Shear Management Gloves

The present application is a Continuation In Part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/683,058 filed Nov. 21, 2012, which application is incorporated in its entirety herein by reference.

The present invention relates to gloves and in particular to utility gloves having a high Coefficient Of Friction (COF) material attached to the palm and a low COF material attached to fingers.

Gloves are often used to grasp and pull elongated articles such as ropes, hoses, bars, and the like. Known gloves include moderate to high shear surfaces on palms and inner finger surfaces to both grasp and pull such elongated articles. The resulting shear forces on the palm and fingers is usually moderate. However, when greater pulling force is required, the grasping by the fingers necessary to provide normal force required to prevent slipping results in very high shear forces on the fingers which may weaken the wearer's grip and cause fatigue, pain, and when experienced frequently or over a long period of time, damage to finger joints.

The present invention addresses the above and other needs by providing a glove which provides high palm shear force and reduced finger shear force when pulling elongated articles such as a rope, a rod, and the like. A high COF material is applied to palm and a low COF material is applied to inner finger surfaces. The fingers are still used to grasp the elongated article, but the shear pulling force on the fingers is reduced and the shear pulling force on the palm is increased. In one embodiment, the underlying glove material on the palm and finger grasping surfaces is a synthetic leather material, the high COF material on the palm is a silicone rubber material deposited on the synthetic leather material and the low COF material on the inner finger surfaces is a ballistic material sewn onto the synthetic leather material, for example, an aramid fiber material sold under the trademark Kevlar®.

In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a glove with a low COF material on inner finger grasping surfaces. When exerting high pulling forces on an elongated article, shear forces on the fingers may weaken the wearer's grip and cause fatigue, pain, and when experienced frequently or over a long period of time, damage to finger joints. Providing a low COF material on the inner finger surfaces allows a strong grip while reducing the harmful shear forces on the fingers.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, there is provided a glove with a high COF material on a glove palm. A combination of a low COF material on the inner finger surfaces, and the high COF material on the glove palm, allows the wearer to tightly grasp the elongated article using the fingers and generate significant shear force through the palm without producing harmful shear forces on the fingers. A preferred low COF material on the fingers has one fourth the COF (e.g., transmits about one fourth of the shear force) of the high COF material on the palm. One example of the high COF material includes a silicone material and preferably a silicone rubber material or a polyurethane silicone blend.

Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding components throughout the several views of the drawings.

The following description is of the best mode presently contemplated for carrying out the invention. This description is not to be taken in a limiting sense, but is made merely for the purpose of describing one or more preferred embodiments of the invention. The scope of the invention should be determined with reference to the claims.

Where the term “generally” is associated with an element of the invention or dimension of an element, it is intended to describe a feature's appearance to the human perception, and not a precise measurement.

In the description the terms up and down correspond to towards the fingers and away from the fingers respectively. Where a material is described as reaching nearly to a point or boundary, nearly is intended to describe typical precision of fabrics subject to moment of sewn seems, stretching and the like.

A back of hand view of a shear management glove 10 according to the present invention is shown in FIG. 1 and view showing a palm of hand (or grasping) surface of the shear management glove 10 is shown in FIG. 2. The glove 10 includes a finger portion 10a, a palm portion 10b, and a wrist portion 10c. The finger portion 10a is defined to be between a finger end 12′ of the farthest reaching finger, and a finger base 12″ of the deepest reaching finger slot 13 (e.g., to bases of the fingers 12a-12d). End pieces 50 reside at ends of each finger 12, sewn along sides and ends. The wrist portion 10c is defined to be between a thumb base 15 and the base of the glove 29. The palm portion 10b is defined to be the portion of the glove between the finger portion 10a and the wrist portion 10c.

The shear management glove 10 addresses issues present in known gloves by providing a high Coefficient Of Friction (COF) material 18 fixed to a palm surface of the palm portion 10b of the glove 10 which increases the share of shear force communicated between the palm portion 10b and an elongated article held in the glove 10. Low COF material 16a-16d on the finger portion 10a of the glove 10 decreases the amount of shear force communicated between the fingers and the elongated article. High shear force communicated between the fingers and the elongated article may weaken the wearer's grip and cause fatigue, pain, and when experienced frequently or over a long period of time, damage to finger joints.

The shear management glove 10 includes a glove body 20 which preferably is an open finger and thumb design allowing a wearer's fingers to extend through ends of glove fingers 12a-12d and the wearer's thumb to extend through an end of the glove thumb 14. The high COF material 18 and low COF material 16a-16d is fixed to the glove body 20. The shear management glove 10 further preferably includes a wrist strap 28 for tightening the shear management glove 10 on the wearer's hand. The shear management glove 10 is preferably a tight skin-like fit minimize or prevent an inner surface 30 of the shear management glove 10 from sliding on the wearer's hand.

The low COF material 16a-16d resides on the glove fingers 12a-12d facing the palm surface when the fingers 12a-12d are closed to grasp the elongated article. The low COF material 16a-16d preferably reaches along the glove fingers 12a-12d from ends 12′ of the fingers 12a-12d and to or nearly to the bases 12″ of slots 13 between adjacent one of the fingers, and the inner finger surface material 16a-16d is the width or nearly the widths of the glove fingers 12a-12d. The inner finger surface material 16a-16d is preferably a strong low friction material, for example a ballistic material or Kevlar® fiber material, minimizing the shear forces on the wearer's fingers. A suitable material is sold under the name Ballistic Material by Zhongshan Hongxu Daily Products Co., Ltd in Zhongshan City, China.

The high COF material 18 preferably reaches up to within a distance D1 of between ¼ and ½ inches from the finger portion 10a and down to within a distance D2 of between ¼ and ½ inches from the wrist portion 10c, and across the shear management glove 10 to within a distance D3 between ¼ and ½ inches from the end of the thumb 14, and to the opposite side of the palm region 10b, and high COF material 18 more preferably reaches up to within a distance D1 of ⅜ inches from the finger portion 10a and down to within a distance D2 of ⅜ inches from the wrist portion 10c, and across the shear management glove 10 to within a distance D3 of ⅜ inches from the end of the thumb 14, and to the opposite side of the palm region 10b. The high COF material 18 is preferably a silicone rubber material or a polyurethane silicone blend deposited on a synthetic leather material, communicating the shear forces to the wearer's palm. A suitable material is Silicone PU manufactured by Zhongshan Hongxu Daily Products Co., Ltd in Zhongshan City, China. The high COF material preferably has a coefficient of friction COF1 at least three times a coefficient of friction COF2 of the low friction material on the fingers, and more preferably has a coefficient of friction COF1 of between three and five times a coefficient of friction COF2 of the low friction material on the fingers, and the high COF material most preferably has a coefficient of friction COF1 of four times a coefficient of friction COF2 of the low COF material.

Parts forming the back of the hand of the shear management glove 10 are shown in FIG. 3. The parts include a wrist band 40 preferably made from neoprene (or polychloroprene, a family of synthetic rubbers), a lower portion 42 preferably a four way stretch fabric, a center portion 44 over the knuckles is preferably neoprene (or polychloroprene, a family of synthetic rubbers), a finger portion 46 reaching from the knuckles to ends of the fingers preferably made from the four way stretch fabric, aq thumb portion 48 preferably made from the four way stretch fabric, and end pieces 50 over end of the finger, preferably made from synthetic leather.

Parts forming the palm of the hand of the shear management glove 10 are shown in FIG. 4. The palm includes a continuation of the wrist portion 40, a continuation of the thumb portion 48, and a palm and finger grasping panel 52 made from synthetic leather.

While the invention herein disclosed has been described by means of specific embodiments and applications thereof, numerous modifications and variations could be made thereto by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention set forth in the claims.