Cowhide sleeves that cover the forearm from wrist to elbow, made for the jobs where the heat and the spatter reach further than a glove cuff ever will. Single-piece hide, sewn with flame-resistant thread, with a cross-shoulder strap and a stud closure so it stays on when the arm is moving. Tested to EN 407 for thermal risk and EN ISO 11611 for welding.
A welding glove protects the hand. It does nothing for the forearm, and the forearm is where a dropped slag or a run of sparks travels when the welder is working overhead or the seam is at knee height. A cowhide sleeve extends that protection past the wrist, and the difference between a burn on the hand and a burn on the inner arm is often the difference between a medical record and a week off.
| Digit | Property | What it means on the label |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burning behaviour | How the material reacts to flame — whether it ignites, chars or melts. |
| 2 | Contact heat | The temperature the glove surface can take before the heat reaches the skin, and for how long. |
| 3 | Convective heat | Resistance to a hot gas or flame jet. Measured by how long the back of the glove takes to rise 24°C. |
| 4 | Radiant heat | How much radiant energy the material blocks — the factor that matters beside an arc. |
| 5 | Small splashes of molten metal | Whether small droplets stick to the surface or run off without burning through. |
| 6 | Large quantities of molten metal | The hardest of the six. Large volumes of molten metal transfer far more energy than a splash. |
EN 407 measures thermal risk in general. EN ISO 11611 is the welding-specific standard and adds what a welding glove actually faces: resistance to molten metal spatter, flame spread behaviour, seam strength, and the electrical resistance against an accidental contact with a live conductor up to 100 V DC. It also splits the requirement into Type A and Type B — Type A for heavy welding and cutting where the mechanical requirements are higher, Type B for lighter work where dexterity matters more. A distributor selling into European workshops should be selling the Type A or Type B designation, not just a temperature rating.
Two leather sleeves and a glove that will not survive a week of welding are a false economy, so it is worth being specific about the hide, the thread and the closure rather than buying on the word "leather".
One piece of hide per sleeve rather than a patchwork of offcuts. The seam count drops, the weak points disappear, and the sleeve keeps its shape through repeated welding cycles instead of curling at the first splash. The underside is what you feel against the skin, and it should be smooth.
Ordinary thread burns through first and the seam becomes the hole the heat gets through. We use flame-resistant thread and specify the seam strength on the test report, because a sleeve is only as good as its weakest stitch.
A cross-shoulder strap with a stud or button cuff keeps the sleeve from sliding down the arm when the welder is reaching overhead. The strap length is adjustable, which is what makes one size work across a workshop rather than needing a size run.
| Series | Hide | Length | EN 407 | EN ISO 11611 | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KS-W20 | Cowhide, split | 40 cm | Contact heat 1, small splashes 2 | Type B | Light welding, TIG, fabrication work |
| KS-W40 | Cowhide, split | 45 cm | Contact heat 2, small splashes 3 | Type A | General arc welding, workshop use |
| KS-W60 | Cowhide, full grain, thicker | 45 cm | Contact heat 2, small splashes 3 | Type A | Heavy welding, cutting, shipyard and repair work |
| KS-W80 | Cowhide, full grain, reinforced | 50 cm | Contact heat 2, small splashes 3, larger spatter rating | Type A | Steel erection, foundry and heavy fabrication |
EN ISO 11611 puts a limit on the fat content of the leather — 15% maximum for the material to count as innocuous. Leather that has been properly tanned behaves differently under a flame test than leather that has simply been soaked, and the fat content figure on the report is part of what the standard is checking. It is also why we do not substitute split leather for full grain without saying so on the offer: the two behave differently on the test.
Ordering a welding sleeve on the temperature rating alone. A sleeve rated for contact heat says nothing about how it behaves when molten metal lands on it, and spatter is what actually causes the burn in a welding bay. The EN 407 digits 5 and 6 — small and large quantities of molten metal — are the two that decide whether a worker keeps the sleeve on all shift, and they are the two a buyer almost never asks about.
These are leather, not knitted, so they do not carry an EN 388 cut marking and they are not a substitute for a cut-resistant glove — they are a layer over it. Ordered together, the sleeve and the glove arrive as one package with one packing list, which is how a welding PPE range should reach the workshop. Tell us at enquiry which glove the sleeve is worn over and we will match the cuff length and closure accordingly.
Tell us the process, the position the work is done in, and how many hours a shift the wearer spends in the arc. We will return a specification with the hide, the length, the EN 407 and EN ISO 11611 ratings, and the documents that ship with the order.