ANSI Cut Level: The Buyer’s Plain-Language Guide to A1 Through A9
Sooner or later, every procurement file in hand protection lands on the same line: specify ANSI cut level. The request sounds simple, and the chart looks simple — nine levels, A1 to A9, pick one. But a level is a laboratory measurement with a specific meaning, and choosing it blind produces the two failures this guide exists to prevent: gloves too weak for the hazard, returned in an incident report, and gloves so over-specified that workers refuse to wear them, returned in a different kind of report. Here is the system in plain language: the test, the nine levels with their gram values, the work each level genuinely fits, and the specification language that makes a level mean something in a contract.
The test, in plain language
ANSI/ISEA 105 measures cut resistance on a machine called the TDM-100. A straight blade is drawn across a sample of the glove material under a known load. If the blade cuts through within the set distance, the load drops; if it survives, the load rises. The result is the load in grams at which cut-through occurs — the glove’s cut resistance expressed as a weight the blade must carry to defeat it. That single number is then banded into the nine levels. Two consequences follow. First, the level belongs to the tested material construction, not to a fibre name or a brand: change the blend, gauge or coating and the number can move. Second, the test uses a straight blade drawn under load — it says nothing about puncture from points, powered blades, or heat. A level is precise about exactly one thing, and that precision is its value.
The nine levels and the work they fit
A1 (200 grams and above) and A2 (500 grams) cover nuisance-level hazards: paper edges, light packaging, general handling with occasional sharp contact. A3 (1,000 grams) enters real industrial territory — light sheet handling, warehousing, general fabrication support. A4 (1,500 grams) is the most specified level in industry for a reason: it balances meaningful protection for metal, appliance and HVAC work against gloves people will wear all shift. A5 (2,200 grams) and A6 (3,000 grams) serve sharper, heavier work — metal stamping, glass handling, wiring and cable work, food processing. A7 (4,000 grams) and A8 (5,000 grams) address severe handling: heavy-gauge metal, recycling and waste streams, sharp scrap. A9 (6,000 grams and above) is the top of the scale, reserved for the heaviest sharp handling and defined knife-adjacent tasks where the hazard assessment — not habit — puts it there.
Read the ladder as your safety colleagues do: each step up costs dexterity, adds weight and raises price, while each step down gambles against the edge. The correct level is the lowest one that honestly covers the worst routine contact in the task — not the worst imaginable accident, which no glove covers, and not the average contact, which under-protects the bad moment that statistics guarantee.
The European letters, without false conversions
If your programme also sells into Europe, you will meet EN 388 and its ISO 13997 letter scale, A through F, measured in newtons on similar TDM principles but a different protocol. Buyers constantly ask for the conversion, and the honest answer is that none officially exists: different blade geometry, travel and units mean a glove’s two results are cousins, not translations. Practically, mid-scale ANSI levels and mid-scale EN letters cover similar work, and top EN letters sit in the same severe territory as high ANSI levels — but a specification for Europe should name the EN result from the glove’s own test report, and a specification for North America should name the ANSI result the same way. Suppliers who hand you a neat one-line conversion are simplifying something your auditor will not.
Writing the level into a specification that holds
A level in a purchase document should arrive with its evidence attached. Name the standard and the level — ANSI/ISEA 105, level A6, for example — and require the accredited laboratory report for the exact model construction before contracting. Add the physical anchors: yarn blend, gauge, coating, and weight per dozen with a tolerance, so a level cannot be quietly re-engineered after award. Retain a golden sample from the approved batch, state that bulk is accepted against it, and reserve batch spot-testing with a defined remedies clause. These five lines convert a marketing claim into a contractual fact, and any factory that routinely tests will sign them without drama.
Three specification mistakes we see every month
The first is the orphan level: a tender or spec sheet that names a level with no standard, no report requirement and no construction description, which any glove-shaped object can claim to meet. The second is the copied conversion: a European letter pasted into an American document through an unofficial equivalence table, which collapses the first time an auditor asks for the underlying ANSI result. The third is the frozen spec: a level chosen years ago for a process that has since changed — new material, new blade, new line speed — and never re-assessed, so the glove faithfully answers a hazard that no longer exists while the current one goes unaddressed. All three are cured by the same habit: every level in every document carries its standard, its report and a review date.
A worked example, start to finish
A distributor is asked to supply a metal fabrication plant. The hazard assessment describes deburred and freshly sheared edges, handled all shift, some of it oily. Worst routine contact: a slipping grip on a sheared edge under partial body weight. On the ladder, that sits above A4’s comfortable territory and squarely in A6’s. The specification is written as ANSI/ISEA 105 level A6, sandy nitrile palm for the oil, 13-gauge steel-blend knit, weight per dozen with tolerance, report required for the exact construction, golden sample retained. A trial crew wears the glove for two weeks; dexterity passes, grip passes, no early coating failure. Production ships against the golden sample, batch results travel with the documents, and the level in the file is no longer a hope — it is a chain of evidence from assessment to carton. That chain, not the letter on the box, is what specifying an ANSI cut level means.
Keep the level alive: re-assessment rhythm
A cut level is a decision about a process, and processes drift. New material suppliers change edge quality; a sharper blade or a faster line changes the contact; an incident — or a near miss, which is the same information at a kinder price — announces that the assessment and the work have parted company. Build the rhythm that catches it: review the level whenever the process changes, whenever the glove model or its construction changes, and at a fixed annual point even when nothing seems to have moved. Record each review against the specification, so the file shows a living decision rather than a fossil. Procurement teams sometimes resist this as safety-department territory. It is purchasing territory too, because the cheapest moment to change a level is at a scheduled review, and the most expensive is after the report with the word injury in its title.
The ANSI cut level system rewards buyers who treat it as measurement rather than mythology. Learn the grams behind the letter, match the level to the worst routine contact, refuse conversions that do not exist, and bind the claim to a report and a golden sample. Do that, and the nine levels become what they were designed to be — the clearest language our industry has for an honest conversation about sharp things. If you are writing a specification now, send us the draft. We will mark it up the way our own laboratory would.