How to unshrink all-leather work gloves (deerskin, goatskin, no cowhide)?

[Tony Miklos]

I think the other poster was suggesting that if you washed your urushiol tainted clothes in the washing machine, then all your regular clothes will become contaminated when washing them in the same machine. That's how I read it anyway, I could be wrong, it happens a lot.

It seems difficult to find accurate information about it online. One website tells you to wash it off with plain water and whatever you do, do not take a shower or you will spread it all over your body! I wash my hands with soap or dish detergent first then take a shower and use lots of soap. Lather rinse repeat, lather rinse repeat.

The Conservation Commission of Missouri says "CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, poison oak is found only in a few counties in extreme southern Missouri. Another common misconception is the belief that poison sumac or shumac grows in Missouri. This shrub or small tree resembles smooth sumac but has never been found in the state."

Do you happen to be in extreme southern Missouri? Seriously, I'm curious.

I never heard of the black stains but it's a popular topic online. Even a poison test I find very interesting.

One means of identifying poison ivy in the field is the ?black spot test.? Leaves are collected (without direct skin contact) and placed on a sheet of white paper. The leaves are crushed and discarded. If the resulting stain turns dark brown or black within a few minutes of exposure to air, this is evidence that the leaves are likely from a Toxicodendron plant quoted from

I'm going to have to try that with some poison ivy. (I'm a bit of a mad scientist).

Yikes! Vines that big I just cut so it kills the rest of the plant, especially if it's killing a tree by shading the leaves. I'll assume you want the stuff GONE not just stop it from spreading.

I'm guessing the softer gloves were for light MIG or TIG welding. TIG gloves are really thin and supple. For gas welding you don't need very heavy gloves either since your hands are often fairly far away from the flame. I don't see how they would be thicker than for arc welding, and arc welding covers a lot of different types of welding. It pretty much means you use electric.

Now that I think of it, the dry cleaning solution is often reused, it could spread the oil to other peoples clothes!

Can't help you there.

[Mel Knight]

I don't want to get into any arguments, because of my nature, and, more importantly, because I'm asking YOU guys for help!

See this picture of all my failed experiments! :(

Consider me an "accidental" expert in urushiol contamination!

From my experience (only), there is no cross contamination after washing in the washing machine. I fully 'understand' why anyone would 'think' there is cross contamination. I would think so too. But there just isn't. (That's what I love about experimental evidence; you don't have to understand it if you can't understand it (and I can't); but, it is what it is.)

I have cleared over 500-yards of poison oak, creating a tunnel as tall as a man and as wide as he stands, pulling vines down from twenty feet into the air, forty foot long vines digging into the loose hilly soil, vines intertwined so thickly you can't walk through the stuff and you're a foot off the ground in layers of the stuff underfoot. Hills so steep, no machine can safely stay on the heavily overgrown chaparral slope.

Anywhere the vines touch bare skin (mostly neck, face, wrists, & ankles or torn clothing), I break out in a rash. Otherwise, I'm entirely covered in two layers of cloth, but, of course, the problematic arc-welding gloves are only one layer deep {of deer, goat, and pigskin by way of experiments to see which resist shrinking after water washing & air drying).

The cowhide arc-welding gloves shrinks far too much; the goatskin lanolin arc-welding gloves seems to shrink the least (but still far too much); and any 'normal' (generally cowhide) work gloves are ridiculously useless (too short for the most part, and too thin).

BTW, there is PLENTY of cross contamination (for years thereafter) if you do NOT wash the clothes and gloves in the washing machine!

But, whatever (chemically) happens in the washing machine, works just fine. I know this stuff rather well as all the black splotches in the picture attached is oxidized urushiol. (For some reason, the black only shows up on the clothes after you wash them - but the black lacquer does show up on easily oozing out on cut vines a few days after cutting the vine).

What I'm trying to find out is how to WASH the gloves without having them SHRINK two sizes on me! I can't get them any bigger than XL and they're MEDIUMs by the time they're cold washed in water and air dried.

BTW, do any of the engineers on here know WHY wet leather SHRINKS?

Is it a physical or chemical process?

[Tony Miklos]

Holy crap, you really have a big project going on don't you?

[Jon Danniken]

I wonder if you could get it shipped....

Jon

[Tony Miklos]

When it's on the animal it's wet, then they stretch it even more, after getting wet it loosens up the thing-a-ma-bobs and it goes back to it's more natural size.

I don't like the motor oil idea, or any oil. I think it will give the urushiol oil a nice path to the inside of the gloves.

[Dean Hoffman]

I wonder what low air pressure would do. Fasten them somehow to a piece of pvc pipe then put a few pounds of pressure to them. Use a pipe roughly the diameter of your wrist.

[Mel Knight]

I'm in the Republik of Kalifornia.

The poison oak in the chaparral is in all the valleys out here, especially if they've been cleared at one time (even twenty years ago).

The leaves are reddish, and small in the areas that are often shaded by neighboring hills; and huge and green in the sunlit areas. Likewise, the stems are as thin as pencils in the shaded areas (although they make up in sheer intertwined volume what they lack in girth)... and the vines that grow twenty or thirty feet into the trees are easily thicker than your wrist.

It's a veritable jungle (in places), especially near the seasonal streams and they almost choke the oak trees, as if the sudden oak death fungus wasn't enough to do them in.

When you cut the thicker climbing vines, within a few days, you can see the stain of the black lacquer of the oxidized urushiol literally dripping down all around the cut areas.

It should be noted that EVERY part of the plant exudes urushiol when the cell membrane is damaged (which takes almost no force to do on the leaves, for example). But, I'm cutting and slashing and pulling at the stuff! So, there is black splotchy urushiol all over my gloves and clothes.

Funny thing is that the black doesn't show up right away ... it takes only a single wash & dry cycle. Even air drying (for the gloves) shows up the black so it isn't heat. It shows up outside on the cut vines.

If any chem engineers know WHY urushiol turns black after washing, please let us know! It's my "assumption" (yes, I know) that this is due to "oxidation" of the urushiol.

But, you chem engineers should know better than I.

[Mel Knight]

I'm in the Republik of Kalifornia.

The poison oak in the chaparral is in all the valleys out here, especially if they've been cleared at one time (even twenty years ago).

The leaves are reddish, and small in the areas that are often shaded by neighboring hills; and huge and green in the sunlit areas. Likewise, the stems are as thin as pencils in the shaded areas (although they make up in sheer intertwined volume what they lack in girth)... and the vines that grow twenty or thirty feet into the trees are easily thicker than your wrist.

It's a veritable jungle (in places), especially near the seasonal streams and they almost choke the oak trees, as if the sudden oak death fungus wasn't enough to do them in.

When you cut the thicker climbing vines, within a few days, you can see the stain of the black lacquer of the oxidized urushiol literally dripping down all around the cut areas.

It should be noted that EVERY part of the plant exudes urushiol when the cell membrane is damaged (which takes almost no force to do on the leaves, for example). But, I'm cutting and slashing and pulling at the stuff! So, there is black splotchy urushiol all over my gloves and clothes.

Funny thing is that the black doesn't show up right away ... it takes only a single wash & dry cycle. Even air drying (for the gloves) shows up the black so it isn't heat. It shows up outside on the cut vines.

If any chem engineers know WHY urushiol turns black after washing, please let us know! It's my "assumption" (yes, I know) that this is due to "oxidation" of the urushiol.

But, you chem engineers should know better than I.

[Dr Rig]

"Very little is known of the chemistry of black pigmentation in plants, although for centuries the formation of black pigments by phenol oxidation has been exploited in China and Japan for the lacquering of furniture. The natural varnish is a greyish-white exudate obtained from various Anacardiaceae (chiefly Rhus spp.) which is rapidly oxidized by air in the presence of laccase, the substrate being a mixture of alkycatechols (urushiol and related compounds). Quinols are also implicated in the formation of black pigments. Arbutin, the monoglucoside of quinol, occurs in many plants, and it has been suggested that in some cases the blackening of senescent leaves (e.g., Orobus niger L., Pyrus communis L.) is caused by oxidation of the aglycone after enzymic hydrolysis."

[ChairMan]

Try to find some maannequin hands that are as big as your hands and stretch the wet gloves on them to dry

[The Daring Dufas]

I used to buy a product called Liquid Glove that you rub on your skin and let it dry. It protects your skin from all sorts of things and when your done, you wash it off. I think I got it a W W Grainger. I don't know if it would help you with your task but it's something to look at.

TDD

[Mel Knight]

I certainly have read that. Oils certainly do penetrate leather. But, the proof is in the pudding. My hands don't get poison oak rash while other parts of my body do so they must be working (yes, I know the palms are thick skin, but, not the rest of the hand, especially between the fingers).

Also, I've looked at the blotches of black stains on the gloves (did you see the photo I posted?) and those black blotches of oxidized urushiol do NOT penetrate the leather.

Whatever gloves I use must be pliable (I pull vines for four hours at a stretch) and washable, yet prevent tears and they must be really long.

I looked at 'extrication' gloves, but most I saw were not washable. Rubber would be ridiculous (doesn't have the pliability).

Do you have ideas for poison oak gloves?

Requirements:

- Should cost less than somewhere around fifty dollars (these are work gloves, after all)

- Must cover the wrists at least as much as welder's gloves

- Must be wholly washable

- Must be reasonably durable

- Must be reasonably pliable (enough to grasp pencil-thin vines for hours at a stretch in addition to wrist-sized ones)

- Must protect the hands (so they need to be 'reasonably' thick

If you have gloves that fit the bill - I'm all ears!

[Vic Smith]

What are you, a professional poison ivy remover? (-: Washable is the big fly in the ointment. If they're lined they won't wash well. You can google cuffed rubber gloves. I'd use an unlined rubber glove. If you put on a pair of cheap disposable food handling gloves first you won't stink up the rubber gloves. Nitrile I think. My kid uses them for some automotive dirty work. Every pair of rubber gloves - lined or unlined - I've ever encountered stunk after being used a few times. My wife uses cotton rubber coated gloves for weed pulling. Not for poison ivy, but barb/thorn/thistle protection. Picks them up at cheapo stores when she sees them. I've handled them, and they're pretty stiff, but she can pull pretty small weeds with them. She never washes them, just throws them away if they get too stinky. Can't you just spray something that kills the poison ivy juice on the gloves? Or just wash the outside with soap and water?

--Vic

[The Real Bev]

I've never heard of actually washing work gloves. If I were you I'd use the cheap leather-palm ones and just throw them away when they wear out

-- and NEVER touch the outside with your fingers. My work gloves get big holes in the fingers (repairable with duct tape, of course) long before I'd consider washing them, but I'm not dealing with poison oak/ivy, either.

I've got some nice goatskin gardening gloves, but they're too good to use :-) I used to turn them inside out (like the rest of the dirtbags) and use them for motorcycle gloves.

[DanG]

Mel, I would consider getting some diameter of PEX type plastic pipe. This stuff is firm but flexible. Get one that works for your finger size (may require a larger size for the thumb). Just to try it out, shove the pieces of pipe into the fingers when sopping wet. This may not keep the fingers long enough, but should sure maintain the finger diameters.

If the thought works out, you could develop a hand form mounted on a board to stick the gloves on. This would allow hanging a weight on the cuffs to prevent the fingers from shortening.

[aemeijers]

Lordy. Go to HF, buy some of the gauntleted rubberized fabric gloves rated for HazMat cleanup, and get on with your life. Six months after OP passes away, or is too feeble to cut brush, that back 40 of his will be impassable again anyway.

Most of us have enough PITA outdoor chores to suck up more than our available time, without assigning ourselves Augean stables to clean like that. Toxic plants are Ma Nature's way of saying 'humans keep out'.

[Mel Knight]

My motorcycle gloves are kangaroo.

What does turning goatskin gloves inside out actually do for you?

I'm curious.

[The Real Bev]

Puts the seams on the outside and the smooth side on the indside. What you don't want in gloves for dirtriding is skin-abrading seams.

[Leslie landberg]

Wow. You are totally overthinking this, but I had chime in. Since logically a strong dish soap is ideal in removing the oils, just don your dish gloves and wash them thoroughly in the sink. Dry well in towelling and simply wear the gloves until they are nearly dry, then rub well with goatskin glove moisturizers/protectants and wear them a bit longer. All will be well. The gloves dry quickly when you wear them. The whole process should take about half an hour.

[TDHeller]

*TRY THIS* Sandbox sand is CHEAP 6.00 50#. Fill gloves with sand and top off with paper towel to hold in the sand. In the Oven at about 200 F for 30-45 min - or dry. I'm doing mine now :)