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 Slider Gloves and Fingertips
The third thing every slider needs is gloves. Slider gloves are leather with steel tipped fingers for safely sliding on pavement. Most of them also have washers attached to the palms as added protection. Some also have a sparking element attached to the palm.
An Alternative to metal tipped gloves that is often used in training, is a work glove combined with a wrist guard. For more information check the Wrist Guard section of the site available from the menu on the left.
Metal Tipped gloves give you not only a strong protection for your finger but are also in fact essential to a number of techniques and tricks. Without metal tips or wrist guards you will not be able to go into an all-fours slide, which removes at least half your sliding options. Your risk of injury also goes way up.
Experienced Sliders come to be able to control how much of their body weight rests on their hands and gloves. This allows for a greater choice of techniques and stunts. It also allows them to slide with less than optimal hand protection, whether by choice (choosing plain gloves so full hand movement is available) or by accident (glove rips with no backup available. Gaining control of your body is essential to this skill and gives you so many more options.
If you don’t want to use any of the protective additions (Fingertips, washers, wrist guards) you can still be an effective slider. You just need to be very aware of what kinds of slides you can and cannot do. Sometimes a slider chooses to restrict their sliding ability in order to gain the advantages of exposed hands. It is quite risky to do this, and I don’t recommend this for anyone but experienced sliders.
In addition to their obvious use in sliding, metal tipped gloves can also be used as a scaring tool. Fingers can be clicked together near customers for an unexpected startle. Using these gloves to bang on things creates a much louder sound than a bare hand (and it hurts less too). Fingertips can also be dragged on surfaces to create interesting and scary sounds. This works both inside and outside of Haunted Houses and some non-sliding actors use these as an addition to their scare skills.
Choosing a Glove:
I recommend a comfortable, snug fitting leather glove with fingertips that are only as large as necessary. Some commercially available gloves use a one size floppy leather glove with oversized finger tips. Some sliders swear by them. I prefer good fitting personalized gloves that allow me reasonable finger dexterity for picking things up and interacting with guests. These are what we have been supplying the Ocean Park Halloween Bash with since 2006.
To this end Slider Gear Online provides Fingertips individually, in three sizes, allowing you to create a well fitting pair of gloves. Building your own gloves is cheaper than getting them made for you. But better still, you know that it will fit your hand comfortably and stay in place.
I recommend going to your local home center and look at leather contractor gloves. Batting and Golfing gloves, while giving great dexterity, are far too thin and will not stand up to sliding. Find a good fitting (snug) leather or deerskin work glove. The leather will stretch a bit and conform to your hand on use, so a snug glove is better than a loose one. Make sure than the glove has a Velcro wrist closure to keep it in place. A cloth back will help with breathability and a stretch material can ease in fitting. I usually recommend black gloves to go with any costume, but I often use a natural deerskin glove that I’ve Dyed Black with Leather Dye.
Choose Your Tips:
An Average hand use a Lg tip on the Thumb, 3 Medium tips on the next three fingers and a small on the pinky. For Smaller hands (especially girls) we go with a medium on the thumb and smalls on the other fingers. This also works well for sliders who want even greater use of their hands for props or climbing, etc. On Large hands we replace the small pinky with a medium and sometime the forefinger with a large. It all depends on hand size and glove thickness, tempered by the usage desired. With our fingertips you can customize your gloves for the best possible fit.
To Purchase Tips please go to the BUY: Gloves and Fingertips Page (available on the menu to the left)
Finishing Options:
Once you have decided on gloves and tips, its time to decide on finishing choices.
Do you want Washers Glued on?
Do you want to start training with wrist guards and go to washers later?
Do you want your gloves to be plain or customized to a particular costume?
As I said before we recommend beginners start with fingertipped gloves and wrist guards, going to washers after they are comfortable with the basics. The choices are yours to make.
If you are going to use washers, you should look for washers with small center holes. These usually go by the name fender washers. They are available in a number of sizes. If you are concerned with hand dexterity, it might not be a bad idea to get a number of sizes and scrap gloves to test positioning and sizing options.
When positioning washers pay special attention to the way your hand bends and flexs.
A Custom appearance for your gloves can be achieved in a number of ways. If you started with a light colored deerskin glove you can paint or dye your gloves to match a pattern on your costume (good for punks and clowns, etc.). Or you might want to create a custom skin covering for your gloves that look like rotted flesh, or skeleton hands, or furry claws, etc. Information is available online in a number of places for creating custom gloves. Just remember not to allow any customizing to get in the way of the protective steel on your fingers and palms.
We at Slider Gear online can also custom make these for you.
In Closing:
Since your slider gloves are the only thing standing between the hard rough. pavement and your valuable hands , please take good care of them and replace their parts before they become dangerous to you.
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