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EN 381 Parts 4 and 7: 1999
Protective clothing for users of hand-held chain saws. Test methods for chainsaw protective gloves

By their very nature, chainsaws are extremely dangerous machines. The EN 381 series of standards covers how forestry protective clothing should be designed and tested to assess the level of protection afforded against cutting by a hand held chainsaw. Part 4 of the series is devoted to gloves and in addition to requirements based on the tests of EN 388, the standard includes cut resistance tests that use an electrically driven simulated chainsaw machine. The standard includes several performance classes based on the linear speed of the chainsaw chain at the start of the cutting test and the gloves ability to resist cut through at that speed.

Chainsaw Test

The test procedure described in standard EN 381 consists of an electrically driven chainsaw running at a controlled speed that is dropped onto a test glove which is fitted on an artificial hand. The glove fails if it cuts through before the chain has come to rest. The standard includes several levels that are based on the linear speed of the chain before it impacts the sample. The cutting power (or sharpness) of the chain is calibrated using special reference pads.