welding work environment

death and blindness come to mind of you weld plated stuff and breath the fumes. Each metal and plating emits assorted oxide particles. Cadmium is bad, so is beryllium, and each metal with have a sheet on precautions to use.

The arc is very rich in ultraviolet, especially on galvanized metals and pure zinc. Thus kills the retinal cells and also creates blemishes in the corrnea (cataracts), as someone else mentioned.

So read up on it and prepare for it.

Note exposed skin can also get badly sunburnt by the UV light, so any exposed skin needs covering. In addition, weld spatter burns holes in cloth, so weave no suits from nitrocellulose, possibly Welders Supply Inc or whatever local suppliers you find can advise you. Trade schools too.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Welders+Supply+Inc&btnG=Google+Search

Even with the right protection, things can still "get you".

Never wear contact lenses in the vicinity of welding work. Check other employees in the area before you start and make sure everybody knows there is welding going on.

The spark of the welding is not only visible light, also a lot of UV and other stuff. This radiation will fuse the outer skin of your eyeball with the contact lens permanently. You will not feel anything until you try to take the contact lens out. Permanent damage and even blindness is the result.

It sounds that you could do with some expert advise about this as the need to ask the question belies your ignorance on the subject. Get information first.

Hi case491.

While working as an engineer at a shipyard in Norway in 1974 to 78 where the health and safety people are very strict, I was asked to run an exersise in the gasses and particals breathed in by the welders! To do this a number of welders had a box attached to their backs that contained an extraction fan and a filter. attached to the box was a flexable ribbed hose, this was then attached to their heads close to their cheek, so any gas or particals that they would normally breath in were captured in the filters.

These filters were then taken by me to a local lab every evening to be checked. The results were horrifying. If the welders were using stick welding of the thick steels, the flux used contained a number of carciogens and other deadly components!

There was Nickel, Copper, Zink, Manganese, Sodium, Calcium, Florine and Silica. Most of these were oxides, Florides or Silicates, and the Silica component would cause Silicosis in the long term if breathed in daily!!!

From this analysis all welders were made to use a form of filter breathing equipent.

Spencer.

They now recommend local extraction for almost any welding. Your test probably helped with the making of that particular health and safety recommendation, you should be proud.

Do you know if they also did any similar tests on soldering electronics?

We solder a lot but the extraction units are soooooo noisy that most people leave them off. (including me)

I'm curious about where you learned that wearing contact lenses is unsafe? Nearly all recent medical and professional documentation that I have seen suggests otherwise.

I would venture that you should update yourself on this.

This is a unproven myth. Contact lens do not fuse to your eyes. Please refer to OSHA website for more update information.

As everyone said you must use the proper welding shield.

Welding gives off fumes (vaporized metal), these fumes can give you metal poisoning, they also attack the cilia (the little hair like things in your inter ear) and have a detrimental affect on your hearing. You should also wear ear plugs, it may not sound like it but the nose from welding is over 85 db.

The smoke and fumes also are very hard on your respiratory system.

So use the proper shield, wear ear plugs, use a smoke, fume removal system or wear the proper respirator, wear appropriate clothing including gloves.

thank you very much for all of your advice

but this is something new

that welding operation can affect hearing

i will check on it

thank you

Oh, and I forgot the very worst hazard. Never, ever, ever, wear slip-on shoes while welding. I once invented three new dances in less than a minute.

Further to that one, do not kneel on the ground next to what you are welding either. Those fiery balls of liquid molten metal roll everywhere but mostly to places where it hurts most.

Ouch!

Oh and that reminds me of another. Do not weld in dry grass; you cannot see a grass fire through your goggles and your pant leg is a one time only fire detector.

Hi all,

I will not talk about the breathing or eyes risks as it's has been well and deep explained.

Just a couple of things:

Welders (professional ones) must protect the skin too from UV radiation. Prolongated exposition can produce skin burnings.

It seems everybody (but Case 491) have suppossed "arc welding": stick, tig, mig/mag, etc. There are some other welding proccesses which don't have the same risks: resistance welding, electron beam, etc.

Regarding soldering of electronics, the risks are much more smaller because the base metal don't melt, just the filler and it use to be alloys of the Pb-Sn eutectic type which melts at 183ºC so you have not problems with UV radiation nor breathing metals. The only problem could be the fumes produced by fluxes if you use it.

Thank you.

Most solders have fluxes in them so we really should use the ventilators I suppose.

Also the wire sometimes gets too hot and the insulator sheath melts, which causes other fumes that could be a problem as well.

I'll switch it on next time I think. Don't want to die just yet.

It is an OSHA requirement that companies have a plan set up for having welders be sent to have their lungs x-rayed periodically.

The soot produced is thick and settles everywhere.

if you are sharpening the welding tips of the TIG welder you have to protect yourself from breathing the radioactive thorium found in some of the rods