As someone with surprisingly small hands, I’m often amazed by the degree of extra grip which a pair of stout gloves can provide. I guess it’s partly just that their leathery padding removes a large amount of potential pain caused by sharp metal edges attempting to rasp their way through my lily-white phalanges.
For people who need to hold a tool of their trade all day…such as mechanics, tennis players, housepainters, blacksmiths or gardeners, maintaining a grip, under sustained load, becomes second nature -but I’m sure it does longterm damage to joints and nerves. As for weekend tool wielders, we need all the help we can get.
Today’s invention is a pair of gloves with assisted grip power. These would be of breathable but heavy duty material, possibly with gel-filled palm pads. On the outside, a series of stout rubberised straps would be fitted…the ratchet-and-flip-catch kind found on eg ski boots or divers’ watches.
There would be a strap running from the back of each finger to the inside of the wrist and from the thumb across the closed fist to the back of the hand. These could all be pulled taught to provide massively increased grip, without demanding a high level of muscle contraction.
Each flip catch and rubber strap-end would have a bite pad to enable these to be done up and released without relying on the other hand.
