Daytona gloves update

Seems like the word is getting around to dealers.

Pidcocks in Nottingham have them.

GLF will have them on their NEC stand - they will not be on display due to
some contractual obligation with Held. So, be furtive and ask about the
under the counter specials.

 

Using the patented Mavis Beacon "Hunt&Peck" Technique, wessie

<furtive mode>

Wessie told me to ask about "the under the counter specials"...

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAH!

</fm>
--
Nigel - Manufacturer of the "Champion-105" range of rearsets

WS* GHPOTHUF#24 APOSTLE#14 DLC#1 COFF#20 BOTAFOT#150 HYPO#0(KoTL) IbW#41
ZZR1100, Enfield 500 Curry House Racer "The Basmati Rice Burner",
Honda GL1000K2 (On its hols) Kawasaki ZN1300 Voyager "Oh, Oh, It's so big"

 

Nigel Eaton emerged from their own little world to say

**** me. Delayed action bait. Never said that on the tin.

 

Shame I didn't know this before I went to the show on Thursday! ;-) Ah
well, I'll just have to go back one day next week.

I took a look at the Held gloves and their construction is pretty
impressive - particularly the pair Graham's son has crashed in
numerous times, yet which remain intact and serviceable. Why Held
haven't put their gloves through EN 13594 testing is puzzling. The
leather certainly seems substantial enough to get through the tests.
Certainly better than a certain other brand's product, the
catastrophic failure of which is subject of an interesting legal
action which is currently approaching its conclusion...

 

Bear says...

 

On Fri, 05 Nov 2004 09:26:13 +0000, Paul Varnsverry wrote:

How much does it cost?

 

Bear says...

 

Lozzo emerged from their own little world to say

 

For accuracy, I have requested the latest prices and will post these
within the next couple of days.

 

Sub judice. ;-) And if the manufacturer settles out of Court (they
would be mad to allow the case to come before a Judge), their
anonimity will be preserved.

 

I can say the brand is *not* Italian, but then in all probability the
gloves were manufactured "somewhere out East" down-to-a-price and not
up-to-a-standard. I can also say that using kangaroo hide of a mere
0.35 mm thickness does not a strong glove make...

 

Prices received. In the region of GBP 1000, which covers up to ten
colours (each individual colour has to be tested for dye-fastness and
absence of potentially carcinogenic or irritant chemicals). This is a
one-off charge to the manufacturer, which provides an EC
Type-Examination certificate in perpetuity (or until the European
Commission change the rules, which could be at least ten years hence).
Amortized across several models and colours, the per-model price
starts to pale into insignificance.

Remember that the first companies to achieve EC Type-Examination for
motorcycle suits were small British outfits including BKS, Crowtree
and MW - whose entire annual turnover is probably rivalled by the
Italian brands' espresso budget! Certainly, I wrote a few years ago
that if they cancelled just one of their full-page advertisements in
MCN, Frank Thomas could have funded the testing and certification
programme for a niche range of their garments, gloves and boots.

 

Paul Varnsverry says...

I think I know who you mean. I'll get on the phone to a mate of mine,
who's a rep for them, for confirmation.

 

Bear says...

3 inches

 

How long is a piece of string? Depends on so many variables. Type of
leather is a key one. Goatskin and kangaroo skin can make for
excellent gloves, having good abrasion resistance at sub 1 mm
thicknesses where cowhide might struggle. The performance of leather
(and textiles) in the standardised tests is exponential. X.X mm (or
XXX grams per square metre, in the case of textiles) might fail
dramatically, whereas adding 0.1 mm (or double-digit grams per square
metre) might result in a clear pass. And then in textiles we can get
involved in weave structures, blends, etc., etc.

I am reliably informed, however, that the problem with kangaroo skin
is that it comes from a culled source. If your gloves, jacket or suit
happen to contain sections from a kangaroo which was shot first thing
in the morning, and then allowed to sit in 40+ degrees of heat for the
entire day, accelerating the decomposition process, then the skin
isn't going to be in anywhere near as good a condition as that from a
kangaroo shot at dusk and thus put into the leather manufacturing
process much earlier.

Tannage is another variable. Chemicals are expensive and time is
money, and I have seen the results of economies in both. The late
Steve Hislop once spoke to me about the Manx Kushitani leathers -
materials reportedly sourced from a Spanish tannery - he was wearing
at the time, which stank like a sewerage works whenever he perspired
heavily into them, or they got wet.

I spoke with one of my tanning connections, and they said the hides
hadn't been "baited" properly. This is the process that is meant to
kill off the bacteria used to strip the skin of hair and flesh. If the
process is rushed, some bacteria remain and can be reactivated by
moisture, giving off that decomposing tissue aroma. It wsn't explained
to me how they survive the rest of the tanning process. They must be
tough little beggars!

These are just two anecdotes to explain the variables. I could soak up
bandwidth with plenty more examples. All of which underlines why I am
supportive of an independent, recognisable mark of fitness for
purpose. Takes the guesswork and supposition out of everything. ;-)

 

(Paul Varnsverry) struggled to ejaculate:

Late? Shirley not, is this a recent thing? He's been spotted all
over the place recently.

 

If that's £1000 per design, then I can well understand a manufacturer
hesitating to test a relatively low-cost item such as a pair of gloves.

 

As my posting states, it is *not* £1000 per design. Gloves made from
the same materials can be considered a "family" of PPE products and
are therefore considered as variants of the original "type". A family
of motorcyclists' gloves might include lined and unlined, waterproof
and non-waterproof variants.

My remark on amortization provides an indication of what the true "per
design" cost might be. Across a range of ten gloves: £100 per design;
across a range of twenty gloves: £50 per design. As a cost per glove
sold, simply divide the "per design" cost by the number of units sold.
If a design in a ten model range sells 5000 pairs per annum, the price
of certification at cost is 2 pence per pair of gloves.

The supply chain will of course add profit to this figure, so the
consumer can expect to pay at least 7 pence per pair of gloves - still
less than a penny a finger, assuming all digits are present and
correct!

 

That's why I said "if": your answer wasn't clear, (to me, anyway).

So just how similar do they have to be? If it's just certifying the
materials, or the construction technique it doesn't make sense: the
certification would be independent of whatever items were made of them.

At what point does a new design need a new test?

 

The manufacturer's product technical file will outline which models
are covered by the application for EC Type-Examination. They will
instruct the test house and Notified Body (which may be seperate
organisations or one and the same) how they envisage the products fall
within a family and how this corresponds with any design or
performance requirements stipulated in the standard. New models can be
added to the existing certification at future dates, but only if the
manufacturer understands what processes and documentation they need to
put in place at the front end to provide this level of commercial
flexibility.

Few manufacturers fully comprehend how to achieve this, however, which
is why their costs can be higher than they need to be. I have worked
with companies who have spent three times what they needed to on
testing, had they retained me instead, and are still no closer to
obtaining product approval than they were at the outset. To me, any
motorcycle clothing manufacturer who bleats about the high cost of CE
marking their products as a reason for not doing so, reveals that they
don't have a clue how to run an EC Type-Examination project and how to
achieve best value - particularly when there are business grants
available to offset up to 50% of the costs!