Welding Tips and Tricks

Any Tips, warning, concerns when it comes to welding and fabrication....
Like, for instance, be careful welding on 55 gal drums.
Or, careful when welding a piece of metal that's resting on concrete.
Or, caution when handling a spool of welding wire so it doesn't fly all over. I admit my first 2lb spool of wire did.
Or, don't stick your finger in a hole in a piece of metal, you know, trying to line up two pieces of metal....

Any safety tips ya'll have learned during you career....
Lets here them, as we all know, "safety first"

~John

John,
Man where do we start? First motto that comes to mind is "When is doubt keep it out" How many times have we all smashed our fingers when we knew full well we shouldn't have our fingers there in the first place. I know someone who had his leg in between two I beams while someone else was trying to move one. The beam fell and he was stuck until they were able to get the forklift, he has a nasty scar to prove it.

Always wear leather gloves while operating your grinder. I once was in a hurry and need to cut something off and did not grab my gloves. The grinder kicked and cut into my finger. That hurt.

Always assume that everything is hot in the shop. I don't know how many times I have grabbed something that turned out to be hot. I had a problem for a while with the engineers coming out in the shop and just start touching/picking up parts that were just welded.
I am sure I will think of a dozen more, will try to think of more tomorrow.

So I just got back from the hospital tonight.

At my work we use SPRAYON WELDER'S DRY ANTI-SPATTER made by Krylon. Well i was running a root pass on some pipe and there was a can on the table with no cap on it. As I was coming down to the bottom my elbow pressed the nozzle and shot it straight into the weld. I was lucky and my gear kept me from being burned by the fire ball but the vapors from it did a number on me.

It contains TETRACHLOROETHYLENE which when heated to 350 becomes you guessed it Phosgene gas. I passed all the tests at the hospital but burned my throat and upper respitory track. Not too serious but painful and a lesson learned

I think that the chemicals that are being used in and around welding have as much danger to them as anything that's physical in nature does. I think it would be prudent on our part to read the label on anything before we spray it on a area we are about to weld. Just because it's sold at the welding store doesn't mean it's safe for welding.

Most welders I've known don't collect too many retirement checks because they have ingested more toxic vapors than you can imagine in a lifetime of welding.

Everything we do has an assumed amount of risk to it and you need to be careful, but my favorite saying is "stupid is supposed to hurt, it keeps you from doing it again". Common sense goes a long way towards being safe. Almost every time I've been hurt, I was doing something that I knew was wrong and it caused me some pain to prove I was wrong for doing it. Welding's hot, bare hands are no match for that, it hurts, that kind of thing. Don't touch your chin with your electrode while on a metal ladder holding the ground, see a pattern here.

Len

@ Mrkil - I'm glad your OK after that fairly unusual accident - it's similar to an accident that happened near me - a guy was using a can of solvent to spot clean the black gunk off lengths of RHS prior to welding small brackets on - he was not a careless or messy worker - but as the lengths of RHS were supported on narrow trestles there was no convenient place to put the can so he placed it several feet away on another piece close to the one he was welding on - the report was not conclusive - but it was thought either the weight of welding cable slid while not in use causing the stinger with a rod stub in to touch the metal can - or the piece he was welding on had a bad earth & the can straddled two pieces & arced through it - either way the can exploded in a significant fireball which killed him - so while we all at times have flammable stuff near to a welding area it is a hazard which should be avoided as far as possible.

As we are on safety issues some others that were local to me are worth a mention as they were all avoidable & fatal.

A guy was cutting some damaged collision frame on the side of a semi trailer & due to the height he felt the need to knee down beside it which brought the 9" grinder he was using close to shoulder height - despite being warned on several aspects of what he was doing by another worker due to his nature & the fact it was low to bend down causing back ache he continued before anyone in authority told him not to - when the tension in the damaged part he was cutting caused the cutting disc to grab it did so with sufficient force to shatter the disc & sent the grinder back towards him - the still spinning disc remains severed one of the main blood vessels in his neck & he died a few minutes later.

Another semi trailer - a welder was sent to assist by cutting off some damaged parts from an axle caused by a blown out tyre - the trailer fitter had previously removed the wheels & the trailer was supported that side by a single jack on some wooden blocks - after cutting the parts off the welder tried to straighten an axle mounting point ( for a brake chamber I think ) - he was laying on the concrete under the trailer & after a couple of swings it had moved but not enough - the next swing he took was much harder & glanced off something prior to the mounting - it continued till it hit the jack which was metal to metal contact with the frame - it slid right off dropping the trailer on his head - virtually instant.

last one so as not to bore you all - slightly stranger - a guy used part of his lunch break to continue with something he was working on - he was trying to drill a large(ish) hole in steel with a No.3 morse taper air drill ( big bast#%d ) the drill would usually be operated by two people as it was designed to have a long tube handle for the second person to control torque reaction from it - while using it alone the drill grabbed & the large 3/4" bore air hose managed to flick loop around him & tighten - the drill maintained its torque for long enough that it killed him in a similar way that a large snake does - no one would use that drill & I ended up with it .

As Craig Rygaard likes to say - " you can't fix stupid " - we all take risks - sometimes calculated ( in our own mind ) sometimes through ignorance or trying to " get her done " - but instances like these should make us stop & think - sometimes things just seem to stack up against us in the most unlikely of circumstances - almost " Final Destination " kinda stuff - but we all need to take care while working - our job by nature carries more risk than many.

A co-worker of mine several years ago was sent to a large factory to do some repairs. While he was carrying items back to the truck he heard some one screaming. Running in that direction, he came upon a man who had his legs crushed by a forklift. Apparently that guys forklift had died and he was laying on the ground in the isle way trying to fix it, when another forklift driver came by and ran over both of his legs.

I think the most important safety tip we could give anyone is simply to use common sense in everything we do.

Yes - common sense - seems in short supply these days - on the one hand we now have Nazi safety officers who seem to think it's their job to stop all work being done in case there is some new imagined danger that we have not been trained for - & on the other we have more Darwin award candidates than ever who find new ways to f#%k up !

I've noticed I've become my company's De Facto safety man...

I'm the guy who'll say, "Hey, you're blowing your slag on your torch leads," or "Put some fire blanket on that."

We work on heavy tanker trailers, including liquid hydrogen. I seem to be the only one who refuses to believe the purge tag. The purge tag "says" the trailer was purged to 99% nitrogen or better, but I insist on getting the sniffer and checking before anyone works on it. Never had an incident there, but we DID have one come in that had an inner leak, meaning the annular space was almost pure hydrogen gas. I noticed immediately that the vacuum pump sounded funny (Like talking with a lungfull of helium) and shut down the equipment remotely. Others noticed the odd sound, but didn't connect the dots.

When I say "heavy tankers", consider how light liquid hydrogen is, and how much protection it requires. (It's rocket fuel, going up the interstate, after all.) These things weigh about 24 tons EMPTY. I'm forever double-checking jackstand placement, and the integrity of the frame where the jackstands are, when others jack one up, and I expect them to do the same for me. There's no walking away from a 24 ton mistake.

I credit my co-workers with more common sense than I see elsewhere. The only lost-time incident in the last four years was a minor "grinder-grab" with a cut-off wheel, that took three stitches (and if it were me, I'd have put a band-aid on it and kept going...)

Steve S

this is truly amazing!
We won't be this lucky every day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMRwPyhhTXs

John
ps. I wonder if its true?

scares me, cause I just bought one of those 20 ton bottle jacks.

Be careful with it AK ! I don't buy into the video but it's amazing what the medics can fix now & the resilience of the human body - in fairness to the story - with that much blood loss the brain will likely have shut down all non essential senses as an inbuilt protection so whatever the guy remembers or thought he saw during this ordeal would be kinda like an acid trip - but if his faith helped his recovery then it's a good thing - but it reminds me of a film called " almost an angel " !

On topic, watch out for tungsten grinders. They sometimes get hungry for flesh.

Weldakota wrote:
On topic, watch out for tungsten grinders. They sometimes get hungry for flesh.

How do you mean?

The story of the forklift reminded me what happened to a friend of mine some years ago when we were loading in a concert. My friend was driving a forklift and went to get some more gear. While he was driving he was smoking a joint and it fell out of his fingers. He stopped the forklift, got off of it to grab the joint...this was before the days of the dead mans switch in the seat...the fork truck took off and ran over his foot! That was well over 20 years ago and we still make fun of him today for it.

As with a bunch of replies I think with the added safety measures in the work place (oh&s and work cover in Australia ) we have seen a dramatic reduction of injuries in the workplace .
Buy I see day in and day out Welders with there heads in a cloud of welding vapor , I think because the effects arnt here and now it is over looked , but how many have issues later in life.
I am a part timer , I help my dad weld gal gates and fences on the weekend , I build custom bikes . But I went out and dropped 1500 on a optrel e1100 shield with positive pressure respirator. And I can tell you the difference at the end of the day between a paper p2 filter under the shield and a positive pressure system is light and day,
A paper filter just doesn't seal correctly yes it's better than nothing , but there are a lot better ways ,
I've used and seen the paftec clean space unit , it fits under a shield and is positive pressure and is around 600 here in aus .
It's the advice I give every one that asks me
If your a welder invest I a positive pressure respirator , yes it's expensive , but what's quality of life worth in your later years

One of the main killers and cripplers of guys like us, is, heavy things falling on us!!!!
You'd be suprised at how many men get killed by truck dump beds coming down on them, or, a vehicle falling off jackstands and crushing guys....
I new a guy that was working on his loader bucket, bucket up in the air, and he was directly under it greasing the pins.
One of the hydraulic hoses failed and a several ton loader bucket came crashing down on him.
Never trust Hydraulics!!!!!!

~John

Always cool metal you heat or mark something as hot so you know not to touch it. I was working oil fields and we had a piece of equipment that was a rush job that needed to be out of the shop and on location on the same day and we had it all but done except for one stuck bolt and I got the bright idea to heat the metal up around the bolt and after heating it up the bolt came right out. We didn't have time to let it cool off, long story short we went to load it on a truck with a forklift and the genius I am when reaching out to grab the machine to direct it on the truck grabbed right on to the piece I just got done heating red hot with my bare hand. Spent the ride to location soaking my blistered hand in vinegar. Always cool metal or mark it as hot so you know not to grab it.

Hi,
Well, I have also faced bed experience while I was doing welding the machines. You have to take some safety equipment before go for welding. There are so many safety equipments, while doing your work like you have to protect your hand with aluminum hand globe.

www.aluminumrepair.tumblr.com

AKweldshop wrote:

Weldakota wrote:
On topic, watch out for tungsten grinders. They sometimes get hungry for flesh.

How do you mean?

I was grinding my tungsten on a fresh(smooth) part of the wheel and the tungsten slid off the side. All in a matter of seconds the knuckle on my pointer finger went straight into the edge of the grinder and was taken damn near to the bone. Luckily, the grinder basically cauterized the wound and there wasn't much blood. You could feel a nice divot on my finger until it was almost completely healed.

Watch out for coworkers. I was on a drill pad unloading a small water pump to fill a couple small tanks and when my coworker and I were setting it up, one of the driller boys was hooking up lines over top of my head and I was knelt down by the control panel showing one of the workers how to run it and the pipe wrench the guy who was hooking up lines was using slipped off the fitting hit me in the back of the head, with out a hard hat on, and knocked my mouth into the corner of the control panel. Long story short it drove my top teeth through my bottom lip giving me a nice hole through my lip. It was hard picking up supplies the rest of the day trying to talk to someone with a fresh hole in your lip. Every time I took a drink the rest of the day I had water running down my chin from the hole in my lip.

When placing wire in your mouth to hold while you rotate your part or whatever, make sure it's already cool or long enough not to burn the side of your mouth. Same goes for when you use it to scratch yourself with.

Wes917 wrote:When placing wire in your mouth to hold while you rotate your part or whatever, make sure it's already cool or long enough not to burn the side of your mouth. Same goes for when you use it to scratch yourself with.

And sad thing is we all have done it...lol I tapped the rod against my chest to move it up in my hand after picking it back up and hit the wrong end burned right through my sweatshirt, t shirt and chest....oops.

I just posted the same one AK did on another thread. The brew racing one. Watch out for that phosgene.

Liked the one about self-stabbing with hot filler wire. Did that early on during an O/A project.
Right after, the wound was the same size as the dauber on the end of the wire. Then it grew. For 5 days. It leveled off somewhere around the diameter of a nickel and took 3 weeks to heal. Good times.

A good one that I haven't heard a lot of times before happened to me back in school. They had some kind of ill conceived sequential ventilation system so that room 1 got fresh air, room 2 got room 1s air, room 3 got a mix of 1 and 2, etc.

It was a rainy day and the "shop manager" was applying varnish or an oil coat to some sort of wood project (yes, in a welding lab) he had been assigned in order to stay busy.

The fumes would coom over to room 2, where all of us students were welding in those delightful cubicles, and when we'd light up some sort of reaction would take place and make the fumes quite nasty. Not a dramatic explosion kind of thing, just a slight chemical change.

Anyway, we all got sick and blah blah blah.

So watch out for that kind of thing, especially when someone starts telling you about how TIG is a safer process to use in environments that are generally unfriendly to welding. There's more than sparks and suffocation to be worried about.