Some industries need workwear that goes beyond just being heavy duty. Some companies need embroidered workwear that can protect workers from flash fires, molten material, and electrical arc flashes. There is specialized work wear for those industries and specialized embroidery thread for this purpose.
Bulwark is a line of a work apparel that is designed to protect the wearer from electrial arcs and from flash fires. Bulwark’s offerings come with category ratings for electrical arc protection as well as Underwriters Laboratories certification that the garments meet NFPA 2112 standards for flame resistant apparel for industrial workers.
The apparel itself is obviously the main line of defense, but does that make the embroidery the weak point? After all, embroidery is going to poke thousands of little holes through those super specialized garments. Bulwark offers this technical guidance on its own website:
Whether it is appropriate to attach non‐FR embroidery and emblems to flame resistant protective garments is always a difficult question to address. The only comment of the consensus standards writing organizations, such as NFPA and ASTM, is that nothing on an article of clothing may increase the extent of wearer injury in case of garment ignition. ASTM in Standard F‐1506, Standard Performance Specification for Flame Resistant Textile Materials for Wearing Apparel for Use by Electrical Workers Exposed to Momentary Electric Arc and Related Thermal Hazards states in an appendix item that, “Logos, name tags, and other heraldry should be limited in number and surface area”.
No OSHA or military standards address this area. SFI, the race driver’s association, has not addressed this issue. However, identification and personalization are clearly safety issues in themselves that must be addressed by end users.
In the final analysis, the end user of the garment must weigh the benefits of identification and personalization against the potential risk from using non‐flame resistant materials. Common sense in the size, placement, and number of these materials is the best solution.
As the embroiderer, common sense would dictate that we do everything possible to preserve the integrity of flame resistant garments’ flame resistant properties. To that end, we are pleased that Madeira, our thread supplier, offers a line of thread specifically suited to this purpose.
The thread is 100% Aramid, a class of heat resistant synthetic fibers that contain Nomex® branded fibers. Nomex fiber was developed by Dupont® for fire and safety, motor sports, aeronautics, and other industries where heat safety standards are defined. Madeira also offers fire resistant bobbin thread and stablizer backing. The color selection of flame resistant threads is not as extensive as that of traditional embroidery thread, but the most popular colors are available.
We will leave to our clients the question of to what degree “common sense” should apply in decorating their flame resistant apparel. But we do hope that they can take comfort that we are doing our best to address the question of HOW to apply common sense to embroidering this specialized work wear.