Towa ActivGrip Kunai Gloves

The Towa ActivGrip Kunai pairs a high cut resistance rating with a liner thin enough to work in all day. An HPPE yarn with steel liner delivers ANSI A5 cut protection, while the 18-gauge knit keeps the glove light and flexible instead of stiff and bulky.

The nitrile double coating with MicroFinish surface treatment grips in oil as well as dry, so the glove holds onto greasy hardware, gearbox housings and wet fittings rather than sliding off them. Fingertips are touchscreen compatible — you can operate a phone or a controller screen without taking them off.

Cut protection normally costs you dexterity. This glove is the exception, which is why it works for tasks where you would otherwise be tempted to work bare-handed.

Where these earn their keep in a greenhouse

Most greenhouse hand injuries come from a short list of predictable sources, and this glove addresses nearly all of it:

• Spring wire and lock channel. Wiggle wire is the most reliable way to open your hand in this industry. It’s sharp, it’s under tension, and it springs back at you.
• Poly film cutting. Knife work on film and tape.
• Expanded metal and wire bench tops. Cut wire ends and sharp edges at panel joints.
• Sheet metal, framing and fasteners. Purlin edges, cut tubing, Tek screws.
• Glass handling in glass houses and repair work.
• Pruning, grading and harvest where a blade is in one hand and the crop in the other.
• Motor and gearbox service. The MicroFinish coating grips oily parts, so drives and actuators can be handled without degloving.

Because the fingertips work on a touchscreen, crews can also adjust a controller setpoint mid-task instead of pulling a glove off with their teeth.

Construction

HPPE with steel liner — high performance polyethylene yarn reinforced with steel filament, which is what produces the A5 cut rating.

Nitrile double coating — two coating passes for abrasion resistance and durability at the wear points.

MicroFinish surface — a textured finish engineered for grip in oil and on wet surfaces, not just dry.

18-gauge liner — a fine knit that keeps the glove thin, flexible and breathable. Lower gauge numbers mean heavier, stiffer knits; 18G is at the dexterous end of the scale.

Towa ergonomic design — shaped to the relaxed position of the hand to reduce fatigue over a full shift.

Certifications and ratings

What the ratings mean

ANSI A5 cut resistance. ANSI rates cut resistance A1 through A9. A5 is a high level of protection, appropriate for handling sharp metal, wire, glass and blades.

EN388 4X42E, position by position:

Coup cut position (X). The coup test draws a circular blade across the material. Steel and glass fibers dull that blade during testing, which produces unreliable results, so the standard specifies the TDM straight-blade test in those cases and the coup position is marked X. The steel liner in this glove dulls the coup blade, so cut resistance is reported by the TDM result — the E in the final position.

EN407 X1XXXX indicates contact heat level 1 — brief contact with a surface at approximately 100°C. The five X positions were not tested, which is normal: most gloves are tested only for contact heat, since it is the most common thermal hazard. The X in the first position means burning behavior was not assessed.

Important: these are not flame-resistant gloves, not molten metal gloves, and not chemical protection gloves. The nitrile is a grip coating, not a chemical barrier — it carries no EN ISO 374 chemical rating. Use properly rated chemical gloves for mixing, loading or applying pesticides, acids and sanitizers.

Specifications

This product can expose you to chemicals including 2-Mercaptobenzothiazole (MBT), which is/are known to the State of California to cause cancer. For more information go to: www.P65Warnings.ca.gov