A friend of mine asked me to pose this question since he is writing an essay on safety in the workshop. Specifically, its going to be safety while making maille. Since I'm no expert on the subject of safety with this equipment, I thought I'd ask you all to take a few minutes and write down your thoughts on torch and welder safety.
I appreciate your time. Thanks.
Need input on torch and welder safety
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Prince Of Darkmoor
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Aidan Cambel
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I'll try to throw a few odds-n-ends out there.
Torch -- always be ready to light the torch before you turn on the gases. Even a few second delay can be painfully disastrous.
Torch -- after turning off the torch, remember the nozzle is still quite warm. don't set it on or near anything flammable.
Welder -- make sure its grounded good. and not through you.
Welder -- make sure PROPER eye protection is used. Match the darkness of the lense for your hood to the proper metals/type of welding you do. Burnt eyes are no fun.
Torch -- make sure you are not cutting over anything that slag can fall on and ignite. like shoes!
Torch and Welder - wear proper gloves. Keep a fire extinguisher CLOSE.
thats off the top of my head- maybe as more people write I will remember a fe other things.
On a side -(since I am in the posting mood tonight) I will tell a story about safety. My dad is a welder by trade- mostly shutdowns at nuclear power plants. I remember when i was about 10, he was rushed to the hospital. He thought he was tough and didn't need to wear leathers. He was working on a cooling line from a cooling tower, and he was cutting the pipe that he was about to weld a 90 onto. A piece of slag flew back onto his shirt. In a frantic attempt to get it off he started brushing at it. It burned through his shirt and down his pants. It wa about the size of a pea and red hot. He was in the hospital for a few days recovering. I never did know if it actually hit his , ummm, well you know... I guess there is some things about your father you just don't need to know. lol
In Service,
Aidan
Torch -- always be ready to light the torch before you turn on the gases. Even a few second delay can be painfully disastrous.
Torch -- after turning off the torch, remember the nozzle is still quite warm. don't set it on or near anything flammable.
Welder -- make sure its grounded good. and not through you.
Welder -- make sure PROPER eye protection is used. Match the darkness of the lense for your hood to the proper metals/type of welding you do. Burnt eyes are no fun.
Torch -- make sure you are not cutting over anything that slag can fall on and ignite. like shoes!
Torch and Welder - wear proper gloves. Keep a fire extinguisher CLOSE.
thats off the top of my head- maybe as more people write I will remember a fe other things.
On a side -(since I am in the posting mood tonight) I will tell a story about safety. My dad is a welder by trade- mostly shutdowns at nuclear power plants. I remember when i was about 10, he was rushed to the hospital. He thought he was tough and didn't need to wear leathers. He was working on a cooling line from a cooling tower, and he was cutting the pipe that he was about to weld a 90 onto. A piece of slag flew back onto his shirt. In a frantic attempt to get it off he started brushing at it. It burned through his shirt and down his pants. It wa about the size of a pea and red hot. He was in the hospital for a few days recovering. I never did know if it actually hit his , ummm, well you know... I guess there is some things about your father you just don't need to know. lol
In Service,
Aidan
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Rev. George
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losthelm
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make shure you equipment is in good condition before you set up make shure you are using the right gauges and toarches for the fuel you are using.
stay a way from acedalean and hydrogen
they are dangerious. propolean is cheeper and works well. you will also get more operating hours out of a bottle.
for oxyfuel you should use a 5 shade lens do not use autodarkening lenses for oxyfuel.
make shure you flashback arestors that are good and in place acording to AWS they should be on the toarch but you may want to put a pair on the presure gauge in case you end up burning through the line. It has and does happen. do not operate with out proper safty equipment. wear leather gloves and cover the rest of your self with leather or natral fibers, getting burt with a burning polyester sucks. make shure anything you are cutting is dry all pipe you cut needs to be cleened and purged to provent hydrogen pockets. if you have not run oxyfuel toarch before get a book and read it before you start. preferably from a manufacture such as lincon, esab, hobart, victor, and smith.
stay a way from acedalean and hydrogen
they are dangerious. propolean is cheeper and works well. you will also get more operating hours out of a bottle.
for oxyfuel you should use a 5 shade lens do not use autodarkening lenses for oxyfuel.
make shure you flashback arestors that are good and in place acording to AWS they should be on the toarch but you may want to put a pair on the presure gauge in case you end up burning through the line. It has and does happen. do not operate with out proper safty equipment. wear leather gloves and cover the rest of your self with leather or natral fibers, getting burt with a burning polyester sucks. make shure anything you are cutting is dry all pipe you cut needs to be cleened and purged to provent hydrogen pockets. if you have not run oxyfuel toarch before get a book and read it before you start. preferably from a manufacture such as lincon, esab, hobart, victor, and smith.
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Krag
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Welding-
-Wear a hat of some sort, sparks in the hair can be bad.
-Wear long sleeves (cover exposed skin) UV burns hurt...and the don't "tan", they just burn and peel!
-Evening dew can do the same thing as welding in the rain!
- If small children have access to your welder while in storage, always check the vents for odd things that might have been stuck in it! Coat hangers and copper pennies can screw up a welder!
-Avoid breathing burning flux fumes (flourides), avoid breathing metal fumes,...just avoid breathing anything other than air and use a little common sense.
-Don't weld around flammable liquids.
-If you use scrapyard metal and you don't know what the "goo" stuck on your steel is...remove it before welding/burning it! Remove it even if you do know what it is. Once again...common sense.
-Make sure all your plugs and leads are in good shape. 220V will knock you on your ass, 100A will cook you from the inside out.
If your welding table is your ground, always be aware of where your other electrode is (people watching aren't always aware of how welding works and will often move a hot electrode onto the work surface to get it out of their way for a closer look!)
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Krag von Berghen
KragAxe Armoury
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-Wear a hat of some sort, sparks in the hair can be bad.
-Wear long sleeves (cover exposed skin) UV burns hurt...and the don't "tan", they just burn and peel!
-Evening dew can do the same thing as welding in the rain!
- If small children have access to your welder while in storage, always check the vents for odd things that might have been stuck in it! Coat hangers and copper pennies can screw up a welder!
-Avoid breathing burning flux fumes (flourides), avoid breathing metal fumes,...just avoid breathing anything other than air and use a little common sense.
-Don't weld around flammable liquids.
-If you use scrapyard metal and you don't know what the "goo" stuck on your steel is...remove it before welding/burning it! Remove it even if you do know what it is. Once again...common sense.
-Make sure all your plugs and leads are in good shape. 220V will knock you on your ass, 100A will cook you from the inside out.
If your welding table is your ground, always be aware of where your other electrode is (people watching aren't always aware of how welding works and will often move a hot electrode onto the work surface to get it out of their way for a closer look!)
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Krag von Berghen
KragAxe Armoury
Member's Pics
Clay,
Funny this should come up. As you know, last week I was a Laser Safety Officer training in San Diego, and one of the things covered was "Blue Light Hazard Region" or that light falling in the visible light spectrum in the 400nm to 550nm wavelength.
What happens in that range, is that the near-UV and Visible light waves causes photochemical damage to the retina (photoretinitis) including retinal burns, cataracts, color and night vision degredation and blindness.
Unfortunately, at these wavelengths, the damage (other than temporary blindness caused by extreamly limited exposure) is not reversable.
The temporary blindness and scratchy feeling from limited exposure is called Photokeratitis, and is just a "sunburn" of the cornea. The cornea replicates and replaces itself every 48 to 72 hours (that's the "sandman sleepies" in the corners of your eyes in the morning. So after 72 hours, all but the most severe photokeratitis is repaired. Extend exposure affecst the aqueous portion of the eye and cannot be repaired.
As Krag stated about skin exposure, the UV-A from the blue light (400-550nm) can penetrate full thickness of the skin with erythema (sunburn), skin cancer and accelerated skin aging possible.
As for the other physical safety requirements, I'll let the others address...
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William of Almaden
Funny this should come up. As you know, last week I was a Laser Safety Officer training in San Diego, and one of the things covered was "Blue Light Hazard Region" or that light falling in the visible light spectrum in the 400nm to 550nm wavelength.
What happens in that range, is that the near-UV and Visible light waves causes photochemical damage to the retina (photoretinitis) including retinal burns, cataracts, color and night vision degredation and blindness.
Unfortunately, at these wavelengths, the damage (other than temporary blindness caused by extreamly limited exposure) is not reversable.
The temporary blindness and scratchy feeling from limited exposure is called Photokeratitis, and is just a "sunburn" of the cornea. The cornea replicates and replaces itself every 48 to 72 hours (that's the "sandman sleepies" in the corners of your eyes in the morning. So after 72 hours, all but the most severe photokeratitis is repaired. Extend exposure affecst the aqueous portion of the eye and cannot be repaired.
As Krag stated about skin exposure, the UV-A from the blue light (400-550nm) can penetrate full thickness of the skin with erythema (sunburn), skin cancer and accelerated skin aging possible.
As for the other physical safety requirements, I'll let the others address...
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William of Almaden
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Klangiron Skullthumpa
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With your torches make sure the hoses are in good workng order. Also make sure they don't accidentally touch a piece of freshly cut metal..I've seen them burn through. Also if your hose gets snagged on something NEVER give it a hard yank. It's better to stop what your doing than run risk of puntureing the hose. Especially if you already have an open flames. Also make sure your bottles are securely fastned. I've also see a bottle of Acety. fall over and break off the valve and fly around the room before it embedded itsself in a cinder block wall. Not a fun place to be... damn thing missed me by inches..(defenite pucker factor that day)
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Dragon
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Re: flashback arrestors, http://www.geocities.com/royldragon/Flashback_Arrestors.html
Re: welding, DO NOT STAND IN TALL WET GRASS HOLDING THE GROUND CLAMP ON THE METAL! If by some cruel twist of misfortune the polarity reverses because the welder has been stored in a humid building, YOU BECOME THE CONDUCTOR! Darned muscle cramps and spasms lasted a week..... To this day I have nerves that twitch if I'm under high voltage lines for too long. On the plus side... gives you an excellent excuse to cuss out your dad without fear of retribution
. I must add, it must be his humid building, welder, faulty ground clamp, and hardwired throw the damned breaker off because you're electrocuting me scenerio! To this day I leave the vicinity when he's welding.
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My Tools Page
Re: welding, DO NOT STAND IN TALL WET GRASS HOLDING THE GROUND CLAMP ON THE METAL! If by some cruel twist of misfortune the polarity reverses because the welder has been stored in a humid building, YOU BECOME THE CONDUCTOR! Darned muscle cramps and spasms lasted a week..... To this day I have nerves that twitch if I'm under high voltage lines for too long. On the plus side... gives you an excellent excuse to cuss out your dad without fear of retribution
. I must add, it must be his humid building, welder, faulty ground clamp, and hardwired throw the damned breaker off because you're electrocuting me scenerio! To this day I leave the vicinity when he's welding.------------------
My Tools Page
For torches and tanks the best safety tips I can provide are these:
1 Make sure there is a spark arrester. This is a small piece of brass that looks like a repaired hose part in the gas line. It's located right past the regulator. the purpose of this device is to stop fire from traveling into the tank which as we know would be very bad.
2 If you are using oxy/acetyl your settings should not go over 25lbs for the oxygen and NEVER over 15 lbs for acetylene. It makes it very unstable at this point. It is stored in the tank in a liquid form in a porous matrix to stabilize it and it should not come out at anything higher than that pressure.
3 Your main valves are different. Your Oxy valve is a double seating valve. That means there is an O-ring at the top and bottom of the valve stem so you need to open the valve on the top of the Oxy bottle all the way or keep it closed all the way or you may leak oxygen into the air. Your acetylene valve does not have this problem because like I said before they don't want you to have pressure anywhere outside the tank over 15psi. You crack open the valve until the regulator gets pressure and go on only another quarter turn.
4 Check all your equipment for leaks with a spray bottle full of detergent and water. If you spritz all the connections and you see bubble you can tell you are leaking and need to fix your equipment.
5 Never keep a plastic lighter with you. If a spark finds it's way into a Bic it explodes with the force of three sticks of dynamite. I sill remember having to watch the sick videos of these accidents in welding class, and you can take my word for it that it isn't pretty.
6 For gas welding use a shade valued at 4 or higher, for tig most recommend 10, for mig and arc most feel 10-12 is acceptable.
7 For all electric welding as you read above there is a danger of getting a "sunburn on your eyes" This is a mild radiation burn sometimes called flash burn, and you can harm your exposed skin just as easily. Always wear a welding (flame retardant) jacket buttoned up to under your hood or you'll get a t-shirt tan in about 2 minutes.
8 Bright lights are really cool to look at and all bystanders will have the natural tendency to want to look at the arc as soon as you start it. Be sure to cover your area so no one will accidentally fry their eyes on your project.
1 Make sure there is a spark arrester. This is a small piece of brass that looks like a repaired hose part in the gas line. It's located right past the regulator. the purpose of this device is to stop fire from traveling into the tank which as we know would be very bad.
2 If you are using oxy/acetyl your settings should not go over 25lbs for the oxygen and NEVER over 15 lbs for acetylene. It makes it very unstable at this point. It is stored in the tank in a liquid form in a porous matrix to stabilize it and it should not come out at anything higher than that pressure.
3 Your main valves are different. Your Oxy valve is a double seating valve. That means there is an O-ring at the top and bottom of the valve stem so you need to open the valve on the top of the Oxy bottle all the way or keep it closed all the way or you may leak oxygen into the air. Your acetylene valve does not have this problem because like I said before they don't want you to have pressure anywhere outside the tank over 15psi. You crack open the valve until the regulator gets pressure and go on only another quarter turn.
4 Check all your equipment for leaks with a spray bottle full of detergent and water. If you spritz all the connections and you see bubble you can tell you are leaking and need to fix your equipment.
5 Never keep a plastic lighter with you. If a spark finds it's way into a Bic it explodes with the force of three sticks of dynamite. I sill remember having to watch the sick videos of these accidents in welding class, and you can take my word for it that it isn't pretty.
6 For gas welding use a shade valued at 4 or higher, for tig most recommend 10, for mig and arc most feel 10-12 is acceptable.
7 For all electric welding as you read above there is a danger of getting a "sunburn on your eyes" This is a mild radiation burn sometimes called flash burn, and you can harm your exposed skin just as easily. Always wear a welding (flame retardant) jacket buttoned up to under your hood or you'll get a t-shirt tan in about 2 minutes.
8 Bright lights are really cool to look at and all bystanders will have the natural tendency to want to look at the arc as soon as you start it. Be sure to cover your area so no one will accidentally fry their eyes on your project.