protection. However there are also arc rated gloves that have been on the market for several years. This week's question:
Do you or your company use arc rated gloves?

Yes
No
Considering it

What are your thoughts?

Yes. I'm still using these from this old thread:

viewtopic.php?t=4798&p=21924#p21924



Much more dexterity than rubber gloves with leather protectors and perfectly fine for under 600V, outside the restricted approach boundary and 12 cals or less. I mostly work with another, younger, person or electricians who do most of the heavy lifting during data collection so I don't normally have to have my hands 12 inches or less from exposed parts. I'm also usually more than the working distance away though too.

Closer than I describe requires shock protection or sometimes more than 12 cal gloves.

For workers looking for better dexterity using their rubber insulating gloves (RI6s) for the only thing they should be doing with them on, diagnostics, I recommend an arc rated glove, like the one @bbaumer is showing in his post, be donned in place of the traditional leather protectors.

I suit them up with 12 cal/cm2 protection from head to toe (limit for arc rated face shield application according to NFPA 70E), including these gloves, and I recommend using these b/c their rated for the 12 cal, they're typically a Cut Level 4 and the Ri6 by itself could take that heat according to a study shown by Salisbury and Arc Wear. You can also, by coincidence, reference Ansell who has arc ratings on their RI6s (EBT 47 cal/cm2! https://www.ansell.com/us/en/products/a ... -0-rig011b)! They're the only MFR I know that have tested and posted their RI6s with arc ratings.

What do you all think? Would you do what I'm recommending?