Welding Tips and Tricks

EDIT: this video showed up when i clicked "see latest videos" and i thought it was recent. But after skimming my history in my e-mails i find that this is over a year old. so I am not sure if this had been covered or not, but w/e.

I noticed Jody wraps the cord around his wrist to take the pull off the torch. I used to do things like that, I even ran the cord up over my shoulders and down my right arm. It worked great till i got nerve damage from my right shoulder down to my wrist. i couldn't hold a cup of coffee or drive standard or even look behind me while backing up. Doctors couldn't figure out what happened as the x-rays showed nothing. after a year of perocettes the nerve damage repaired it self, also i had stopped welding altogether, as i was layed off.

I can Drive and drink coffee again, but still have some permanent damage. I don't ever recommend wrapping a high powered able around an extremity. nothing can be done for actually holding the gun, but just don't wrap it.

I have also used my Tig or Mig magnetic torch holder to hold the slack for me while I Tig so I am not trying to carry the whole weight of 8' of cable in my hand.

That is worrying information if it can be proven to be the cause of your condition - I'm surprised these days with all the safety regulations that it is not more known about - most work related conditions are documented & relevant precautions advised.

I can understand your linking the condition to your work experience - but is it coincidental or has a doctor diagnosed the cause - I've never heard of this with regard to stick or mig welding - so are you saying it is a result of HF from the tig process in your opinion - as I assume this would also make plasma cutting a similar risk.

I'm sorry to hear of your health problems whatever the cause & hope you make a full recovery in due time.

have you ever wrapped your ground cord around your work to help your weld? I haven't personally had the need but I have been told it helps with inductance and arc blow or focusing your arc when tig welding SS.

My book is at home but i am pretty sure in "metals and how to weld them" in the safety section it specifically advises against doing just that with cords and your body.

what i had wasn't the next day either but at the end of the week.

EDIT: well i cant find it, and i'd like to be the first to say i was wrong about that. And yes i had no medical proof that it was welding that damaged my arm and shoulder. Even though correlation does not mean causation I'd rather not risk it or suggest that others try. I've been on a video binge for the last week, and there was like 3 videos in a row that Jody didn't wear a glove for his left had, and he says so, and he say he knows it wasn't wise. i think in like a 3rd video his had looked badly burned, at least it looked that way. everyone know basic safety or should, and everyone crosses those lines from time to time for convenience, myself included. I'm not trying to preach or anything i just thought i should bring it up in case no one has.

hehe we have a saying in our shop,(cleaned up a bit) if you cant rub your wang on it/in it is it really safe enough for some one to use?

I think this needs re-posting to an area where it will get more views & personal experience from other welders- or even just to serve as a warning to pthers - I admit there is a measurable magnetic field from a welding cable or mig hose - but if this can be responsible for conditions such as you describe it would surely be documented - people have been doing it for so long - HF from a tig is another matter - it is more like the health issue of living under high voltage power lines - I don't have any idea what the voltage is for a tig set - but based on distance it can jump I would guess at least 20KV - & when you say 20KV wrapped in close proximity to the body out loud - yes I can see it may be a there is a danger - maybe not widely known previously - certainly worth investigation as it does sound an unpleasant side effect.

This topic is very interesting to me.

The original, old-school caution not to wrap the whip around your arm was about electrocution hazard, not EMI effects, as the effects of electric fields on people is a more recent question. I tend to be skeptical by nature, but in electronics, a coil of wire is an inductor, also called a "choke", whose magnetic field is affected directly by the frequency of the AC current passing through it. When you combine HFAC, a coil of wire, and an arc, you've basically got a Tesla coil, and ther will be harmonics in the lead and coil in the megahertz range... That's why HFAC welding screws up radio reception nearby. Add to that the necessity for electrical conduction in the nervous system, and I can see a potential problem.

I've not seen any research to support OR refute any claims of nerve damage.

I've never been big on wrapping the whip on my arm... I prefer to place a clamp near me where I can hang the whip to take up the weight. I won't say I've never done it, but i've never done it on HF, just DCEN, and then only for lack of choice.

Steve S

for the very reasons that you have both posted is why I urge caution. but yes I have not read/heard of any data confirming it nor denying it. i would hope to hear from other more seasoned welders too.

From what i can gather there was a history of welders at my shop like 3and none of them pros. I was told to do this from information passed down from the first guy, and he called welding a form of "black magic", and I'll admit i was young and impressionable and it all made sense at the time. how I wish there was a journeyman available to me when i started.

I've seen the "wrist-wrap" as very common in pipe welding, whether stick or TIG, but always in DC work. I've also seen shop hands do it when they don't need to, because (?) they think it looks cool.

I don't even like to leave unstrung lead coiled while welding, as I've seen coiled lead physically contract when the welder strikes up. I knew magnetic effects were going on, though I didn't (and don't) understand what effects they might have.

Steve S

well I've also witnessed metal filings from grinding jump and move around the mig torch wire laying on the ground when it strikes up, they all align in a perfect field about 6" either side.

As a real issue or not would anyone run one of these cables between their legs next to their junk? unlikely scenario, but if you wouldn't trust it there why would you trust it anywhere else let alone wrapped.

HF should not penetrate the skin. That's why people are not electrocuted by the Tesla coil experiments. High amperage DC or high amperage low frequency AC can create quite a magnetic field as shown by the people reporting metal filings aligning with a MIG cable. The higher the amps, the stronger the field. These magnetic fields can penetrate tissue. I think I will stop draping the TIG cable over my shoulder.

bj139 wrote:HF should not penetrate the skin. That's why people are not electrocuted by the Tesla coil experiments. High amperage DC or high amperage low frequency AC can create quite a magnetic field as shown by the people reporting metal filings aligning with a MIG cable. The higher the amps, the stronger the field. These magnetic fields can penetrate tissue. I think I will stop draping the TIG cable over my shoulder.

I assure you, HF penetrates the skin! It will light you up like a Christmas tree! And it hurts! If you don't believe HFEMI will pass through you, stand between your FM radio and the station you're listening to.

Very small tesla coils used in lab demonstrations don't injure you because the high voltage results in very low current (but it still hurts). In any display of people in a large Tesla field (100KeV and bigger), the people are wearing Faraday cages, metal mesh that carries the current around the body (path of least resistance).

Steve S