Tough ski gloves: How we reinforce the palm of our gloves

How to make a tough ski glove?

3) Tough stitching with the best quality nylon thread.

2) Use tough cowhide leather that is a bit thicker (1-2 mm) and tanned properly. Better made leather is plush soft AND tough, and is much better at retaining its' natural oils. This allows the leather to last much longer and react to wear and tear much better. Learn how we make leather for ski gloves

1) Palm reinforcements: The most important variable to make a leather glove tougher for backcountry skiing, snowboarding, mountain work, and ski patrolling is the construction of the palm. Specifically, the reinforcement patch that protects the problem areas where the glove takes the most abuse. Those areas tend to be the inside seams and center of the thumb, the bridge between the thumb and index finger, and the center of the palm.

Various examples of reinforcement patches: Some tough aspects, some not-so-tough: None of these patches protect the vital area that commonly wears out first: the dreaded hole in the middle of the thumb. Not tough.

Terrible patch placement: this reinforcement patch leaves weakness all along the index finger seams. And the middle of the thumb is totally unprotected.

Better: this reinforcement patch covers the bridge between the thumb and all important seams:

Better: This reinforcement patch covers the bridge between the thumb and index finger and all important seams. BUT, again, the thumb patch seam is stitched right down the middle of a weak spot: THE MIDDLE OF THE THUMB.

With all this knowledge of where the reinforcement patch SHOULD go, we constructed our FREE THE POWDER GLOVES with this patch. It is the toughest ski glove out there...