if your workin in the rain is it better to keep your wet gloves on or go bare handed. as in which actually keeps your hands dryer and less pruney fingers

It depends on what you're doing. If you are working with large objects, gloves for sure. Smaller objects, nothing beats bare fingers.

But cold weather is totally different...

when I have to work with wet hands, I prefer close fitting neoprene gloves. I lose a bit of feel because of the gloves, but in our cold rains, you lose feeling in your fingertips, anyway. plus, I'd rather cut a glove than a finger. (one of the few times I actually wear gloves)

In the cold it is definatley better to have wet hands inside of gloves than wet hands with no gloves. The gloves will still give a bit of insulative benefit, allowing the heat from your hands to warm the water inside the glove.

quote:

Originally posted by CartGuy28:
if your workin in the rain is it better to keep your wet gloves on or go bare handed. as in which actually keeps your hands dryer and less pruney fingers

it is better to be bare handed

you people don't realize that if you wear gloves (assuming they are gardening gloves) they will hold the most likely cold rain close to your skin and keep them wet.

quote:

Originally posted by mpweasel:
you people don't realize that if you wear gloves (assuming they are gardening gloves) they will hold the most likely cold rain close to your skin and keep them wet.

Just working in the rain will keep the hands wet. If woking in a cold rain, the gloves will allow the hands to warm the water in the glove. Rain hitting the bare hand will always be cold.

When I was in college (Mechanical Engineering) my class had an assignment where we actually had to do the heat loss calculations for a hand with and without gloves in a 0 degree celcius, 25kph wind, 0% humidity, at 5000 ft altitude environment. wetness wasn't a factor, but we found that the gloved hand actually lost heat more quickly than the gloved hand.

This is because the glove, even though it acted as an insulator, it increases the radius of the fingers, and therefore increases the exposed surface area. The extra surface area resulted in a net increase in heat transfer out of the hand.

-Rob

correction to my last... the gloved hand lost more heat than the non-gloved hand. meaning that not wearing gloves your hands would be warmer.

-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by mpweasel:
you people don't realize that if you wear gloves (assuming they are gardening gloves) they will hold the most likely cold rain close to your skin and keep them wet.

but they keep the SAME water around your hand, instead of continually adding new cold water.

last winter, I was finishing out an RV park in the pouring rain and cold, and we'd take the gloves off and wring them out periodically, to shed the weight.

and remember, I'd still rather cut a glove than a wet finger.

It's said that wool gloves retain heat even when wet.

As for the increased surface area, did you calculate in the fact that the transfer through the material of the glove could provide an additional resistance to heat flow, so while the surface area was more, the heat won't actually move out that fast.

just re-read the details of the heat loss analysis, and I can say that in my youth I spent extended time in just such an environment, wearing gloves meant for that environmnet, and experienced much less heat loss with the gloves on, than off.