Welding Tips and Tricks

Hi everyone,

I was thinking the other day,( as I do), and I had a funny thought. At work, we talk about "The Boilermakers Curse" meaning that all boileries, welders and the like will only have children that are girls because our jobs cause our swimmers to be heated up and that is said to make girl babies. Not true as I have two boys myself.
Anyway, My question is, does anyone else know of any other welding myths floating around. Anything you can think of. Might be good for laugh.

Mick.

Don't know for sure if it's a myth but have been told by several sources that it is.

*welders need to drink 2xfull glasses of milk per day as it assists the body in purging out the crap we absorb whilst welding. In fact the Australian army still have this theory and all welders are entilted to double rations of milk.

They say the milk thing here for welding galvanized steel. Personally I think it is BS. Plus it is better to wear a respirator, grind the galvanizing and use an exhaust system. Milk....nah.

I saw a bumper sticker that said: Union Welders do it in All Positions

(I'm not a welder <by trade>) Equipment Operaters do it in the Dirt

(I'm now retired, , , ,)

Doesn't fit welding but I was a carpenter. I would consider myself a junior welder now.

Here is goes.

Carpenters always have wood.

Welders put a burn in your butt joint.

Welders always like steel.

The milk thing is no myth. If you weld galvanized, the zinc fumes can cause a bad reaction, usually only on the first recent exposure, that milk will help with. A few days of welding galv., and it no longer affects you, other than to say when I was welding a lot of galv., I never had a cold!

My evidence on milk is purely anecdotal, but it sure worked for me, and everyone I knew when I was welding on galvanized.

Steve

Here's one:

Welding HFAC TIG will fry your cell phone and other electronics.

I hear this a lot, but it's never happened to me.

Any one have an experience?

Steve

Wow never heard that one at all. Didn't know about the Milk thing either.

hey guys!

Cant believe you havent heard of the milk trick!
last spring i spent a shift welding only galvonized in a small area, never had the time (or patients) to grind first and when i got home that night, the shakes came.
So i called boss man for advice, he said: drink 2 large glasses of milk and you`ll be fine.
I did just that and 15 min. later the shakes went away and all was well. Im no doctor i dont know how it works but it does. its not a myth its a cure!

stay safe!
juniour.

Hi there,

Has any one ever heard of dipping a CELLULOSE electrode in water right before you use it. Our teacher told us that and we tried it but have never used them anywhere else to find out whether it was crap or not.

Mick

I've found that, when restarting a 6010 I've already burned part of, dipping the tip in water makes the restart easier. I have no idea why.

@ Hilbilly_delux, Are you also on the IPR forum?

Steve

Hi Guys,

I heard about the milk trick when I was back in school for welding (late 1970's), but our teacher told us about using it only when you are rebuilding bronze or brass gears, it settles your stomach. since then I have also heard about using it when welding galvanized or stainless steel, usually from the older hands I worked with. I have heard about getting the shakes to after weld those materials.

I've never had to do it, and now I wear a mask or resporator when i'm working on those materials along with everything else.


Mike S

Stainless Really? Why is that? Is it toxic as well? Please explain.

Stainless welding won't give you the shakes (or at least it's never happened to me, and I've welded a lot of it), but it can be toxic.

If you read the MSDS that comes with a can of SS stick rod, you'll see Hexavalent Chromium fumes listed as a hazard. Remember the movie, "Erin Brockovich"? That's the stuff that (in large doese) was making the town sick.

I try to stay out of the smoke when doing stick on stainless, and if I can't, I'll put on my respirator.
Same goes for plasma-cutting stainless.

Steve

Ya but there isn't much if any smoke from TIG is there? None that I have noticed. Arc welding has smoke sure but I don't see any smoke from my TIG gun.

I'm of the opinion that TIG on stainless is essentially harmless. I can't rule out vapors escaping the weld zone, driven by the shielding gas, but since there's no smoke, as comes from flux, I've never really thought about it. I'll have to look at an MSDS for TIG rod, but I'm betting the risks are almost zero.

Steve

Hi there,

The milk trick would apply for brass and bronze because of the zinc in them. The Galvanizing most people know is usually zinc coating. (galvanizing refers to the process of coating or covering something rather than the material that the coating is made of.)

As far as I know any welding process produces fumes that are no good for you. Also some shielding gases break down under the heat of the arc to form nasty shit. Cleaners used by people before welding can form REALLY nasty shit during welding.

http://www.weldingtipsandtricks.com/welding-safety.html

Just because you can't see smoke, doesn't mean fumes are not there. I wear a respirator just to be safe on the safe side.

Mick

Welding with contacts was a big one but , that was busted by a welding instructor while taking my cert. I was also told by a few others that it was ok. I where saftey glasses anyway..

"If you stare at the spark too long, you'll go blind". Anyone heard of that? Well, my teacher, professor Tait said that he had a studen(not a very smart one) that said it was too hard to weld the metal 'cause he had a hard time holding the rod steady. When prof. Tait went out to the booth to watch him weld, the guy wasn't using his helmet! He said he tried welding for about 10 min. It didn't seem to result in any eye damage. Obviously, continued use of this behavior probably would result in eye damage. I know of only one instance where prolonged use caused temp. eye damage. Two people who worked next to a welder, I don't know how close, and woke up the next day blind, due to flash burn. After a day in the hospital, they were fine. My opinion, it's not worth finding out. But, I do hear that alot. Anyone know of someone becoming blind from that?

Hi, I don't know about going blind from getting an arc flash, but when I started my apprenticeship in the late 50's the older guys used to tell us to keep our hands out of our pockets, masturbation makes you go deaf and then blind ......scared the shit out of most of the young guys....lOL.

BTW, how many guys got piles from sitting on concrete blocks without a pad between the stone and your butt?
Ian.

HF tig can and will most definately effect your electronics.... had a cd player years ago that stopped working... another time an mp3 player... and my rubber insulated g-shock divers watch... all quit when exposed to the hf.... the good news is that all were usable after a short period of time... like 5 minutes... I since do not wear anything of the sort when running tig at all. My guess would be proximity of the headphone cable to the bench/ part welded... most headphones use unshielded cable... The foil shielding in some wires provides hf protection. I now use the radio and clock on the wall...Interesting to note though... my cell phone.. a mil spec sanyo... has never shown symptoms of any sort.

I spent three months TIGging aluminum pipe, with my cheap-o LG flipphone in my pocket the whole time, and never had a problem, either. I've seen all sorts of other inadequately shielded electronics quit or act screwy around HF, though.

Steve S.

Otto Nobedder wrote:Stainless welding won't give you the shakes (or at least it's never happened to me, and I've welded a lot of it), but it can be toxic.

If you read the MSDS that comes with a can of SS stick rod, you'll see Hexavalent Chromium fumes listed as a hazard. Remember the movie, "Erin Brockovich"? That's the stuff that (in large doese) was making the town sick.

I try to stay out of the smoke when doing stick on stainless, and if I can't, I'll put on my respirator.
Same goes for plasma-cutting stainless.

Steve

My Company was required by OSHA to start monitoring the fumes for Hex Chrome with us welding SS, and after sending out the lab results, we found out that we were out of the legal OSHA limit by 50X in a three hr test. To go even further, I was Stick Welding 3" Schedule 80 SS pipe, and I was way out of the legal OSHA Exposure limit within 10 minutes. None of the Tig testing showed any exposure close to the limits. The Company had to provide paperwork that acknowledged they exposed me to Hexavalent Chrome and what was really messed up was that they would not provide it to anyone that was not tested even though we had all been welding Stick Welding SS for years...

Otto Nobedder wrote:I've found that, when restarting a 6010 I've already burned part of, dipping the tip in water makes the restart easier. I have no idea why.

@ Hilbilly_delux, Are you also on the IPR forum?

Steve

Water conducts electricity better than the scab on the end of your electrode. You can get injured or killed with wet gloves too, so be careful.

weldin mike 27 wrote:Hi there,

Has any one ever heard of dipping a CELLULOSE electrode in water right before you use it. Our teacher told us that and we tried it but have never used them anywhere else to find out whether it was crap or not.

Mick

I had an old Pipefitter show me that as well but you never do it on a rod that will not tolerate moisture (Low Hydrogen 7018's, SS etc...). I have never tried it but he did this all the time to keep the flux on the rod when he wanted to bend the rod to weld around corners. It kept the flux from falling off also when he had a rod that was crumbling. He never did it on Structural or Pressure Vessel. Personally, I would just get a new rod. They also make specialty welding rods that are flexible and you can bend them around without damaging the flux.