To glove or not to glove?

I'm preparing to start on my woodworking BB of carving a spoon, and ordered a beginner set of Schaaf knives. In one of the instructional videos I watched, the instructor was gloved up and had his thumbs taped.

In my mind, I see an old grandpa sitting on the  stoop of his front porch with a blank in one rough and gnarled hand and his pocket knife in the other, getting down to business with skill built up over a lifetime.

Do YOU wear gloves and tape your thumbs when you carve? Or do you let your hands toughen up and build calluses like in my mind? My hands are already pretty rough from work, but if gloves etc. are a thing, I guess I'll get some.

P.S. And based on my own experiences, the best way to learn how not to cut yourself is by cutting yourself a few times.... Yes? No?

j

My guy never wore gloves to carve spoons, not in more than thirty years of carving...he did keep bandaides handy though and wore them on cuts after the fact.

It still happens occasionally...not sure it's totally avoidable.

His hands are in my thread on his spoon carving and you'll see a bandaide or two.
https://permies.com/t/38366/hand-carving-spoons

Seems like the gloves would be clumsy and there's a lot of touch involved to make a good spoon.

I did quit panicking when he would come in the house holding a rag on his hand...learned to just ask if he needs stitches and he never did.

Jim Garlits wrote: In my mind, I see an old grandpa sitting on the  stoop of his front porch with a blank in one rough and gnarled hand and his pocket knife in the other, getting down to business with skill built up over a lifetime.

I like to think the bold part of your quote is where I am at personally. I am new to carving things but I have whittled in the past creating some truly terrible pieces. I had fun however! I tried using a pocket knife but quickly bought a dedicated carving knife and a hook knife. Depending on the piece, I am still getting used to the different amounts of pressure required to take so much wood. Utilizing the hook knife with carving out the bowl of a spoon, it is kind of awkward. I would not be surprised on catching a finger so I utilize a cut resistant glove on my off hand.

Gloves can feel like a hinderance if they are not fitted well, I prize my dexterity when doing fine detailed work and gloves can damper that. It is imperative in having a good experience using cut resistant gloves is to find the right size. Team safety over here, but safety is my employment so I'm perhaps hyper-vigilant. :)

I tend to wear gloves with hand tools and no gloves with power tools.  Probably chain saws and brush cutters are my two big exceptions. With both I wear gloves.

When carving, I don’t wear gloves.  I recent years, I have only cut myself once, and that was when using a sharpening stone.

I have dabbled in a little wood carving and found some videos on Swedish traditional wood carving that explained the different holds and carving techniques and found that really helpful, as with using those, the cut can be made in a way that safeguards from a major slip and serious cut. Minor cuts still definitely happen but it's the major ones that make me nervous.

With grafting however I try to use a glove on my left hand most of the time and a thumb guard on my right hand if the blade is really sharp. It seems like with grafting there is a lot higher chance of a thin scion giving way with a lot of pressure and causing serious cuts. I admit I like the feel better definitely with no glove though and a lot of the time don't wear one when I should.

Steve Thorn wrote:I have dabbled in a little wood carving and found some videos on Swedish traditional wood carving that explained the different holds and carving techniques and found that really helpful, as with using those, the cut can be made in a way that safeguards from a major slip and serious cut. Minor cuts still definitely happen but it's the major ones that make me nervous.

Mora Knives made a whole series of videos on knife grips. They can be very effective in protecting yourself even when cutting towards yourself.

A lot of times when I’m working on things that require dexterity, but also some tough work, I wear one glove on my left hand and none on my right. Then I can do the finer sensitive work with my right and still be protected on the left. I am right handed, as is probably obvious.

I wore two gloves for the mallet BB because that wasn’t very fine work. And was careful to angle every tool away from me as it cut.

I have a friend who gouged herself deeply in the shin using a wood chisel and had to go get stitches and take a long time to heal. And my husband cut the top of his knuckle off once slicing in the wrong direction, towards his other hand. Thankfully he’s a quick healer. I think prevention by cutting safely is probably better than wearing gloves, but when I can, I still wear one (or two).

I use a machete quite a bit, and I have used it to whittle on myself enough to know three things 1. machete cuts sure do sting and bleed a lot! 2. wearing a glove on the hand that ISN'T holding the machete is a really good idea 3. wearing a glove on the hand that IS holding the machete is not so good - it has less grip. So I tend to wear out left-hand gloves quite a bit faster than right hand gloves. Fortunately, I have found some light weight gardening gloves that can be turned inside out and thus magically transformed to fit the other hand.

If you are going to learn to do machete work without cutting yourself, by first using the machete to cut yourself - go do that in the Dominican Republic where the local hospital emergency rooms will stitch you up for free. You have to buy your own antibiotics and perhaps a tetanus booster ever so often, but they have suture on a 1000 yard spool and stitch up machete cuts ALL THE TIME. And speaking of machetes, did you ever wonder why there are so many Cuban and Dominican baseball players? Because they start swinging a machete 12 hours a day after about age 8! Very good hand-eye coordination development! They also hand mix a lot of cement and carry a lot of bunches of bananas around; good balance and upper body strengthening. This is my own personal theory.