HF rant about their Nitrile gloves..

[woodchucker]

Bought some HF 5mil nitriles in Oct. First box I opened wound up being vinyl’s.. the box was mixed in with the nitriles. They are awful, they tear immediately, why the box is the same color as the nitrile is stupid.

The 5 mil nitrile have been usable for me for years in light duty work. I did switch to the 7mil for heavier work. Well the new 5mil are 1.5mil if you measure them. They were so much thinner than the older glove stock. Noticeably. I pulled out an older glove from another older (around Covid stock times) box, and it measures 2.5 mil. WTF, 5 mil should be 5mil.

So now I pull out the 7 mil. It’s reading 3.8 mil WTF.

I feel cheated. If this is the way they are bringing quality in, F them. Prices on there stuff has gone up, they are phasing out there old lines and bringing in branded stuff (their brand again). Many are just rebranded older. There are many NEW as well. But not for a bargain.. I am finding more and more reasons to NOT buy from them. In the past, I paid less and knew what I was getting. Now I am paying more and well, I’m in the same boat.

 

[FOMOGO]

Last year I bought two boxes of there HD nitrile gloves and am pretty pleased with them. They hold up surprisingly well. Pretty much the new corporate war cry everywhere is give them less , and charge them more. We just had a HF open up in a town close by, and took a quick walk through yesterday when we went in for a dog training session, but haven't had a chance to really asses what's there. That will have to wait until after vacation. Mike

 

[woodchucker]

Hope this helps, some quantitative assessment:

You can see my skin through the even thinner area.


A tad under 5mil don't you think?

 

[Gaffer]

I only buy the 9 mil (black) gloves and have been pleased with them. The thinner ones tear too easily.

 

[WobblyHand]

Bought some HF 5mil nitriles in Oct. First box I opened wound up being vinyl’s.. the box was mixed in with the nitriles. They are awful, they tear immediately, why the box is the same color as the nitrile is stupid.

The 5 mil nitrile have been usable for me for years in light duty work. I did switch to the 7mil for heavier work. Well the new 5mil are 1.5mil if you measure them. They were so much thinner than the older glove stock. Noticeably. I pulled out an older glove from another older (around Covid stock times) box, and it measures 2.5 mil. WTF, 5 mil should be 5mil.

So now I pull out the 7 mil. It’s reading 3.8 mil WTF.

I feel cheated. If this is the way they are bringing quality in, F them. Prices on there stuff has gone up, they are phasing out there old lines and bringing in branded stuff (their brand again). Many are just rebranded older. There are many NEW as well. But not for a bargain.. I am finding more and more reasons to NOT buy from them. In the past, I paid less and knew what I was getting. Now I am paying more and well, I’m in the same boat.

I have an older box of the "7 mil" gloves from HF, they measure 3.7 mils thick where you put them on. According to gloves.com the thickness measurement is typically referring to the finger tip area, not the back of the glove. I just remeasured those "7 mil" HF gloves at the finger tip and guess what, they measure 0.015" for the double thickness, or 7.5 mil. So according to the industry standard, if there really is such a thing, they may technically meet the labeling standards, at least for the glove I measured. Haven't bought any gloves recently, so I cannot report on the more modern ones.

I found a "5 mil" glove (old stock) and it's finger tip measured 9.1 mils for the double thickness. (4.55 mil single thickness) That does not meet the "industry standard" and is under sized. I measured a second finger tip and got the same result, 9.1 mils double thickness. or nearly 10% under sized.

How do the fingertip measurements look?

I agree with your assessment that they are really cheaping up on the gloves. The material uniformity seems terrible, but remember that could be due to stretching perhaps. It's not all that easy to get a good measurement with a micrometer, due to the rotating anvil catching the nitrile, but I think I didn't stretch it during the measurement. Measuring rubber thickness to a tenth isn't that easy...

Should you think that they are "not as advertised" (I guess according to industry standards of finger tip measurement, and fitness for service?) there is a Federal agency to report this to, the FTC. https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/ Whether it is deemed actionable by them, who knows. At least HF could be put on notice... 10% under sized is not what was advertised.

 

[C-Bag]

Bought some HF 5mil nitriles in Oct. First box I opened wound up being vinyl’s.. the box was mixed in with the nitriles. They are awful, they tear immediately, why the box is the same color as the nitrile is stupid.

The 5 mil nitrile have been usable for me for years in light duty work. I did switch to the 7mil for heavier work. Well the new 5mil are 1.5mil if you measure them. They were so much thinner than the older glove stock. Noticeably. I pulled out an older glove from another older (around Covid stock times) box, and it measures 2.5 mil. WTF, 5 mil should be 5mil.

So now I pull out the 7 mil. It’s reading 3.8 mil WTF.

I feel cheated. If this is the way they are bringing quality in, F them. Prices on there stuff has gone up, they are phasing out there old lines and bringing in branded stuff (their brand again). Many are just rebranded older. There are many NEW as well. But not for a bargain.. I am finding more and more reasons to NOT buy from them. In the past, I paid less and knew what I was getting. Now I am paying more and well, I’m in the same boat.

I’ve been finding the same. At some quickly arriving point I’m not going to see a difference in price between the local hardware and HF I’m afraid. Wondering if this is due to import sanctions or corporate self interest(re:greed) ?

I do know firsthand they pay attention to negative comments on their site. If you want change that might also be worth showing/venting on. Of course highly charged language will not ever get posted, well reasoned criticism seems to.

in my case I posted on their feedback years ago on the middle of line tile saw. The fault I saw over and over was people complained it caused a lot of dust and ate blades. For some reason they had mounted the water outlet for the blade at the top of the blade guard and it flung to water off and left the blade dry where it cut. There was a cast flat on the front of the guard right over where the blade cut so I drilled and tapped it and moved the nozzle there. Good to go, no dust and blade lasts forever. Several months later I went in and HF had moved the nozzle. First time EVER I saw any evidence somebody was listening.

 

[Shotgun]

Well, the whole point in HF for me was that it was somewhere to get really cheap tools for one-off jobs. I could get a set of wrenches that I could bend by hand to reach that spot that the car manufacturer wanted you to buy a ridiculously priced, specialized tool for. If they're going to move into Northern Tool's space, then I'll move over to Amazon or Walmart's online store, or head into one of the home improvement centers.

No one ever shopped at HF for quality.

 

[woodchucker]

in my case I posted on their feedback years ago on the middle of line tile saw. The fault I saw over and over was people complained it caused a lot of dust and ate blades. For some reason they had mounted the water outlet for the blade at the top of the blade guard and it flung to water off and left the blade dry where it cut. There was a cast flat on the front of the guard right over where the blade cut so I drilled and tapped it and moved the nozzle there. Good to go, no dust and blade lasts forever. Several months later I went in and HF had moved the nozzle. First time EVER I saw any evidence somebody was listening.

I did the same to my saw, even with their upgrade it wasn't hitting the blade well. I built a brass tube with a squashed end to send a flat stream across the blade at the cutting point. I also bought a Dewalt blade.

 

[WobblyHand]

Well, the whole point in HF for me was that it was somewhere to get really cheap tools for one-off jobs. I could get a set of wrenches that I could bend by hand to reach that spot that the car manufacturer wanted you to buy a ridiculously priced, specialized tool for. If they're going to move into Northern Tool's space, then I'll move over to Amazon or Walmart's online store, or head into one of the home improvement centers.

No one ever shopped at HF for quality.

Well said. They are moving away from what made them attractive - cheap one off items that you could use or modify to get the job done. I used to visit fairly often, but now there isn't much I can't get elsewhere. Their other advantage was they (at least for me) were not that far away. Last time I was there, I picked up some tie wraps and was looking if they had anything interesting. Couldn't find that much. Their rolling tool boxes have gone up in price a lot so I passed on it. Just came home with the crummy tie wraps.

 

[woodchucker]

Back in the day you could get an entire stack of a 26inch wide US General tool box for $350 on sale. Now you can get one piece.
I got a stack of Kennedy like (non ball bearing) Black Storehouse for $80. A similar unit at Sears was $350 at the time. Do I need the ball bearings? No. The old Craftsman boxes were w/out ball bearing slides.

My box is doing great. I wanted another with Ball Bearings just about when the price went up. I have passed on it.

I have 3 tool stacks. 2 Kennedy one StoreHouse..