Hi,

I am currently developng HAV controls in our fabrication workshops.

Its a thankless task (actually most of my job is...sigh) anyway, i can confirm, in my investigations, anti vibe gloves dont do anything, as the vibration is still going through your hands.

What gloves can do is to keep your hands warm, which is a good way to help alleviate the onset of any HAV.

However the only real way to stop white finger, is to limit trigger time to within limits.

This is never easy, and often gets ignored.

We looked at gloves but dismissed them for the reasons quoted in previous posts. Since PPE is the last line of defense it wasn't necessary to look at them at all if we'd done the managment of the issue properly.
The key thing is to understand the exposure the user is likely to have, so you need to undertake trigger time surveys at different times of the year in order to factor out seasonal work variances. You also need to look at the equipment in terms of can you reduce the vibration exposure? That's not a simple fact of buying or hiring the lowest emitting tools as that might mean doubling the amount of trigger time to achieve the end task; something you might want to include in a tool hire/purchase policy statement. User education is of critical importance and a system which the user will easily understand when it comes to determining daily exposure if a range of equipment is used. We use the points system which is contained on the HAV calculator on the HSE website and is tagged on all tools based of field test data carried out by us. We're in general building maintenance and don't have anyone exceeding 100 points or 2.5 m/s2 A(8). Trade union safety reps are consulted about plant purchases and the overall the staff are knowledgable about the subject.