With Winter in full swing, it is time to be prepared for the winter wonder land working conditions outside.  If you are from the north half of the states, you have already experienced the bitterness of Jack Frost nipping at your finger tips. Working in the cold can do quite a number on your hands.  Wearing the proper gloves to perform your job outside can be be a challenge.  Wearing thick winter gloves can be good to keep your hands warm, but hinder you in your abilities to have fine touch controls of say, setting a dip switch or addressing a fixture. Plus, they just feel weird!

Setwear has come to the rescue with one of their latest line of gloves, the Cold Weather Gloves. At first hearing about them, you might think that they are the opposite of their Hot Hands gloves because of the name.  Yes and no.  While the Hot Hands are designed to work with hot fixtures and not burn the hands, the cold weather gloves can as well. The difference with the Cold Weather gloves is that they are designed for working in cold weather situations, say an outdoor event during the winter time.

Design of the Glove

Just like the Hot Hand Gloves, the Cold Weather Gloves palms and fingers are completely lined with leather to help not only protect our hands from say a hot or cold surface, but to also gives us some much needed grip in freezing cold situations.  Just like most of Setwears gloves, they have added some extra padding and cushion in the palm area to give us a little comfort when grabbing or picking up items.

The cuff of the gloves features a Velcro closure to tightly wrap the cuff of the glove around your wrist to keep the gloves on snug and to keep them from falling off or any debris from getting in. The cuff also features a white fabric “name plate” area where you can write your name on the gloves to keep them from getting snagged by a jealous co-worker. And just like all of Setwear’s gloves, each of the gloves features a larger fabric loop at the end of the the cuff to clip the gloves to your belt or some place when not in use.

On the backside of the gloves, Setwear has again added some extra padding on the knuckles of the glove to help protect out hands when tightening or loosening a bolt and it slips and our hands slam into a pipe.  Also to help protect our hands not just from slamming into something, but the cold weather is Setwaer lined the inside of the gloves with 100% Thinsulate, which is a synthetic fiber thermal insulation material.  It is light weight, thin and has a very dense weave to the fabric to help insulate our hands from the cold. This is what makes the Setwear Cold Weather Gloves what they are.

Putting the gloves to the test

As I do not do much production and setup work these days, I was not able to put the Cold Weather Gloves to the ultimate test of an outdoor production environment.  I did replace much current set of winter gloves with the Cold weather gloves for the past month and they held up quite well and kept my hands from being bitterly cold.  I won’t say that they kept my hands warm, but they did keep them from falling off!  While doing my fair share of shoveling and cleaning cars off the gloves kept my hands at a steady temperature and still gave me the flexibility and grip to keep working.

Even during a couple of snow ball fights, the gloves held up quite well and performed admirably. I was able to keep my hands warm and still pelt out some serious snow balls with some great control. One thing I was a little concerned with the was the cuff of the gloves.  I felt that the cuff was a little short for a winter glove. As well all know, if there is an opening, snow will find it’s way inside your jacket.  Since the Cold Weather gloves have the same short cuff like all of Setwears other lines of gloves, the meeting of a jacket and the cuff of the glove can let cold air or even snow in with reaching or stretching.

“I Want Some!”

For a retail price of $39.95USD, the Setwear Cold Weather gloves could be a wise investment if you work in the bitter cold conditions during the fall and winter months.  The gloves are well made and give us the warmth and flexibility we need to perform our jobs outside.

To order your pair of the Setwear Cold Weather Gloves, visit Setwear’s website at www.setwear.com.  You can purchase them directly through them or locate a Setwear dealer near you.  But before you buy the gloves, be sure to visit the Setwear website’s glove sizing chart to see what size glove you will need.

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