Well heck, I just bought a couple of boxes of nitrile gloves and they sure weren't at that wonderful price.
I wear nitrile gloves. frequently and go through a box in short order. When I am slicing up whole baked chickens, turkeys or roasts I wear gloves to make it easier for me to grip the meat. They also help to protect me from the heat of the meat while gripping. Usually, I also use a wad of paper towels if the heat is too much. Just used some recently to slice up a baked brisket.
I use them in the shop all the time. Whenever I am dyeing wood I wear gloves to avoid the inevitable dye all over my fingers. I had an incident with red dye a few years back and I wrote a little story about it,
Of Dyes and Men
I like to turn highly figured wood on the lathe. I love seeing the swirling grain patterns come to life as my chisels reveal the inner beauty of a piece of wood. But on occasion a piece of wood can be very disappointing, bland and featureless without any interesting grain at all.
This was the case with a piece of silver maple that someone had given me which looked in its rough state to have curly grain sometimes referred to as a fiddle back figure so named because violin makers like to have highly figured curly grain on the back side of the violin/fiddle. This I have never understood as most of the time the back of fiddle is not viewable while the instrument is in use.
As I brought the piece of maple into the round on the lathe I noticed that the curly figure I expected was barely visible. I did not want to waste the gifted piece of wood or the effort I put into turning it so I decided that it would be a good time for me to experiment with dyes to add color to the bland wood. I had been considering a venture into the world of color embellishment for my turnings for a while and no time seemed better than the present.
My intention was to use the piece of wood for a turned box. It is possible to turn a two piece lidded box from a single piece of wood on the lathe and this is something that I like to do. I decided to turn a new form for me inspired by one of Richard Raffan’s spire boxes. The box finished up at 2 ¾” in diameter and about 5” tall. The plain, almost white maple still showed some evidence of curl and I decided that color might bring it out. I decided to use some blood red aniline dye. Trust me when I say that blood red dye is highly visible. The dye did enhance the grain somewhat but the lessons I learned from the process were more far reaching than just grain enhancement.
Some things I learned while dyeing this box.
1. Wear a new pair of rubber gloves. Old gloves might have pin hole leaks and the dye tends to collect in the fingertips making you look like you just voted in an Iraqi election.
2. It is hard to get the color even with an alcohol based aniline dye. It dries very rapidly and as you apply more it runs down into the joint between the top and bottom of the box.
3. It is probably a good idea to wear a face shield while doing this job. The excess dye as described in #2 above has a tendency to fly out due to centrifugal acceleration when you turn on the lathe to rub out the finish. My face had red spots all over it and it looked like I had the measles.
4. Do not wear a white shirt. See #2 above. The old white shirt I was wearing was covered with red blotches making it appear that I survived a shootout.
5. Wear a shower cap, hat or other head covering. See #2 above. Prior to this incident I had mostly blond hair. Afterward sections of my hair were the color of Lucy's.
6. And lastly, without the appropriate protection previously described, do not attempt this project a few hours before a New Year's Eve party. My wife was not happy. I also became very tired of explaining my appearance.
Some people laughed in my face, some waited until they walked away and then they laughed. Others just shook their heads in disbelief. My wife’s face was red most of the evening and she was nowhere near the dye. How do you explain that?
