Thread: Failing Vision

I had heard of using toothpaste as a fine polish 30 years ago, and I tried it on a motorcycle visor back then, but I would have been better using a brilo pad. It scored the plastic badly and ruined the visor. I'm guessing there are different grades of toothpaste, so just be sure to test in an area that's not important if you want to give it a go.

brasso and silvo also do a brilliant()job.while we are on the subject,i have fitted a boc magnifying lense under my polycarb cover to aid my failing vision.only $15 or so bucks,worth a look.

I use brasso and silvo to polish plastic too, they are pretty good. I only once ever had a problem where the plastic crazed because of the solvent. To get things really optically clear though is hard as even the metal polish leaves fine scratches if you shine a light across it. I got a plastic polish out of a yacht chandler that works as well as anything I have found, and would be my first choice now.
Regarding the lenses you can fit in the welding helmet, I tried one and it was OK. I was one of those guys who didn't realise how poorly I could see the puddle, because old age sneaks up on you. My welding immediately improved 100's after getting the lens. My eyesight is failing through old age as it does, and I can still focus down to arms length well, but after that things get fuzzy. I'm sure thats a common symptom to anyone over 45 and it just gets worse! What I found was better than the fixed lens in the hood, was a range of those reading glasses for a few $ each. I do some fine welding where I need to get really close (5~10amps) and I need a #3 for that (focusing at less that 12") and various other numbers to cover the full range up to 3 ft. The glasses seem to only cover a very narrow range of focus, which gets narrower, the more they magnify. For normal welding a 1.5 is good for me. I preferred the fact you can change them so easily, over the fixed lens in the welding helmet.

Agree with the cheap reading glasses. I find them sharper than the cheater lens I tried.

Michael

I will try reading glasses tomorrow. They may help me as well. My vision is ok down to about 30 cm away so I may be a bit too far away most of the time for the benefit. I will also look into cleaning the lens covers on the helmet although I bought quite a few from EvilBay recently. One of the ones I have in at the moment I made up from a piece of face mask plastic which got broken, not thru impact during use. It split down the middle, top to bottom.

Dean

I have stopped welding due to poor vision or more accurately the inability to see the weld line. I have perfect vision (no glasses to read or see at all) but the eye does not transmit the light when you are sixty plus even if you don't need glasses. i think the figure is something like a 25 year old needs four times less light to see the same thing. I tried a new speed glass helmet the other day and while it assisted in making it easier to start in the right spot actually getting the weld metal where it was supposed to go was a bit hit and miss. No glasses at my age? don't ask it cost a bloody fortune, implanted lenses during cataract surgery.