New version of the standard EN388

A new version of the EN388 standard is available since November 2016 with 3 main changes.

One of the changes is to the cut test, we have stock of the newly tested gloves ready for you in our range

New Test Cut Resistant Gloves



A New version of the EN388 Mechanical Handling test was introduced in November 2016


The CUT test is the one that you will notice the most that has changed.

With the previous Coupe test a glove would score 1 to 5, 5 being the best score.

Some felt that gloves with glass fibre or steel woven in the mix were blunting the

blade whilst being tested and would go on to score a higher test result than they should.


Incident rates are high for cuts to the hand and the current test for cut resistance 

is now deemed unfit if used in isolation. 

The existing test (Coup Test) uses a circular rotating blade impacting the glove. 

This blade dulls too quickly when testing gloves containing high levels of 

glass and steel fibre producing unreliable cut scores and overstating results 

for low quality gloves.



The original 'Coup Test' is still a critical part of the testing, 

but now an additional test is included to deliver more reliable scoring. 

The new 'TDM -100 Test' has been introduced to measure the gloves' protective qualities 

against a vertical force and linear blade movement, hence a far more rigorous test.