Local man designs new gloves
A local man has spent years perfecting his craft. He thinks he has finally nailed the perfect design for work gloves and welding gloves. 27 years and three patents, Shawn Schild has spent two and a half years working on his new design.
“We’ve come up with a pre-curved design that is different than other pre-curved gloves and way better than flat sewn gloves. It makes the gloves curve as your sewing the palm side to the backside of the hand. But it puts the stitching in places where it doesn’t wear out as easily as it does in the others,” says Schild.
There are work gloves.
“This glove is one that we had made by the same manufacturer that made this glove with exactly the same leather in it. And you’ll see that when I start to close my hands this one gets a lot of wadding and pinching and right about at this point I’m having a hard time closing my hands,” says Schild as he demonstrates with another brand, “With our design, with exactly the same leather, it folds over in the right spots. So it makes it close easy and I don’t have any restriction in my grip it closes all the way down.”
And welding gloves.
“To try to hold onto it, I have to really squeeze if I’m going to use a hammer to hold onto it. So most guys if they’re welding and have to use other tools they have to take their gloves off,” says Schild holding a hammer with a popular brand of welding gloves on, “With mine, when you grab the tool you have a smooth firm grip and you can hold onto it all day long. You don’t have to take your gloves off and waste a lot of time doing other things.”
He’s got some big names looking at his product.
“We even have some guys out at the nuclear facility right now that’s involving Battelle Energy Alliance. Their safety engineers that are trying to figure out whether or not if this design is so much better for issues like arthritis and carpal tunnel that they can push this design as a safety issue.”
And he’s gotten positive feedback.
“One of the guys that I built some for down in the Utah area that builds a lot of fences with a real sharp razor type wire has been wearing out another brand of gloves anywhere from one day to two or three days and paying about 34 dollars a pair. I charged him 150 dollars for a custom pair made out of just elk skin. He didn’t just use it for fencing, he bucked hay, did mechanical work, said he almost never took them off. Three months later he finally wore some holes in them. He said they lasted so much longer and he saved so much money at 150 dollars a pair that he doesn’t care what they cost.”
Schild says he hopes his gloves can continue to benefit others.
If you’d like a pair of gloves there are a few left, but they are expecting a new shipment at the end of the month. He says they will be available in many sizes.
They’re available at his shop B Bar B Leather at 719 W Pacific St, Blackfoot, ID 83221. That phone number is (208)-785-1731.
Other locations in Blackfoot:
John Deere Equipment C & B Operations 1102 W. Bridge St, Blackfoot, ID 83221 (208) 785-0520
CHS Bingham Cooperative 477 US-26, Blackfoot, ID 83221 (208) 782-2816
Idaho Falls:
Bonneville Industrial Supply Company 515 S Utah Ave, Idaho Falls, ID 83402 (208) 523-6220
