It’s a popular misconception that the darkening effect is required to avoid burns. It isn’t. Auto darkening helmets have permanent UV and IR filters that block all the wavelengths of light that can burn you.
The auto darkening filter is only for the visible spectrum. It is only for comfort, so that you can see.
There is a lot of Luddism about auto darkening helmets.
Its my experience that Mig welders seem to emit a lot more uv light than stick welders so the advice I would give is defiantly to cover any exposed areas of skin,
As Rasancain said I would read up on metal fume fever (been there, done that, not nice) and also I’m unsure what you people over the pond call it but we brits call it Arc eye or Flash and believe me that’s not pleasant at all.
It’s a certainty that at some point you will burn yourself (hopefully mildly) so make sure you have some first aid stuff on hand.
As for Angle grinders three words Goggles, Goggles, Goggles
There has been plenty of good advice upthread and hopefully you will get plenty of enjoyment from your new hobby,
Have fun
Ming, blacksmith/welder
A relative statement. MIG welding in short arc mode is generally low amperage and equivalent to stick welding with low hydrogen ( or tight arc ) below 250A. Average eyes would use a shade #10.
Spray arc MIG is a dazzler, #11 or 12 preferred.
But given a primary of 120V with a tacit 20A line, spray mode is virtually impossible, short of willful equipment destruction.
Covering body parts exposed to UV and spatter is always good advice.
I’ve read similar things as you before. Not sure what aspect of the lens was defective, but it was, and I have seen the result of it firsthand from a friend. He looked terrible, and was severely burned. If you had seen his face, you’d realize it too. Made believers out of all of us. The manager of the store seen his face too, and gave him a full refund, plus an upgrade to a better helmet and lens. Fixin’ to head to Dallas this early AM, but will try to see if I can find some pertinent links when I get back later on in the weekend.
Although I’m going to regret posting this, check to make sure IF you live in an apartment, condo, or HOA that welding or working outside on things like this isn’t prohibited. A co-worker of mine got a $50 ticket from his HOA for changing a flat tire in his own driveway, so I have no doubt it’s at least possible MIG welding on your drive has a non-zero possibility of being a problem.
I also have heard, third-hand, of a condo/apartment where storing flammable gas tanks (acetylene) was prohibited as a “fire code violation.” This came up because the HOA president was arguing with a degreed, licensed Engineer over whether or not argon was “flammable”. :rolleyes:
I have been welding, machining, metal working, machine building for 20+ years.
(1) When buying a welder “you get what you pay for”, $1500 goes a lot further than $300. There are spool guns also, but they kinda unwieldy in tight spots.
Go with plain steel wire .030 or so and gas. Either Argon, Nitrogen, CO2 or NOS mix. Flux core is for Emergency use, When you don’t have access to the better stuff.
If your doing small stuff your better off with a TiG welder. I find MiG welders tempermental with the weather. I’ve used a lot of em. Stick welding is messy.
(2) You don’t neccesarily need a cart if you work at one location, You will need a hand cart for the Gas Bottle. You should make a table to put the welder on with a metal top, and a nice thick metal table to hammer shit on also.
(3) Just tie to to the wall and shut off the gas when its not being used, if you leave it on, IT WILL LEAK OUT, doubt it will kill you unless you plan on sleeping with it. :dubious:
(4) I think a 30 gallon tank at 120 psi is enough for small jobs. The bigger the tank the less you have to listen to that dam thing running. I think that has to be CLEAN AIR and NO WATER for plasma cutters. and plenty of tips for the cutter. :rolleyes:
(5) Is there synthetic leather someplace? I think cotton Likes to burn, you can try the Kevlar ones. You really need something to keep the sparks off you that wont go up in flames. :eek:
(6) Ooo the fun question. KEEP AWAY FROM ANYTHING FLAMMABLE and wear sun screen One Million SPF ought to be OK.
Helmets are cheap your eyes aren’t. You can and will get flash burn by blink tacking. Not to mention sun burnt eye lids.
Wear safety glasses, Dark Colored ones while plasma cutting.
A clean and orderly shop is a safe shop.
Oh, yea I don’t wear a glove on my trigger hand either.
Lot’s of good advice here. Just one little bit that I can think to add.
Make sure that your compressor can keep up with the plasma cutter. Check the cubic feet per minute (CFM) requirement of you plasma cutter and make sure to exceed that by at least 50% when you get a compressor. One of those cute pancake jobs probably won’t cut it. Pun intended.
There are some very nice, inexpensive all-in-one plasma cutters out there: example
These are fine if you don’t need to cut more than 1/4" thick or so. You will find that plasma cutters take a remarkable jump in price over 5/8" cutting cpapbility.
A lot of the sculptural things I would be doing would involve welding long seams (making hollow, solid-looking things out of thinner sheet metal kind of thing)
In a shop the main reasons its on a cart is to facilitate changing out the tanks, and secondly because the voltage drops off , as the gun or stick rod is farther away from the power supply.
If your going to be sculpting metal, while your work area might be within reach of the gun, you may find yourself twisting around as you apply tack welds.
The larger bottles that stand about 5 feet, are usually chained to the wall , or set into a cart as mentioned abobe. The Gas your probably going to be using is either argon, helium(unlikely) or CO2. The main dangers of these gases is oxygen depletion, if in the unlikely event that your welding in a really small enclosed space.
Otherwise , the bottle itself is more of a hazard if your not used to changing one out. Given how much you might go through in a year, it might be worth your while to see what kind of vehicle you need to transport the cylinder. My boss used to get me to run up to the welding supply store, with the cylinder in the hatchback unsecured, I dont believe that its legal to do this now.
For the most part ,I cant see a supply company not delivering to residential , so thats something you might want to investigate, as well as deliveries of your bar, rod and angle stock.
Actually I would recomend that you pick up an oxycutter, either acetoline or mapp gas. A plasma cutter is great for cutting metal , but it does not allow you to heat metal up enough to twist or bend it or shape it. I figure you might want more capability than straight lines in sculptures.
Visit the welding supply company and tell them what you want , the amount of stuff on the market is staggering sometimes.
For you first stage at learning how to weld , wear boots rather than shoes, keep your pants bloused inside the boots. Sparks as you have found out can litterally go anywhere.
I had a spark hit me in the eye , as I was wearing a full face shied (old school style) and the spark ricocheted off something , went inside the crack above your head, further ricocheted off the inside of the helment and then off my percripition glasses and into my eye, facilitating a trip to the hospital to remove the slag.
Look into getting a first aid station that can be opened via elbows, and ointments and medical supplies that will treat up to third degree burns ( it might not be you that picks up something reallly hot)
Finally I posted this in another question , but your ears are the primary sense in welding , not your eyes. When checking the unknown temp of a piece of metal, use the back of your palm , holding it just above and not touching the metal.
Declan
1: Auto darkening helmets are GREAT. Get one and love it.
I’ve never heard of someone getting burns from a helmet that didn’t turn on. If the helmet doesn’t “flick” on, you need to stop and fix it! You’d have to be welding for a relatively long period to give yourself face burns! I’ve got family members who will tack weld without the helmet (i.e. no face protection at all!), and they’ve never got fried in the way that’s been described.
2: I suggest whenever you use the plasma cutter that you use the welding helmet. I once cut a bunch of steel with just tinted goggles…and ended up looking like a reverse raccoon! Light around the eyes and dark everywhere else.
3: Some one else mentioned loose gloves, so you can throw them off…YES
4: Wear old clothing, but don’t wear RATTY clothing. Clothing that’s in shreds catches fire rather easily. That sucks.
Get a big fire extinguisher…seriously. Just in case.
Keep the trash can on the other side of the shop. Amazing how sparks can set things on fire, isn’t it?
Get a decent grinder and set of disks, so you can clean up your metallic messes and try again.
Wear a hat, or beanie or something to protect your hair under the helmet. Just in case a spark decides to land there. I prefer a backwards ballcap.
Especially for a MIG rig, you might as well make or buy a cart. Tanks are a pain to move around.
Concerning the auto darkening helmets, would like to have found pics of others that had a similar experience to my friend. Was unsuccessful with that, but did find warnings on manufacturers cites, to return any defective lens such as this one listed on the 3M cite stating:
3M also sets these limitations with their lens:
My friend didn’t have the 3M model, but a solar Harbor Freight one, which I also have as well. This manufacturer realizes that it is possible that a ADF can fail to switch to the dark state, or they wouldn’t be printing this. Same true with the Harbor Freight model which basically says the same thing as the 3M cite, as do others.
With my friend’s auto-darkening helmet, I don’t even think it was the problem of the lens not reacting to the arc fast enough, because if that was the case, he wouldn’t have been able to weld any further with it. In his case, I remember him commenting that he thought it due to not letting the helmet fully charge out into the sun upon first using, and somehow this must have not been blocking enough of the harmful rays getting through the lens. I don’t even remember doing this with mine but noticed Harbor Freight says to at least charge for 4 hours prior to first use, and also after any long term storage. His was the worst case of what I’ve seen from anybody: it looked like a severe case of sun burn in the area of his face around the lens. I see him from time to time, and he lives only a couple of miles from me. The next time he is around, I’ll ask if his wife took pics. If so, I’ll either upload it to a cite, tell you where to find it, or send it to you or anybody’s e-mail that is interested it seeing what can happen.
Your cites are simply saying that if the filters on the helmet are not working or you are using them outside their operating capacity you may get eye damage. This is true of any helmet, auto darkening or not. It sounds to me like the UV or IR filters on your friend’s helmet failed. They are permanent filters, same as on a non-auto darkening helmet.
From the same 3M document that you link to, though, it says this: “Protection from ultra-violet radiation (UV) and
infrared radiation (IR) is continuous, whether the ADF is in the light or the dark state. In the event of battery or
electronic failure, the welder remains protected against UV and IR radiation according to the darkest shade (shade
13).” And then later: “ADF Ultraviolet/Infrared Protection at all times - non-switching.”
The document doesn’t give any specifications for how much of the UV and IR spectrum is blocked. It would be disingenuous to say 100%, but it may be 100% at levels that are associated with most welding (for example, just because it offers IR protection doesn’t mean you can shine a 4KW CO2 laser beam through it.
On the other hand, the document clearly indicates that the UV and IR filters are permanent, which is a small feat really. It would be logical to assume then, that potential eye damage is a result of the high insensity of light in the visible spectrum. Unfortunately visible spectrum light as a source of eye damage was never specifically mentioned in any of my courses (which were laser specific at that), and so I have no real data to counter the idea that high intensity, visible light won’t damage eyes.
Now I’m curious… all of the warnings about watching solar eclipses. I wonder if normal laser safety goggles or a welding helmet would make it safe?
Since the discussion has moved to welding hoods, readers may be interested in another style called “pancake”, usually made by the user, very simple constuction and more durable than fibreglas hoods. Their chief benefits being, the eyes are sealed from light and spatter, and very light weight, if made from the lightest materials. They reduce the claustrophobia some feel with typical hoods.
Google images reduce the 1,000 words, but briefly, a pair of burning goggles that accepts the typical 2x4-1/4" filter and covers are fitted into a piece of formica, mycarta or door skin material with a right angled side attachment to cover the ear opposite the hand you weld with.
Popular with pipe weldors, especially pipeliners. Since they exclude peripheral light it’s possible to wear them in “down” position and yet see surroundings with relative clarity.
In looking for gloves, I called this company and talked to their support people. After asking around they weren’t totally sure that the gloves (Heatworx) were for sure going to work for what I needed, so they said they would send me out a “sample pair” to try out. I have no idea exactly what that means… if I like them, I pay them later? They send me one finger of a glove for testing? I dunno, but whatever, if these gloves work out I’m totally evangelizing for their company because how awesome are they? Rather than giving me bogus info just to sell me a product, they’d rather send me a sample to make sure it actually suited my purposes. I’ll let you know how they work out, but already I can tell you that this company has impressed the hell out of me just with their customer service!
