Anyone wear gloves to handle vacuum tubes?

No.

I just put a pair of white sweatsocks on my hands - clean, grippy and insulated from the heat. 

Thanks for all the replies. Much appreciated. The gloves that I use are ones that I have for handling coins, just plain white cloth, made for keeping fingerprints off of valuable coins. I value my tubes much as much as I do my coin collection. Many are NOS and as old as I am. I have handled them with bare skin before but if so, I wipe them with clean cotton cloth after. Maybe it's just a nutty audiophile thing to do but it's OK with me to take the extra precaution. Back in the 50's, when I was a kid and tubes were in all of our TV's and radios, we never used gloves and would have thought you were nuts if you did. OK, we're nuts. 

@hilde45 

Do you remove teeth first or leave them in your mouth? 

Maybe one doesn't need to wear some type of glove when handling tubes, but I always do.

I've always used gloves, just to be safe & no fingerprints. Its like chicken soup, it can't hurt.

I use these when I want to swap out a tube that is too hot to handle!

I wear gloves with the grip dots which helps keep hold of the tubes. As for the why, I do it for aesthetics. I keep my gear clean, and oil from the skin attracts dust. Anyone who has ever pulled tubes from an old TV or radio knows how dingy they look after many hours of baking on the dust that has settled on them.

I use kitchen tongs.

Just kidding. I use my teeth.

@hilde45 , 😆

I just got an idea to market audiophile vacuum tube gripper gloves...

If you have expensive NOS or OS tubes you might want to wear gloves to help prevent body oils from removing the sometimes delicate silk screen tube markings.  Nothing to do with decreased performance or longevity, but merely cosmetic

I’m pretty sure that back in the heyday of tubes, the 50s and 60s, no one wore gloves to handle them. Glove wearing may just be more audio tweakery.

Always wear cotton gloves I get from Dan at dedicatedaudio.com

I wear gloves if the tubes are still hot otherwise no.

If the tubes are hot and there is not time to wait for them to cool sufficiently for safe handling, by all means wear gloves.  

Not always, but was careful to clean them with alcohol wipes before turning them on

Thanks all. I was never concerned that my skin oil would penetrate the glass but wondered if it could more or less "burn" to it. Some people have marked with some sort of paint on their tubes. I don't but I suppose if they use the right stuff, it can't be any worse than the original paints that mark the tubes. Some of that is better than others. Bugle boy white paint is one of the worst at wearing off. 

Anyway, I'll worry maybe a little less about it but will probably still use them. If I feel particularly dry, I tend to worry less and then I still wipe them down after putting them where they are going. Can't hurt to keep them clean I guess. 

I always wear gloves.  Kevin Deal, IMHO, one of the top authorities on tubes and who I've known for over 40 years, says the oil from your hands won't hurt the tubes in any way...I still use gloves.

To quote Kevin:

"As for the glass itself, despite what some people might tell you, the oil on your fingers will NOT damage the glass or leech through it. Tubes are not halogen bulbs. Tubes may get hot to the touch, but your finger oil will not cause the tube to break when heated up, nor will it affect tube life or sonics. It will not go through the glass."

I used to until I found out it doesn't matter.

No, but I wash my hands if they're oily.  

Gloves might be nice if they aren't slick.  I don't like to wait for the tubes to cool off.. 🙂

I use kitchen tongs.

Just kidding. I use my teeth.

When I owned tube equipment, I always wore the cotton gloves.

ozzy

@mulveling 

Interesting. I haven't dropped any yet but they do not improve grip, that's for sure. 

Hated the halogens, at least in the house. Good for starting fires, not much else.  OTOH, I had halogen bulbs in my truck that lasted over 120k miles and they were on 100% of the time. It's the only good thing I have to say about them but............there is that. :)

No. Normal skin oil is no danger to the tubes. You know what is a danger to tubes? Dropping them. And what makes one more likely to drop them? Those cheesy, slick white cotton gloves included with some tube gear. It’s fine if you use gloves with a better grip than bare skin.

Think about a 100W incandescent bulb - that’s pushing out at least as much heat as a power tube like KT88, with a much thinner and weaker glass envelope - and we don’t worry about skin oils there either.

I guess we’re all still paranoid about skin oils from those horrendous halogen bulbs of the 1990s.