General welding safety for DIY welders

For those new to welding or even those who have a bit of experience, I have cobbled together some safety recommendations as welding seems to be a common theme,but our welding safety is rarely been mentioned.
Compared to other DIY work, welding is fairly dangerous. Many of the Occ. health & Safety hazards of welding can be avoided with common sense and appropriate personal protective equipment.

Hazards arising from welding include asphyxiation due to dangerous inhalants, skin and eye damage due to ultraviolet light radiation , electrical or chemical fires, and long-term negative respiratory effects from fumes.
Most people think that sparks and arcs are the most hazardous feature of welding because they are the most obvious, but they are only one hazard. The intensity of the welding arc, with its strong UV radiation out put, short term may cause burns and pain but in the long term can cause damage to unprotected eyes and cancer to skin. There is a wide range of equipment available to protect the welder , such as auto-darkening helmets and thick gloves, to reduce your exposure. Also, sparks are not usually hot, yet general precautions should be taken to keep wood or other combustible material out of the range of the welder's arc. Setting heated metal on a flammable surface is more likely to start a fire.

Electrocution from faulty incorrectly grounded equipment is an ever present possibility. Many of us neglect the earth return connection ( it should ground to a shiny clean surface) and are sometimes rewarded with a boot.Normally that just serves to remind us how silly we can be. For anyone with illness or a weak heart ,the consequences can be far more serious. For this reason ,don’t weld alone. Someone at least should checkyou on a regular basis to ensure you are healthy and upright.
While considering electricity, please leave it to the electrician. If your welder is not operating don’t be tempted to open it up and fix it. The law says it is a sparky job only.

Knowledge of the metal make up you are welding on is helpful.
Certain elements might also be contained in the material itself, like lead, cadmium, manganese, chromium, or nickel in metals like stainless steel, copper, or zinc. These metals should only be welded with caution. Make sure you know exactly what they contain and weld in an area with a lot of air circulation. Symptoms from inhalation can range from a temporary flu-like sickness to major damage to lungs, liver, and other organs. The coatings on metal to be welded, if not cleaned off thoroughly can produce fumes harmful to your respiratory functions. Galvanised/zinc coatings produce fumes during welding which at some concentrations are capable of making you ill enough for hospital treatment.
The process of welding can sometimes produce dangerous gases. It is the DIY welders responsibility to ensure that the fumes are kept out of the breathing zone either by a respirator or by the adequate natural or fan forced ventilation.

Keep safe then
Grahame

G'Day Grahame,
As a DIY welder and self taught, I have taken the time to speak to people (tradesmen) and they are only to willing to give a few pointers, also I have done some reading. This was mainly due to my great respect for electricity, no smell and can't see it, seven years in the fire brigades taught me to treat every wire as it is alive and only touch one with the BACK of your hand, as the current causes the muscles to contract. It may still toss you across the room but that is better than it grabbing hold of you!

Good read and thank you for thinking of others safety, a greenie to you!..:)

Yeah - don't grab the hand peice by the electrode as it falls off the bench!:eek:

Luckily I was wearing welding gloves and 'rubber' soled shoes plus I only held the flux coated part of the electrode. It took me a while to figure out why all the muscles in my arm were jumping tho'........

Ahh...

Welding sunburn. Just like spending a year in the sun on a 40° day and stings like a b itch when you get it on the inside of your elbows too.

Once had to weld a socket into the top tube of a boiler about an hour after they turned it off. It was about 75° inside the thing (had to get inside it) and laying in 1/2 inch of water. Zapped myself about 100 times. Could never weld more than 1 inch before the lens fogged up too much and caught on fire a couple of times from laying under the weld area.

I love my current job.

Dan

Or welding teacher who should know better.
Or like you know who - welded in thongs.It was only a little 5 minute job. Did the welding job and dropped the expended hot electrode butt on his foot. Then jumped out of the thongs on to the damp grass and got a big shock in more ways than one. It about the same level of pain as holding a firing spark plug lead.
I am currently writing a piece on why we have welding power problems.
Anyone intersted ?
Grahame

In the past I did quite a bit of welding, here's a few don't do's (but they never happened to me :o ;) )
There's no such thing as a 5 minute job (no matter what trade), so don't sit yourself down on that drum, wearing only shorts and a singlet to do that "5 minute" job. You may find the sunburnt armpits and crotch to be quite painful.:(

Long sleeve flannel shirts may provide good UV protection (better than a singlet at any rate) but those hot spitty bits from flux coated mig wire will burn straight through into your forearm.

Flannel shirts are quite flammable.:eek:

Those frayed bits around the holes in the knees of your jeans will catch fire.:eek:

If you are welding outside whilst standing in a garden bed and it seems to be getting hotter than usual in your leather welding coat, and you can smell fire it's wise to stop welding to see if the garden bed you are standing in is burning (along with the cuffs of your trouser legs).:eek:

None of this happened to me of course ;) I just heard about these hazards from friends of mine.

Mick the flammable

Grahame, I would be interested as I said in my last post I am self taught and would read anything to further my knowledge of wood or metalwork.:)

101 welding
The job is always hot after welding
Eyes can and will be damaged when not protected , by flash or solid matter like slag when chipping or grinding so always wear close fitting safty glasses as well as a welding helmet
Don't change a stick electrode while the welder is switched on
Always wear appropriate clothing tucked in
Fumes will kill you
Welding old 44's will kill you
Wet gloves will cause you to rethink their use
Hot slag and nylon don't mix
Hot slag will burn through the tops os boots
You may not notice you are on fire until someone tells you or you smell rosting flesh thus always have a lousy $20 fire extinguisher within reach
Striking arc's on pressure cylinders ( oxy, gas etc weather intentionally or accidentinally ) will proberly cause your probate to be posted
Arc welding will burn unexposed skin
Etc etc

No welding on top of a 10' aluminium ladder with bare feet, when it's covered in frost.

Not sure if it's the aluminium ladder or the moisture, that makes the current running through the ladder bite 10 times harder.

Lucky the guy fell from the ladder, before things got out of hand.:eek:


HJ0

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashore

Don't change a stick electrode while the welder is switched on

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I have been welding for about 15 years now and I can't say I've ever switched the welder off to change rods. If you are not touching the work or earth lead there should be no problems with changing the rod with the machine switched on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashore

Arc welding will burn unexposed skin

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Did you mean to say UNexposed?

Dan

PS. Don't stick the end of the rod into your neck when you have just finished a run. DAMHIK

Dan, can't say I have ever switched the welder off to change rods myself.

Maybe it's the whole 'open circuit, low voltage, leather gloves' that makes me feel safe enough. ;)


(Don't get me wrong here folks, welders will kill you as dead as a hammer just as quick as anything else, in the right circumstances.

The 'right' circumstances just happen to occur much more often when welding, because it's seems to be so 'safe'...)

G'day all.
Was welding some 75x50x6mm angle the other day.
laying down nice long welds with the mig.
Stopped and changed direction.
The object had 4 castors under it and started to roll off of the welding table.
Me, being a d ickhead and not thinking, grabbed for the object to stop it. (I only wear a glove on the left hand). Right index finger touched the still red just welded part.

I have now found that putting the burnt finger on the ice in the freezer of the shed fridge until you can't stand the cold really stops the blister from forming.
It has been 3 days now and the finger is not sore at all and no blister.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DanP

I love my current job.

Dan

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That would be stitching up rather than welding up:D :D :D :D
Welding SWMBO's clothes line to a metal post a couple of summers ago, could smell grass burning and thought there might have been a fire nearby, I was right, and standing in the middle of it.
Grass was dry and only an inch or so high but I know how Joan of Arc felt.
(Just noticed a pun, will take it too:D :D )

It wasn't the dopey teacher this time.
Imagine this if you will. it is in Darwin about October in the late 80,s at the beginning of the "build up"- troppo season.Apprentices at the Tafe have just come in from smoko time during which they play their strange game common to Darwin - AFL.
Naturally their are wringing wet from perspiration. Apprentice goes to continue job that he was on before smoko, tacking up a job to be welded.
Being an apprentice, naturally he does not just stand there near the bench, he leans against the metal bench cos the poor sod is all worn out from playing footy.

So he tries to strike an arc and muffs it cos he did not burn off the broken rod end and it sticks. Apprentice then wrestles with stuck stick and it lets go.In doing so he manages to reverse the electrode direction while it is still held in electrode holder and it hits him fair and square in the forehead.Apprentice then experinces practical affects of a completed electrical circuit.
When I am called down from teaching tech drawing up stairs, said apprentice is the colour of a wet white sheet of paper.His answsers to questions are more unreliable than usual-not knowing what day or time it is and his pupils of the eye are about the size of peeholes in the snow,thats if we could get it in Darwin.

A trip to hospital results in him being checked out OK and an overnight stay required.One lucky boy.He ended up being no slower than the state he originally stared with.
A good hit from the welder may result in a heart attack up to 24 hrs later.Its the micro amps that affect the timing or heart rythm.

Just some more food for thought.

Cheers
Grahame

PS when I get it down under war and peace size, I will post a thingy on how to check out your home power supply.It will help you to work out if the welder you have bought/ are buying will actually work efficiently from the supply you have.