Review: Ironclad Landscaper

I do a fair amount of rough-and-tumble things. Salvaging firewood and lumber from skips, gardening, home repairs, clambering up roofs, crawling under cars and running about in the bush.I've sliced them up doing high-wind kite flying. I'll be the first to admit I don't have blacksmith or cow-poke hands, but neither do I have flimsy and dainty paws. I value my skin, and so I wear gloves. In the lab, i wear latex or nitrile. In the kitchen I wear oven-mitts. In the dojo i wear kote and when doing "outdoor" work, I wear work-gloves. My current set are these Landscapers by Ironclad. I've had them for a few months now, they work well.

During the 90's when I was big into cyberpunk, i had a collection of leather fingerless gloves, which I destroyed, either with the spread of my span, or just by jamming my hands into rough spots.  I noticed that I was tearing out the stitching in the gusset (the between-the-finger part) and getting nicks on my bottom-three fingertips. Solution? Get tough gloves. I've had a succession of such gloves, of different materials. Kevlar pads, pig-skin, dear skin, Mylar thread, what-have-you. 

I opted out of fingerless gloves a while ago, but in this age of capacitance iThings, I have found it very handy to snip the tips of my index and thumbs. It got tiresome to strip a glove to answer a call, snap a picture or fire off a zinging tweet. The stitching pattern allowed for me to do this without greatly affecting the structural integrity of the gloves, whilst maintaining good cover for the rest of my monkey-paws. They are hard wearing, not taking a mark or scuff from my last few outings or adventures. They dry quickly and don't smell.

I like the leather palm, stretch fabric upper, which lets my hands breathe, keeps them safe from incidental scrapes and keeps them fitted well. The hook-and-loop straps are subtle and unobtrusive, just doing their part in keeping them snug, or connected to me and my gear when I'm not wearing them. Which I'm glad of, as I'm not a big fan. The knuckle padding is good, for when my over-long arms are dragging below me and I wear them out LRP Lasertagging, where I waggle my trigger finger saying "here's my safety, Sar-Major..." I picked these up at my local hardware mega-warehouse, and whilst they had a wide range, these are the ones that suited my need, fit my hand and so far I've not been wrong.