How to die while arc welding at home: the top 5 ways | Auto Expert John Cadogan
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I have been welding for 60 years and still do at 82 ,but my close calls were a little different. I did a lot of underwater arc cutting and welding .never attempt to use an A/c machine for any in water work it will kill you. Be careful of hydrogen gas build up when cutting any structure that can trap gas. It will blow up when it gets a spark. Remember salt water is very conductive if your ground comes off it can be shocking. I almost killed my partner when my cutting rod touched his copper helmet. Out of the water it can be just as bad. Using heat to bend stainless can be a disaster. Be very careful cutting on containers if you are not sure what was in them do not try to crank your acetylene gage over 15 lbs , especially if you are cutting underwater .boom .watch where those sparks go when working around fuel . Sorry about so much writing but if saves one person from injury it was worth it.
Great suggestions. We need to hear these stories(as somebody who only jas 2.5 years in the field).
I am completely new to welding, and I read every word carefully. My engineering degree couldn't prepare me for half the things you mentioned. A lot of experience goes into these things, and I have deep respect for that.
The factory next door to me changed hands in 2015. The old place did heat treatment and I believe they had methanol tanks for fuel for their furnaces. New owners moved in and had a lot of the old plant removed. Guy was told to cut these tanks up. Cuts into it with the accetelene and is blown up so badly he was initially misidentified to his next of kin. Do not cut into or weld a tank unless you know exactly what was in it.
I went to welding school in Sydney Austrlia in 1963, the instructor had a news article about someone who found a fuel tank from WW 2 it was dropped and layed there for 20 years .when this guy cut into it it blew up killing him. I'm sure there many stories like that.
Sharing decades of wisdom and knowledge with everyone is always a wonderfully generous thing to do. Thank you.
One of the horrible jobs I had once was working in a factory on a line with 6 other guys and part of the work we had to do was grind down galvenised metal. We all were coming down with what we thought was flu. I looked into it further and realised it was Metal Fume fever. So I put all my researched material together and took it to the bosses. Not surprisingly they already knew about this and just could not be bothered doing anything about it because we were all Job agency employees and they could just get more when we got sick of putting up with it. Well I stood my ground and insisted that they supply the correct PPE and within hours we were all issued with the correct filter masks.
Good on you! Companies like that should have workcover hounding them.
Good on you for standing up for your rights!
Was it Merika’s navy, cause they hate civilians ! My general foreman died of some nasty cancer he got from working on chemical cleaning of the steam generator on the 688 LA Class tuna tubes, oops I meant submarines.
You stood up and you won! Good work! If it cost the boss a dime, people just assume it ain't gonna happen. Tight-butt bosses screw themselves and their employees.
dude, some guy told me that too! Then I got zinc oxide poisoning and no milk did not help before or after, buttermilk isn't any better as this is all based on 1800's beliefs that any sort of milk prevents poisoning by lining the stomach against absorption into the blood stream. That is a long ago debunked myth that I'm sorry that someone taught you by mistake. @@BohappenstanceClick
If an Australian dude warns you that something is dangerous… you listen
He comes from a land down unda. Something, something you betta run you betta take covaaa aa yeahaaaa..
Dude...
Too right, Mate!
Absolutely hilarious comment. Made my day! Thanks for that.
Especially they are all just a bunch of convicts the British left behind 😅
As someone who received their first welder today, and haven't even set it up, I'm so thankful that there are people like you who talk about this kind of thing. Everyone wants to tell you how to make great welds, but none of them talk about how to survive doing it. Good on ya!
i wanted to buy a welder,... but first... im going to watch as many of these videos as i can find
When I started out I bought a new welder and asked an engineer at work about showing me how to weld and he told me to go to the book store and buy a book called Metallurgy 101,read through it and then go out and try to get a spark. He said that by time I get through the book I will understand what I'm up against and that I would either strike a weld or not. He said you either can or can't. Over 50yrs since then and I have made a lot of things since then. Remember that you have to know the rules of the game if you want to win 🏆 💯
And good on you for being here in the comments of a safety video instead of tinkering with your new present! Can't say I'd necessarily have the same self control lol
@@jacobs7764 It's fear pretending to be self-control. :)
@@evanwindom Arc welders are a smart thing to be afraid of
"A Big fuckoff fireball" is my new favorite quote
that one had me laughing so hard
Me too!! 😂
I'm 70 years old and I've been welding at home and on some jobs for over 50 years. After watching your video I realized, I'm lucky to be alive. Thank you so much.
Seriously! God is watching out for us.
Yeah, I've been in a lot of crazy welding shops over last 45 years, I always got a kick over how scared guys were of an oxygen tank flying around like a missle, but no one ever cared about acetylene blowing up or making huge flames. One day I watched some joker cutting with a torch off of a bench, the slag dripping right on the hoses making a big hot pile. Then he shuts it off and GOES AWAY. I look and noticed he left the pile burning on top of the hoses which are now on fire. I went over and put my foot on it to kill the flames, and as I let up the acetylene hose blows out. If it were still flaming it would have made a nice fireball. Made me wonder about if I wasn't there to snuff it out and then shut off acetylene.
@@michaelszczys8316 We used to lay them oxygen tanks on the piers off lake Michigan then brake off the valve head with a sledge hammer and watch the tanks take off across the water, I remember one tank doing a u turn right towards us. Yes alcohol was involved.
@@darrinrentruc6614 That sounds like my kind of Friday night lmao!
@@darrinrentruc6614 I remember talking to a delivery driver who told me about how they would check all the tanks for pressure at some plant along the Detroit River, looking for tanks with the highest pressure. When he asked them why they took him around to show him a special ' launch ' ramp they made to occasionally fire off tanks across the river to another plant on the Canadian side. He said that place would shoot back. They never quite made it but he said sometimes they got close. Wasn't sure whether to believe him or not.
The first lesson I got as a teenager from my uncle was "galvanized will kill you" and thankfully someone else on the tube identified the break clearner problem. What you don't know can kill you. Thanks for keeping the knowledge flowing.
Yep….I learned about the risks of galvanized steel early in my welding career. I’ve welded EMT conduit but did so very carefully and only in short bursts and kept my face away from the fumes.
Ah the old “break” cleaner…. *BRAKE cleaner.
@w5cdtwhy would you weld emt??
@@teeanahera8949 that's break clearner to you!
Good job! My dad was a long time Iron worker. He told me once that I should drink milk after welding galvanized metal. I thought he was nuts so I went to research. It was true. The explanation is very Bill Nie the science guy. In short the minerals of the milk bind to the bad stuff and is expelled naturally. when you get older you finally start seeing that your parents do really know something !
i was told the same thing!
I think it's better just to avoid the fumes rather than drinking a glass of milk.
I trained as a welder back in the 80's in the UK - we were all given a pint of milk at morning break daily..
The name for it is chelation therapy. Hope I spelled it right. I don't know if it is still recommended but it was a pretty common treatment years ago. Also, beware of the plume of smoke from welding stainless steel.
@@teddeebayre3433While avoiding as much as possible is a good idea, unfortunately it's not possible to completely avoid them, unless you refuse from work altogether. And the avoiding of fumes vs. drinking milk are not mutually exclusive and therefore not that comparable. Milk is healthy anyway.
I actually survived a WD40 accident a few years back; lost my beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, nasal hair, and hairline in the process but fortunately still alive. Put a nearly empty can down and accidentally popped it. The bang made my ears ring for two days and it took a week for the burnt hair smell to go. The can embedded itself in every surface in the shop except my face, my face getting the flash fireball instead. I'm only an occasional welder, but that gave me a lot of respect for the process, and for general shop safety. Great video, thank you!
(Not welding related at all, but for some reason your story reminded me of this) This incident was not me, but my dad. He was invited to fish on 24' pontoon boat. His buddy set his thermos down just above the steering wheel. It fell and when it did it landed on top of the trolling motor battery. It touched both poles and the hydrogen gas caused the battery to explode on him. Acid sprayed everywhere. My dad immediately jumped into action. He grabbed his friend and threw him off the boat into the water and then proceeded to extinguish the fire to save the boat. They stayed out and fished the rest of the day. Since my dad threw him in the water it diluted the acid and he escaped with no burns at all, only a few holes developed a day later with the clothes he was wearing that day.
wow never thought of that
@@Robert-ko8fi A guy I worked with lost his father when a spray can of starting fluid tipped over onto the positive terminal of the battery while he was working down in the engine bay of his boat, I hate when I see people set spray cans on batteries while working on engines. Your topic needs to be spread on screwtube because I see these guys do it all the time.
@@Robert-ko8fi my transmission teacher at WyoTech had no face because he wants smoked around a battery under the hood of a car. I don't set foot in the shop without eye protection
Eye protection could have saved a friend of mine. When his car didn't start, he used a cigarette lighter for light and was looking into each of the cells of the battery to see if one was dry and the explosion cost him one eye. He was a hard-core redneck and his whole family ran a very run-down junk yard and mechanic shop. He was always the one to cut corners and work dangerously to save time.@@AnonMedic
Zinc's a monster. I tried alloying brass in my shop and got the temperature wrong. It went straight from solid metal to dense clouds of white fog. The space I work in is much bigger than a garage, and I had a bay door open so I was able to hold my breath and run away after putting a lid on it. The one problem with random how to videos is that they always show the successes, never the panicked retreats :)
Most of those videos show active disregard for the zinc fumes
that's because most people need more zinc in their diets anyway. LOL@@austin503
Do you just run away and let the gas blow away??
Yikes that sounds scary
It's always best to get as low as possible when this happens, lets you escape most of the fumes.
Within the first few minutes it's clear how well spoken, prepared, and sourced your videos are, and I think I've just found a new favourite DIY educator.
I was proven right nearly 20 minutes later when, as someone who is about to make his first folding workbench out of galvanized steel, I learned that if I'm doing so it's definitely best to not weld it and instead go with the original plan of angle sections riveted in the corners for support.
Years ago, at a metal fab shop, my job was to tack 100's of small pieces together for some project. NO HELMIT . You just look away for each tack. At the end of the day, all I could see was bright blobs of light, By the time I got home, It had already started. I laid in bed for three day's with cold wash cloths on my eyes, witch is the only mild relief from what felt like hot sand was poured into my eyes. After watching John's video..... Ya, three out of the five things I've done at one time or another. Lucky to be alive. Everyone needs to see this video at least once a year as a refresher course!
Brew 2 cups of tea, save the tea bags and keep them wet but let them cool, Once the tea bags are cool, lay in bed with the room as dark as you can get it. Lay the wet tea bags on your eyes and let the residual tea run into your eyes .How long you leave the tea bags on your eyes is up to you, the longer the better.
Mate I have had 'Arc-Eye' so many bloody times. Mostly, from being a bit of a tit and tacking without a helmet all day, like you describe, to being repeatedly flashed by an apprentice, or trainee, or the bloke in the next cubicle or by holding just the filter glass in front of you. So many ways. lol How we survived, as young Army trade-trainees in the mid 70's I don't know. We would shock each other regularly. Put still-burning cigarette ends in each others' heavy cotton overall pockets. (We soon learned to distinguish the smell of burning cotton from all the other welding associated smells.) I think the stupidest thing I saw was when one bloke picked up a 'dead' Rat by the tail and said he was going to restart its heart, using the welder. Nothing happened for a while as he poked it with a new welding rod, mainly because some rods are sealed at the end to stop oxidisation in storage, until someone suggested he chipped the flux from the last inch of the rod then held the Rats mouth open and stuck it in there. The second he held its mouth open, the Rat closed it again, biting down hard and deep into his finger. I can't explain why it happened. It just did. Anyway, matey shrieked like a Girl (Sorry girls), and snatched his whole arm away above his head, throwing the Rat, right across the workshop and into the wall opposite, killing it proper dead this time. Craftsman Sore-finger ran off looking for someone to stop laughing earlier than we were about to, to fix his finger which was now bleeding copiously. We didn't see him again until the next morning, trying to force his heavily bandaged finger into a leather finger stall and encouraging us to stop taking the piss. Blessim.
ROFL Too funny.@@Nigfis
THE DIRTY BASTARDS WE HAVE AKLL WORKED FOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amazing. You saved my life 5 times today. No body ever covered this. Thank you, thank you.
As a hobby welder I really appreciate the information. The presentation and language is how working men communicate to make sure safety is maintained. Kudos
Working men - and women :)
And working non-binary, naturally!
It is great to see a video that has everything done just right. Clear, Amusing, 100% Relevant, and Valuable.
I've been a fabricator for over 40 years and my worst experience was welding on a piece of equipment overhead. I typically welded wearing leathers - cap, gloves, aprin, jacket. I tried to cover up as much as possible to avoid a fire ball hitting the skin. Well a fireball popped into my ear canal and I jumped up as fast as possible ran to the nearest bathroom and poured water into my ear. I heard a sizzle sound and felt instant relief. I started wearing ear protectors that you squeeze into the ear just for safe measure when welding overhead after that. Great video! 👍
Appreciate the tip, never thought of ear protection as safety equipment for more than just hearing loss.
A co worker had a welding spark into his ear, he raced outside and put his head under the tap of the rain water tank. A few days later his ear his a festering mess of puss. There was a dead bird in the water tank. Deaf in that ear thereafter.
@@pauldeane9849 Ok, so use clean water without a decomposing bird in it. Noted!
As a welder it’s good to see someone getting basic safety information out there.
Agreed, PPE is sorely neglected by DIY enthusiasts and cannot be over stressed. When I was younger, I was MIG welding with all (?) PPE except that a spark got inside my hood, bounced around and then went in my ear. The sound of the inside of my earhole burning was horrid and my subsequent reaction was rather agitated and dangerous. Since then I have included a hood as part of my PPE, covers head, neck and shoulders before the actual welding hood and a pair of earplugs first is even better. These are affordable, readily available and worth ever cent.
Gonna piggyback on your comment here because it’s at the top. Can’t stress PPE enough; something that is vastly understated it how bad the particulate from grinding wheels, cutting discs, abrasives etc is. Those heavy metals in fine dust form is worse for you than some welding fumes because it’s so much more prevalent. Use a PAPR respirator; but if you can’t afford it like me, get a 3M P100 mask/respirator to filter out particulate in the air. They’re affordable and fit under a hood no problem. If you’re going home and you’ve got black snot in your nose; all that shit is also in your lungs and that cumulative risk is HUGE. Wear a respirator while grinding/prepping your metal.
When welding on tanks make sure you purse the tank of explosive vapors first
@@MikeBrown-pe8yoor don't weld pressure vessels if you have never been trained to do it
@@MikeBrown-pe8yo I’ve no knowledge of the subject whatsoever but how would you make sure that there’s no explosive vapour in the tank? Cleaning out oily substances can be very difficult. My first thought was to fill the tank with water but if you’d have to weld it because it’s leaky that would be difficult. I’m just curious.
Welder here. I think you did a good job of covering the main safety points. PPE is key, and I see so many mechanics on KZhead welding without gloves or sleeves. A couple of points I'd like to add - never weld around or on fuel tanks. There are ways to do it but the only really safe one that I'd be happy to recommend is to fill the tank with water. If you're not prepared to deal with that, get a professional to do any work on fuel tanks that have had fuel in them. There are other methods, but they should not be considered 100% safe as it is so easy to get it wrong. Surprisingly, a lot of people think (or don't think) that it's OK to weld on the outside of a tank if it is otherwise sealed. The other point is confined space work. While it's unlikely that your average handyman will need to do that kind of thing, there's a whole slew of OH&S regs that need to be followed if you want to undertake this kind of work. It has happened though, that back yarders and farmers have killed themselves by not understanding how dangerous it is to enter a tank, bilge, underfloor area etc especially with a welder. When I was working in a ship yard, I heard about another ship yard that had a death. One of their experienced welders had to enter the nose cone of an ocean prow (the long torpedo bit on the front of an ocean going ship). For some reason it was late in the day and he decided to go in alone and get the job done. He dragged the stick electrode up into the prow with him, and while he was trying to drag it up past him to the working face, he contacted it on his chest. Just so you know, the big welders used on these sites are usually earthed externally directly to the hull. They are AC units with quite a high OCV (90V or over). Since it was the end of the day, they didn't find him until the next day, and that would have been a really awful way to go. I don't know what happened to the shipyard but several very important safety rules were broken, most notably you are not allowed to work alone in a confined space, and the shipyard that I worked for had a "board" where you had to hang your tag on to let the site supervisor and everyone else know that you were inside so they do things like not turn the ventilation off and go home at the end of the day, and you always had a buddy welder or trades assistant with you at all times. The tags were multipurpose and had your specific number on them - you handed them over to get tools and equipment out of the store, and to hang them on the confined space board to let people know you were still inside. I won't go into all the reasons why confined space work is so dangerous, but I think that it's fair to say that most people seriously underestimate the danger.
Thanks Chris - appreciate the tip on fuel tanks (big risk @ home) and also the sobering reminder about working solo in (mainly) industro-environments. Pretty grim outcome. We used tags like that in the railways for anyone working on the high-voltage system of electric trains (1500V DC overhead wiring and traction motor systems). Nothing got re-activated until all the tags were accounted for.
Yeah, that's a really good point. Last year my boss called us in for a meeting. Some guys from another workshop within our dealer group had cut into an old oil barrel with an angle grinder. I bet you know exactly what happened already. It blew up and a few guys got some pretty bad injuries.
The lack of ppe from youtubers drives me nuts as John points out, it metastasis.
That’s a solid comment.. the thumbs are cramping just reading this ! 😜 But YES!!! Fuel containers and FARMERS famous last words “sheee’llll b right m8”, (many variant follow ons from this sentence started)
I remember reading William Porker's column in a late 80s edition of Street Machine in which he told a tale of washing a car fuel tank many times with detergent. It still had a slight flare up when he tried to weld it.
Thanks for getting this out there. I was once welding a frame that was bolted to the ground in a damp area. I live in the tropics, so lot's of sweat. I was laying on my left side. Grabbed a new rod with my left hand and put it in the holder. The electricity went through my sweaty glove and out the shoulder of the same side through my sweaty soaked shirt. It hurt and it taught me a valuable lesson. I was very fortunate that the path did not cross through my chest. I suspect that if I'd been laying on my right side, or placed the electrode with my right hand I would not be writing this now. Be safe kids.
My dad bought an oxy acetylene torch set when I was 12. We taught our selves from there. I bought a buzz box and added stick welding. I once got a jingle from damp gloves. Fast forward 17 years I had picked up thermite welding rails. One late night after doing the last weld of the night, I took the slag pans and threw them into the ditch. I had done this hundreds of times before. This time I managed to cause a steam explosion. The thermite reaction creates steel that almost reaches 5000 degrees F. Even though the outside was cooling off , the interior of the slag was still VERY Hot ! The boom was alittle bigger than a hand grenade, knoked me down, as I lay there the white hot slag started fires everywhere they landed. No injuries ! lesson learned, no water around liquid steel or slag ! Many thanks for the great tips. Greetings from southern Maine in the USA .
Not a "how-to" video but rather a safety video. Well done! All beginner welders should watch this.
I've been a professional welder for 15+ years, can confirm, these are all great points. Proper PPE is essential in all welding applications. I personally wear an Adflo 9100 rig at work 10 hours a day and it has made my life so much better the last few years. No more blowing black shit out of my nose at the end of the day, no more worrying about those accumulative chemicals you were talking about, and no more having to worry about people trying to talk at me while I'm welding because by now everyone just knows I won't be able to hear them while I've got it on! I'm super curious who thinks you can't electrocute yourself with a welder, I've never heard anyone say such a thing but I don't doubt there are those people out there. If there is a safety thing to deny, there's some dip shit out there more than willing to fall on the grenade. The number of people who flat out refuse to wear PPE in the first place is mind boggling, I deal with it all the time. Hell, even just getting people to wear their damned safety glasses is a daily battle. Maybe I'll start posting photos of people with shattered cutoff wheels jammed in their eye socket. But I digress.😂 Great video!
Great show,,,good stuff
Yeah I'm a weekend welder at best, and just got jolted for the first time a couple weeks ago. I guess the concrete in my garage is more conductive than I thought. I use an AC only Lincoln stick welder, which is pretty low voltage, so it wasn't a bad shock or anything, but it was eye opening.
Scariest thing I ever saw (knock on wood) was a person cutting through a brick wall with a large grinder (50cm+) to have the disk explode. The fragments missed all of us, thank God, but I can still remember the dude carefully checking if all his appendages were still attached. He had proper PPE, so he was alright. Never witnessed any accidents, but working with lasers also scares the sh!t out of me. A company I did consultancy for had thick black cloth surrounding their test sites. Not to stop the laser, but so that any laser radiation that might escape be guaranteed to generate smoke & a burning smell. They had pictures on the wall of employees having a nice little hole drilled right through their thumb. But I digress as well. Safety matters, folks.
Wizards!
One of the great sins of cutting tools [any kind] is people trying to "help" too much - let the tool do the work, and mind tool speeds. As for cutoff tools, they are little mini grenades when pushed too far. I... am still able to see, thanks to precautions that bore the brunt. I also have good hearing still from using ear plugs whenever noises seemed bothersome. These things don't grow back, and there are no refunds for being a dumazz.
I'm a retired industrial engineer - I had to investigate a ship yard accident in which a MIG gun was lying on a welding table, about 2 feet away was a near full 12 ounce can of Acetone. Someone tossed a chipping hammer onto the table, it hit the mig gun, squeezed the trigger and sent about 3 feet of 5/64 FCAWG straight into the can of Acetone - It didn't explode, but went into flamethrower mode, set off an overhead sprinkler and took a half million dollars of equipment out of commission.... About your little orange rattle can welder- I've got a pretty nice home metal fab shop. My prime welder is a heavy ESAB Rebel multi-process- but after lugging it and a big 220 7KVA generator out to my tractor to weld broken bits more than a few times, I bought one of those $120 6 pound 110/220 140A chinese inverter stick welders like you've got - figured I could tack up whatever was broke to hobble back to the shop... I was blown away by how good it really is - lays down astoundingly good filets on 220 - deep penetration, can do fancy dime stacking with 1/16" rod, and even though it says its got a 30/70 work/wait limit, below about 50A I've burned two dozen rods in a row without stopping longer than the rod change on 3/16 mild steel plate.
Hi John Auto Expert?. I have been welding for years at 75 after watching your video in the 60s there was basic health and safety at work. I have gone on safety courses and never had the info on the electrocution method you have just shown, a great info video.
Just a few points on this great vidio. You totally blew off Oxy/acetylene welding! But this welding process would need it's own safety video because it has a heap of safety protocols. You didn't mention not keeping a cigarette lighter in ya pocket. And this one is a BIG MISTAKE to leave out- putting or wrapping any electrical and welding lead around or on your body. Because alot of Dickbrains do this because it supports the weight of the lead and its easier to move your arm to weld. But if there is a cut in the lead or (only relavant now days) the actual insulation of the lead is not enuf for the actul current going through the lead. And if something happens it's very difficult for you to get away from something wrapped over you or allow 1sr responders to get you away from the electricity or power tool that's killing you. And welding processes effected by contamination in order from least effected to most is. Oxy/acetylene. Stick.Tig. Flux core(Gasless wire fed). Steel mig and aluminium mig. This list is for general purpose and repair welding, any x ray or pressure welding must not have any contaminates any where near the welding in the 1st place. And I do like you and your content but mate you can't weld for shit. Every job I have seen has multiple weld defects. This one had porosity and about 20mm of complete lack of fusion. In putting an end cap on don't make it flush sit it up a couple of mm then when you grind it back you won't get lack of fusion and less porosity. A corner to corner weld also looks way better if ya not sanding it smooth and it's less effected by galvanising. Also rubber gloves can be worn under welding gloves to stop those annoying little kicks when ya get a little bit sweaty but only if your a little damp if your saturated stop welding until there is no moisture around. I heard one dickhead tell our boss we could do it and keep working in the rain. He got shut down very quickly. My experience 30+yrs as a Metal Fabrication Engineer, just a fancy name for a Bucket Head Boilermaker. And I have experience in every single weld process known to man and Sasquatch.
It's pretty awesome that you've not only recoginized and warned people of these sometimes (and some often) overlooked hazards when welding, but also explained the science behind them and cited specific examples. You're saving lives man!
I was a welder in the A.F. About 50 years ago and made several of the mistakes mentioned. Welded galvanized and got sick as a dog. Was welding inside a metal box on a hot Philippine day, I was sweaty and somehow completed thecircuit and ended up unconscious on the floor. My dumbest stunt was while i was tig welding. The metal table was the ground and I had an unopened can of coke sitting by me on the table. Flies had been bugging me and when I saw one land on my coke, I thought I’d zap it with the arc, the can popped and sprayed me with coke. If it had been a can of wd40 I would have unthinkingly done the same thing.
Did you get the fly though?
you probably saved my life with this video. I am a shadetree auto mechanic and I'm always bugging my friends to weld stuff for me. I'm always cleaning up parts with brake cleaner and I noticed the last few years there is non-chlorinated brake cleaner. I figured it was something for the environment. thanks for your years of experience and sharing your helpful tips with the rest of us. great channel!
As someone looking into learning welding. This video is so good. So many "learn to weld" videos never cover this subject as well as you have. Thank you.
I can agree to that! I just jumped into it after watching a couple videos "how to weld" because I just wanted to learn, and afterwards I've actually looked at more "how to safely weld" videos after realizing what I've just done.
I disregarded the UV exposure warnings for a long time because I rarely weld for hours on end. But recently on a project building cages for 55 gallon drums (to be hoisted with a truck crane more effectively) I was welding for damn near 6 hours straight. The “sun burns” I sustained were almost so bad to the point of peeling. Strange thing is they didn’t hurt at all and I didn’t notice until I took a shower. Absolutely surprising and very much a humbling moment.
Yeah those types of injuries are horrible, I once worked on a huge water reservoir, in construction not even welding, all it took was 3 days in the sun and the back of my neck looked like a yeast infected pussy who has had crabs on and off for a decade... Pouring ice cold olive oil on that wound after work was the most amazing feeling I've ever experienced
Learned my lesson early on as an apprentice with a loose necked shirt and arc burned the piss out of my neck and exposed chest. Have made sure to nor replicate that mistake ever again. I have warned every apprentice since.
One of my first welding jobs was in a fast and furious factory setting where we turned the mig wire speed all the way up and set the power to match. Very hot, you needed every last inch to be covered or you were going to get radiation burns or spatter burns. You had to be very careful about SIDE SHIELDING your eyes or the lens of your eyes would get radiated from the guys to the sides of you. The radiation was that intense. I always remembered that place even though other shops were no where near that extreme. One job I had was mig tack welding things together to be welded by a robot arm welder. I had electronic shield to use but I felt it was too slow as after a day of tack welds with my eyes open I could tell I was still getting flash build - up. Plus looking through an electronic shield is still like wearing sunglasses , they are never ' clear '. The best way was just closing my eyes but I didn't want a lot of radiation to my face so I learned to keep the mig nozzle itself in position to act as a tiny ' courtesy shield ' and shade my face.
I just bought a welding machine, and after 2 videos of "how to" I started looking for a video on "hiw not to" and came across your video. You saved my life already, I think.
I own a couple of welding rigs, a Hobart MIG and a Lincoln stick welder, and guys in my neighborhood sometimes ask to borrow them. I don't mind loaning my tools, but I feel very nervous about loaning welders to guys who think they can weld because they saw it done on KZhead. I grew up welding, because my father rebuilt old cars and motorcycles as a hobby and second source of income. He encouraged me take welding classes in college, despite the fact they had nothing to do with my degree. I will always be thankful to him for this because I learned a lot in those classes. We were both self-taught and because we did it a lot, we thought we knew what we were doing, but the fact was, both me and my father were doing things that were unsafe not to mention a lot of just poor welding habits. KZhead is great, and really helpful, especially when you get great videos like this that encourage people to be safer. However, just watching videos does not teach someone how to weld. If you're just going to do stuff around the house, then getting a small welding rig and teaching yourself is fine, if you're safe and take the time to actually learn before you start digging in with some major welding project. If you're going to tackle bigger stuff (like a guy on my block did, trying to weld his own mechanized gate for his driveway) you need to take a class or get an experienced welder (preferably a guy who is in the industry, not a self-taught guy like I once was). Before I took those classes, I would have passed on not just bad habits, but unsafe habits that could get someone seriously hurt. I love that this video shows that despite the fact that welding is pretty easy to get into (money and ability-wise) it still has some significant dangers that people need to be aware of. So many KZheadrs have bad habits, like not wearing proper PPE, welding in unsafe environments and not being cognizant of controlling fume exposure. We need more videos like this from popular KZheadrs that teach basic, safety techniques and awareness. So, thanks!
I really like that you focus very much on long-term health concerns. That doesn't get talked about NEAR enough with so many of these industry-type hobbies. Cumulative exposure is a big deal! Good on ya sir for saying what needs saying.
I have stuck some metal to metal over the years. Not very much. Anyway, I got a whole bunch of stuff that I never heard before from this video. And I have watched some KZhead videos "how to weld" type and don't remember seeing anything similar to what you were teaching me today. Thank You. Beyond the technical stuff on welding, voice, humor, clarity, examples, were all top notch.
This is great info. Reminds me of my Dad's hot rodding lesson: fast is great, great brakes are better. Stay safe for another day.
The best teachers I've ever had used humour to keep their teaching more interesting. If you didn't listen carefully, you not only missed a joke or other funny part, but the the teaching as well. Now... this video has the same properties and while I don't weld myself, unlike the most clickbaiting and fake YT videos nowadays, it was still educating and fun to watch. Safety comes first. Thanks, mate!
John, I cannot thank you enough for this video. I just recently bought a hobby MIG welder and was going to start teaching myself how to weld in my garage for fun. I am most certain I would have done at least one or two of these things without thinking and for that I thank you for teaching me these hazards. I would literally give you a hug of thanks if you were here right now. Again thank you. I cannot thank you enough for what you have done to save my life because of something I probably would have done such as brake cleaner!
Same for me, couple of months with a TIG, no gloves at all, tshirt, brake cleaner, the only thing I wasn't exposed was galvanized and WD is not that of a problem as you have a trigger
Although I have been around for 60 years. I also found myself becoming complacent while welding. Some of the things John mentioned I found myself doing. I believe he gave me an extension to be around for a while longer. Just needed a refresher . I also am thankful for what he took the time to share to keep us healthy and alive.
Same sentiment here. Great video and very sensible advice I wouldn't have thought about.
Just getting started, glad I found this channel, otherwise I'd be out there in a t shirt, getting nasty tan.
Same here. This video scares the crap out of me and I'm definitely going to be more thoughtful in my welding.
A few months ago I bought a stick welder and a couple of days ago a MIG to complete the set for home shop to do small repairs etc. There's no words to express my gratitude for making this video. You have not only saved my own health and life, but my son's father and wife's husband. Thank you.
I never worked with brakecleaner before, until I started welding... how stupid. never to to old to learn.
pro tip: read the manuals for any tool you buy and take that shit seriously.
@@kevinbissinger What's the expression? "Every rule is written in blood"?
Get a tig machine. It's way more fun and quite challenging to teach yourself.
Even if theyre written in Mandarin@@kevinbissinger
Thank you John, new stick welder here , the $100 version . I appreciate your willingness to share your expertise.
After reading some comments, I also had no idea animals could suffer burns from watching the arc. SO glad I saw your article and that you took the time to warn us novices of these dangers. Thanks for this most valuable info.
Quite a few moons ago I used to weld and broco cut underwater. Up to 400 amps DC. As long as you remembered the basics and kept important parts of you away from the shortest path from electrode holder to the target you were fine, despite being immersed in a perfect electrolyte (the sea) with soggy leather gloves. But get too close and you would get a warning, as your fillings would vibrate and you could taste the chrome being stripped from your helmet and second stage...
Which helmet would that have been? The one with the single eye in the end of it?
@@samrodian919 🤣🤣
Kirby Mogan band mask, colloquially known as a helmet.@@samrodian919
Why wear leather gloves underwater? Unlike on land, wouldn't being in the drink keep things cool enough that sparks would have no negative effect on synthetic waterproof material?
The gloves aren't for sparks. I was working in the Hamburg docks, and everything you touch is covered in barnacles and feet of horrible ooze. @@jed-henrywitkowski6470
Well done John, again you are at the very front in your chosen KZhead profession, showing an innate ability to cut to what people really want and need to know with your excellent content. You never know mate, you might just have saved someone’s life with this vid. Cheers.
Its gonna come at ya like a big fucking fireball! Now theres a man whose seen a thing before...
oh, there's a very fair chance he's saved life or limb w/ this vid as well as some other vids. The whole point of ppl doing DIY or /hobbies , e.g. in the hot weather, or even super cold weather, is that when u r not utterly top fitness and young, and utterly relaxed and concentrating, then mistakes with electricity can happen so easily. So can other errors bcuz the human mind normally cannot keep several factors in 'mind' or 'working-consciousness' while also concentrating on the actual skilled hand/eye-coordination task at hand. I've seen grown-ass men trying DIY to impress a beautiful female friend (working on old fuse box system) and burn off a bunch of skin on his hand, further making his neurotic disposition even more neurotic, who knew!. Also, hate to say it, but most car drivers and even OTR freight truck drivers would benefit from automation assistance to handle emergencies, which most ppl do not handle well. To be human is to be very very error prone. Even many of the sharpest minds are error prone, that's a fact (and often very error prone, ie much more than we think)
Tell them fire hazzards. If ya gotta pee do it before, then you don't get finished with a weld run in to use the toilet or get a snack or whatever and then come back to your shop on fire cause ya didn't want to wait a few moments to make sure that there were no sparks causing an issue
It’s the shop/set. It looks perfect and fun.
Wow...this video is superb! I'm just an amateur when it comes to welding, but all these safety issues are important. And Mr. Cadogan did an excellent job of thoroughly explaining each one. This video should be viewed by anyone who either already welds, or is considering learning how. Very well done👍👍.
Thank you from America As a learning arc welder I appreciate anyone willing to impart their knowledge
As a self teaching stick welder not aware of the health and safety issues, I just want to thank you for the bit of education I got from you. Very well done sir.
I'd absolutely recommend you wear a respirator or welding rated disposable mask always when welding. The fumes from the shielding flux can seriously damage you lungs and brain.
@@m0use1983 Thank you for that super important bit. As a 52 yr old smoker my lungs cant hack too much more abuse. Also upon my first time using the stick welder i used brake parts cleaner to remove all off the grease near my weld. Axel boot split and my weeld was an attempt to fix a broken sway bar end.
great safety video!! Thank you for putting this out there!!I know you focused more on arc, but I wanted to add about the dangers of low areas in you shop and shielding gas. Especially if you have a shop with a pit and guys working in it. Shielding gas is heavier than air so it goes to all the low areas especially if you don’t have a fan or cross breeze on the floor,and could potentially suffocate anyone who’s in that low area especially in a pit.
Chrisbxxx - Wow! Instructions may say use in a "well-ventillated" area, but "open area" might not necessarily equate to "well-ventilated ."
One more BIG thank you from a noob that has yet to strike his first arc. Although I am quite well versed in safety and electricity and such, I am doing my usual OCD researching before I embark on a new endeavor. The information that you provided could very well be the wisdom that kept me from making one or more stupid and potentially fatal mistakes through sheer ignorance. Kudos to you, Mr. Cadogan! Thank you for reaching out and sharing your invaluable knowledge.
Top shelf! Great video for us novice welders. You have saved a bunch of lives with this video, that makes you a Saint!
As a retired engineer myself; I always wondered if it was possible for an electrocution situation. You answered that and stated other hazards I never thought of very nicely. Thank you.
Are you admitting you're an engineer ? Question ...do you guys use what you engineer , or work on it ? Cause I've seen some dumb shit on cars and trucks , I always wondered if there was a engineer behind that design , or did someone screw up the engineers drawings ?
14:36 - Ah, a big FFB! But seriously, I am glad that you posted this, and that I saw it, because in my younger years, I had worked around a careless person doing stick welding, and assumed by his seeming lack of care, that one might not get electrocuted by a stick welder due to the current flowing from the stick to the piece. When I retire, I expect to purchase a welder to work on my old cars, and I could have imagined myself using my stick hand to raise my face shield. A mig welder less dangerous due to the need to press the trigger, but the possibility does exist. And wow, I never thought about completing a circuit with a WD 40 or similar can. The same danger could happen under the hood of a car near the battery or other hot connection. Holy smokes (pardon the pun) this vid was a great public service advisory, thank you.
youre an engineer and you wondered if it was possible to electrocute yourself welding. thats fucking scary man. i dropped out of school at 15 and this its always been obvious to me that making an electrical circuit with you in the middle is not a good idea
@@MikeSmith-nu9wt You want to know something about the auto industry. Well the designers, design the vehicles and make them look a certain way, then it gets approved to build. then they attach all the engine combo and tranny options along with all the other items. Then it gets kicked over to the engineers. To make all that stuff work around the design of the vehicles. So at the end of the day it has nothing to do with the engineers, but we get blamed for it all the time.
@@MikeSmith-nu9wt Engineers have to take cost into consideration. Bad designs can make it into a car if they are 10 cents cheaper..... On petrol compacts the most expensive part is most of the time the paint because that's what sells.
These are great tips for the home hobbyists and I shared with my young son who stick welds water well casings every day. Thank you
Great video! Thanks for doing this. I'm a rookie welder and generally just do small parts and I'm always careful. The info about the chemical reactions is immensely helpful. I always clean materials with acetone or denatured alcohol. I do use chlorinated brake cleaner occasionally because it works so well on dirty car parts. I know it's bad stuff and take precautions. Never thought of using it for cleaning material for welding but knowing this new info about how it reacts is something I will never forget and should be more well known.
Great video John, I've been welding many decades and remember the story about the guy overhead stick welding with a Bic butane lighter in his shirt top pocket. A hot spark then found its way to the lighter and ignited it. You can add that to your list.
I heard about the bic lighter about on week after using a cutting torch overhead to cut a solid 2 inch shaft while I had a bic lighter in my pocket. It was raining hot slag and sparks. After that the lighter stayed on the roof of my van when the torch came out.
Thanks John for your informative video on welding safety at home. I’m guessing a lot of people including myself had no idea of the dangers of welding galvanised steel. Appreciate your posts .
As a starter, thanks a lot for making this video, it covers a lot of important stuff that maybe I wouldnt have realized without this. You have saved some lives maybe, thanks again for your video.
I am a beginner who is welding smaller projects and such. I am so happy to stumble across your video. I only knew about metal fever from galvanized steel.
Im glad you mentioned welding galvanized. I was making a bunch of stuff out of strut in my poorly ventilated garage years ago. Had no idea of the dangers, i kept on getting really sick until i figured it out. Respirators and ventilation go a long way
asthmatic shut your lungs right down too queers that stole ephedra lamiod fake propaganda. cancer is worms
As a 30+ year welder, I am happy that you covered these. When I started, they thought nothing about trying to get a person to weld some galvanized stuff, but I had an instructor that was a huge advocate for safety around the stuff. Aside from the poisoning (antidotal story here), he claimed he damaged his lungs permanently as a young ignorant welder, welding in an enclosed space all day on corrugated galvanized panning used when pouring concrete (creating a bottom over empty space). He said from that day forward, his lung capacity was severely diminished. As to the UV radiation. I cannot stress this enough. I see KZhead people with exposed skin, especially while TIG welding. Cover up, I don’t care if you are hot, take breaks. In addition, the tacking without a helmet is stupid. I always wear UV blocking safety glasses as well, the reflected light will get your eyes. Went night fishing when I was just starting with an old welder, figured that out real fast. Finally, as to your surroundings. Mind the flammable solids and dust as well. If you are working on in a mixed shop with wood dust, nothing burns better. Actually lots of things do, and look out for those too. Your little hot BB’s will find there place. Might not kill ya, but could burn the place down. One more thing, careful about using old propane tanks and like stuff for projects. Fill them up with water when you cut into them or weld. I just stay away from them.
I cut a fuel tank to do a repair once filled it with water before I cut it, I brazed a piece on the tank but no fumes after the water was flushed out to be sure.
Not "antidotal", "anecdotal". 👍
Filling an old propane gas tank with water may work as long as it stays open to the atmosphere and doesn't build pressure during hot work - steam can explode too. Definitely don't fill any liquid fuel containers wtih water before hot work. Many hydrocarbons float so the explosion/igntiion hazard would persist, and you could easily contaminate the property. An industry method for safetying old heating fuel tanks before cutting into them is to vacuum out all the residual liquid and sludges (dispose of them at an accredited facility), then fill it the tank with dry ice (while remembering that CO2 can be an asphyxiant) - but that way the tank is less likely to explode before a torch is applied.
Propane tanks are nasty. Filling them with water does the trick if they are otherwise clean. Almost all of these tanks have hydrogen embrittlement, small pockets of hydrogen in the metal after years of holding liquid propane. When welding on these tanks it sounds like someone making popcorn and can shoot a hot goober. wear PPI.
As someone keen to do a bit of welding but yet to start, this has been such an insightful post. Huge thanks
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Great amount of detail very well put over. Thanks John.
My dad was a boilermaker and often built things around our house... a lasting early childhood memory was being told to never, ever look at the arc light... We had a pink & grey galah who's cage was kept in the garage... My dad was welding away one day close to the garage and he covered the cage with some old work shirts but unfortunately, there was a hole in the shirt... the poor bird was watching my dad work away for quite a while and developed the worst case of welder's flash ... he (the galah) had red raw weepy eyes and couldn't keep his eyes open... fortunately he recovered and lived to a ripe old age but for me and my sister, it really put the fear into us... each time from then on whenever we heard my dad's arc welder fire up, we'd run and hide.
As a welder I often suffered welders flah not caused by my flashes but other welders operating on either sides.
This is really a unique story. Thanks for sharing 👍
Yep definatly try to to avoid it. Every time you get arc flash or any overy bright thing some of the damage is permanent. A few times while tacking shit together i've been sloppy and forgot to close my eyes before giving it a buzz.
@@routmaster38a couple of things . Closing your eyes does not filter out the UV. 100% UV/UVB glasses will prevent flashburns. Even working around others. I have many times caught animals watching me weld. If your working around apartments keep an eye out for it. As a welder it is YOUR responsibility to protect others from your light, sparks, grinding ect. And who keeps there pets in a cage in the garage?
Potatos!!!!! The cure for welders flash....the potatos will draw out the sting and help the eyes heal quicker. Remember POTATOS!!!!! (39 year welder, taught by an even older welder.)
Very good info. I wouldn’t have thought of some of it, especially the brake cleaner. One thing that I can add from experience is ventilation even when welding regular steel. I built an engine puller in a single car garage in the winter one time. It was cold so I shut the door. After a few hours of welding I felt so terrible that I went to the emergency room. Still had no clue why I felt so bad. Didn’t even cross my mind that it was the fumes from welding. After chest x-rays, poking and prodding , the doctor ask what I had been doing. I said nothing, I was just welding at home on vacation. He said, there it is! You poisoned yourself. I spent a week in bed as a result. What a terrible vacation! Btw, I was stick welding. I guess it was the flux that caused it.
The SDS for chlorinated brake cleaner conveniently omits the phosgene danger. so much is 'Not known', Oceangate Titan was a SDS and QA themed designed submersible, ie a little bit lacking in reality.
Thanks you’re the first informational video I watched before starting the journey of arc welding. Glad I found you! ❤
I am so glad you've done this video, I am a carpenter and wanted to get stuck in to metal work, far too many welders are cracking on without the safety tutorials just for thumbs ups and subscriptions. I am no mister PPE in any way but I am clueless about welding and therefor glad I came across your video. You got a new subscriber. Cheers bud.
A Boilermaker at the Eveleigh / Redfern railway workshop, put his still burning oxy torch down whilst he went for a leak. Complacency made him put the torch down where it applied it's heat to an acetylene bottle. The acetylene bottle left through the roof of the workshop, never to be seen again. It was only luck that prevented people getting un-alived.
I bet the said boilermaker was an ex boilermaker by the end of the day, and rightly so. Should have had a shorter leak!
Think about it. I wonder how many intelligent educated people see straight through this stupid story. Why does the story say heat the gas cylinder? For idiot public acceptance. Why doesnt the story say heat the Oxy cylindet? Because (like the public) the story teller has no education. Why was the supposed gas cylinder standing upside dowm? It's got a honeycomb inside and liquid gas designed to be used upright. If the gas cylinder was never seen again, then maybe one of the fairys carried it away? How loud was the bang? How much damage from flying burning objects as the gas venting the alleged cylinder incinerated most things nereby? Theres so much wrong with this common fairytale it really shows BRAINS - the haves vs the have-nots.
I was a Vehicle Trimmer at Eveleigh and Chullora Carriage Works.
The tip with changing gloves is actually very helpful. On my first bigger welding project I slowly went from one handed welding to supporting a fresh (and therefore pretty long) electrode with my glove to start the arc in the right place. It worked well until I started noticing a tingle in my fingers down to my elbow. Turns out I touched the metal with my elbow and the glove was sweaty. I had welded in the same position for a longer time and it wasn’t a problem but because of the sweat the conditions changed over time. Very good advice for DIY hobby welders, thank you for the video :)
As a beginner FCAW hobbyist welder, I am very thankful and appreciative of your helpful video. During my many decades of woodworking, I have taken precautions to protect my vision, hearing, and body. But with welding, there are a host of new factors to consider. Your experience and insights are most helpful.
I’m not a welder but an everyday master electrician that has seen almost everything and I love to learn. I have great respect for welders because they were always fabricating brackets to hold my conduit on! Love you guys/gals! Great video and veryyyy informative! I am now subscribed! 💕
😍 I've been welding as a hobbyist and semi-professional since 1968. (Yes, I'm that old!) I started welding because a '56 Ford car I had that I wanted all the rust replaced was NOT repaired the way I was paying for! I enlisted in the Army in 1970, in vehicle recovery, then retired as an M-1 Tank Motor Sergeant in 1990. Continued welding into 2015, when I retired as a mechanic for a national waste collection company. Luckily for me, all the items you discussed here I know of! I still got a radiation second degree burn on the inside of my left knee and calf area a few weeks ago MIG welding with shorts on. 😒 I do hope that the 'younger' audience takes to heart what you're telling them here! 🥰 Even I appreciate a refresher course! 😂
CORRECTED EDITED and FORMATTED TEXT I was welding as a hobbyist and semi-professional since 1968 (Yes, I'm that old!) I started welding because a '1956 FORD car I had - I wanted all the rust replaced was NOT repaired the way I was paying for! I enlisted in the ARMY in 1970 - in vehicle recovery - then retired as an M-1 Tank Motor Sergeant in 1990 Continued welding into 2015 - when I retired as a mechanic for a national waste collection company. Luckily for me - all the items you discussed here I know of! I still suffered a second-degree radiation burn on the inside of my left knee and calf area a few weeks ago whilst MIG welding while wearing shorts. 😒 I do hope that the 'younger' audience takes to heart what you're telling them here! 🥰 Even I appreciate a refresher course! 😂
@@andrew_koala2974 Hi, Thanks for you comment! Just a friendly reminder: You can edit your comments on KZhead. I hope your radiation burns will heal fast without scars.
Seems to me you just f'ed it up! maybe you need to worry about you own writing and leave mine alone! @@andrew_koala2974
Hi John, handywoman and part time metal fabricator and ex Holdens worker here. First, this has to be one of the best welding safety videos I have ever seen on KZhead, well done.I learnt how to MIG weld in the 80's when I first started at Holdens, working in the bodyshop there. they were fanatical even back then about safety as far as welding went. you had to wear full overalls, sleeves rolled down, even on 40 degree summer days. then over that you had to wear a leather coat on top of that, and long gauntlet style leather gloves as well. it certainly did test how good your deodorant was in the middle of summer, lol. we wore the old style CIG 'Ned Kelly' style helmets which you were always lifting up then flipping down again to do your next weld, so muscle memory became your friend, and you learnt how to leave your helmet down, and go by feel to do your next weld. (its easier to do than you think, once you get used to it. ) they introduced self darkening helmets in the 90's which was great. some of the cowl braces, underbody panels we welded were galv steel, but all welding booths had really good extraction systems, so fumes were never a problem. On some of my home projects I've built which include a 6x4 trailer, and a racing cart designed to be pulled by Huskies in harness, among other things were built back in my old home garage, and used some galv steel in them, I always made sure I had plenty of ventilation, and worn proper PPE gear , and made sure all flammables were kept well away from where I was working. and I worked outside as much as I could. I have never had an incident when welding, other than the odd burn here and there from a stray spark which is to be expected. it all comes down to common sense, and making sure you do everything as safely as possible .
You sound like a dream… If I were not already married…
I am an novice welder, far more novice than welder, and really appreciate everything you said. I have inadvertently done most of the things you caution against. But thanks to the knowledge I gained here today there will be some major changes to my welding habits . Thank You!
John, Thank you for this video. I shared it with my sons, and they too, were appreciative. Please keep it up!
Great video John, retired now and did a fair bit of welding while in tool and die trade and home as well. Had an episode of congestive heart failure unrelated to welding but was fitted with a pacemaker/defibrillator so i could continue living. Was advised sternly not to continue any form of electric welding because it could cuase the device to kill me. It's not worth the risk, so now I'm embracing oxy- acetylene welding. Thanks for making this instructional and I plan on fwd'ing it to friends.
Yes to all the above. Well said. Also 1) i nearly lost an eye when the stinger spun in my grip (which i didn't feel through the thick gloves). Prescription glasses lens saved my eye. Suggest safety glasses under the helmet. 2) i too am an ex rail engineer. We had a locomotive fuel tank explode after a weld repair (done after purging by overflowing with water for 24 hours) had been tested for leaks, they found a leak, and when they attempted the weld to fix the leak, big bang. They couldn't work out what was combustible to explode....i diagnosed it --- compressor crankcase oil vapour carried into the tank in the compressed air used for the (external soapy water) air pressurised leak test.
Good to be flushed with water but better flushed/cleaned with steam is best. Should of been purged with nitrogen.
I have had a fuel tank explode after being filled with water and drained to weld. Seems the heat cooks more fumes out even after a water rinse. Old timer showed me to fill tank with car exhaust while welding. I use a Co2 fire extinguisher to displace oxygen in fuel tank before applying heat.
@@chrisbyers6084 I'm not a welder, and I'm not trying to be a jerk, but here's some thoughts: Car exhaust might contain carbon monoxide, which is flammable. Most cars produce very little carbon monoxide when running outdoors, but I wouldn't bet on it always being a safe source for CO2. Water usually has gasses dissolved in it, and a bit counter intuitively cold water holds more gas than hot water. So, heating up a tank of water can cause gasses to diffuse out. Oil fracking done within a few miles of a drinking well can cause the water to become contaminated with oil and flammable gas. Electrically welding tanks filled with water might produce oxygen and also cause hydrogen embrittlement.
I hardly ever use those huge - ass gloves unless I'm welding 300 amps or such. I gotta wear something, though, to keep the radiation at bay. Most of the welding I do nowadays is low- power tig welding but still have to wear some kind of gloves for anything more than a quick zip. Plus I have to be careful, the high voltage start circuit on my tig welder can arc about 4 inches. I got slammed by it good once and it almost made my arm fall off.
Im a hobbyists welder. This video was an informative eye opening video. I am also a pilot so I have have a survival attitude that leads me to really pay attention to the fine details of things, its saved my bacon more than once. Read a lot of the comments as well gained a lot of good information from all your viewers. Lastly I must say if you should fear anything while welding fear what you dont know. Be informed seek out what could kill or mame you. Dont take short cuts . Great video.!
Im a Union welder of 17 years and learnd more from you that id like to admit.😮 Ill be sharing this with my buddies for sure.. And thank you..
Another thing we tend to overlook is that UV rays are reflective. I use to spend hours ice lugging D-9 dozers. We had one welder at the front of the track and one at the rear with an operator in the seat turning the track. At the back you were sitting beside the chrome rod for the ripper cylinder and at the front beside the chrome rod for the dozer cylinder. It took me a while to figure out why I always had a sunburn on the back of my neck and started keeping sunscreen in my locker.
Yup, not as severe but UV also reflects off of snow.
They are called corks.
Yep tin roofs are a nightmare for reflection too
Thank You! 💜👍 I dislike sunburns! 😮 1st time anyone has warned me about reflections from the arc! 🤔… wonder how long that would have taken me to figure it out the hard way / glad I don’t have to! 🥰
Yep. The worst 2 sunburns I ever had were from refle turn. 1 was working on a shiny metal roof all day it sunburned my throat and the lower half of my chin etc. Second was Flux might welding, my legs sunburned. Under the table from reflections off the mirror that was on the floor upright against a cabinet.
Hi John The thing that I like best about you is that you ask and answer questions that some of us are either embarrassed to ask or more to the point are ignorant of. I just fell into both of those categories with the information you provided, thank you for your time. Steve
No worries Steve.
Fantastic video and the delivery made what is essentially health and safety advice entertaining and memorable. Many thanks indeed.
Wow, I've had a guardian angel with me for some time. I'm just backyard welding on my own crap. You know exhaust,fence post, wheelbarrow, lawnmower and such. I'm getting up and reevaluate my welding location before the next spark is struck. You'll cross my mind every time I weld from this day forward, and I mean it in a good way. Thanks for the information and motivation.Thank you sir....
Great video! I’m a novice learner and the gentlemen teaching me has been welding for his whole career. Never the less some of the things you’ve brought up are things you don’t have to think about anymore. You do it out of years of practice. I appreciate the safety lesson no matter how basic!
here is a basic issue I have learned. When you weld the item gets hot so remember to let it cool down before handling it as getting burnt sucks .
do not plug the arc welder into a 4 point power board as the power board can overload from the current and catch on fire. (i have experienced this one myself)
Mr.Foster here,great video I’m 74 and started welding about 45 years ago and have been guilty of many of those bad things you have talked about thank God for His grace because I’m still here.Thanks again for a great presentation
I did a little welding (arc & OA) in high school 40 years ago and wanted to get back into it. So, I bought an inexpensive welder (Mig Tig & Stick). I have watched several videos on how to MiG weld but yours is the first on the safety aspects. I should have started with yours because it is the one that really matters. Thank you for making it! I will definitely make changes to my procedures after seeing it.
Perfect advices for an amateur welder , stick rod to fix little things around the house , i always weld outside . Thank You.
This is the best welding safety video I've seen. I've watched many, many, beginner welder videos. My children gave me a 120v welder for my birthday. I've never welded before. I am very appreciative of any and all safety tips I can get. Thank you for this video. I'll be firing up the welder later this year, and I'd like to make it to Christmas, this year's, and a few more after that, without any welding-related injuries or illnesses. Cheers!
Have fun! It's kinda scary at first, but it turns fun real quick
@@gamemeister27 Thank you for the well wishes. Life's goin' by too quick, and don't want to waste time drilling and bolting every project anymore.
Bloody brilliant John; all the major risks and how to effectively avoid them. Should be made mandatory for all trade training courses in AUS.
Stupidly, I'd have thought it would be!!!
I just bought that welder several months back. Gloves and helmet. I haven't used it yet because I was fearful. I know there are some dangers with the electrical. So I hopped over here and this matey squared me away. Appreciate you and your helper.
My goodness John - I consider myself extremely lucky to have chanced across this video. I bought an entry level arc weld kit from Amazon, and have no previous experience of welding. I was looking for "teach yourself arc-welding" videos on KZhead, with the intention of going to my workshop and doing some practice welding today. I was aware of the potential dangers of electricity and compressed canisters, but I had no idea of the dangers from the fumes and UV - I think you might just have saved my life today! Thanks for a very informative and important video.
Not a welder. Always wanted to be, but never ventured. This is the lesson I've wanted to see for decades. Thank you!
Absolutely excellent content and presentation! You are right that many bad habits are tossed around, and this is the kind of clear, no-nonsense information everyone welding should know...
I know virtually nothing about welding, but I enjoyed this video so much. I have so much respect for your experience and knowledge and admire your efforts to improve safety. Well done sir! 👍🏻
Welded for the first time in my life today. Its so much harder than it looks. Thanks for this video. The most important things to learn about any trade are the ways you can hurt yourself. You seem like a great teacher. Love the explanation.
Damn good safety advice and examples. My Dad was a NZR boilermaker through the late thirties and again after the war. If I remember he stopped welding in the 60's. He was a clever man and went on to become an engineering inspector for the rail. He never had any major mishaps (that I know of) with welding or the equipment, thankfully. Love your delivery style, great presentation. I can relate to that.
Big thank you! I normally start using my new gear strait away. Not this time I want to have more than a clue what I'm doing. I learned a few things and it got me thinking more about the big picture. The galvanized welding part was great. I set up an in-line duct fan that sucks air and smoke up and outside. Connected inside I have a short bit of flexible duct (like for clothes drier) that I can move close to my work. I set it up for soldering and it works great. Plenty of suction and totally adjustable. The cost is nil. I highly recommend for any size budget.
congratulations, you just became our official welding safety video
Glad I could help
Hello John, I decided to stop in and nose around in your shop. I am glad that I did, as I do have some old galvanized highway sign posts that I have thought about utilizing on the farm. Whoa!! Thank you for that piece of advice, as well as your method of making your points about how fecal materials can splatter back in your face. Having worked in several tool rooms over nearly fifty years, and around farm machinery and large livestock, I have seen things go wrong to differ degrees. It is always good to hear from a qualified person, standing at a different angle. I will cut this off, in order to like and subscribe before bed time. Thank you John.
Dear Sir: As a novice home welder I want to thank you so much for taking the time to make this video. I really appreciate you trying to help us beginning welders to be safe in what we are doing. I wish you would write a book on the hazards of welding. Again, thanks so much for your concern for our safety. Dwight T
Especially the chemistry part! It hadn't occurred to me the various forms taken by chemicals as they go up and down the thermometer. Something non-lethal becomes deadly serious a hundred degrees down the line. Yikes!
Thank you so much! Newbee welder at home and this was really eye opening! And not to mention quite entertaining. You are an excellent professor and speaker. Great content and presentation!!
Thank you for the class. I want to start welding safely and you got me on the right track.
Only person I knew who died while employed as a welder, did so not in the actual welding process but by a $5 grinding wheel. At 7500+ RPM it flew apart and sent a piece into his neck, he bled to death. Grinders and cut off wheels don’t nearly get the respect they deserve. Great video .. after years of welding I continue to learn.
Approved face shields are cheap and comfortable. Seen the video of the thin broken cut-off wheel embedded in the guys safety goggle. Instead of putting a safety label with a bunch of words, put that image on the package of discs 🤔
I use a hex armour helmet with face shield with ear muff integrated into them. I love it
I worked in a factory as a grinder using 8 inch buffing discs (@6000rpm's), well leadership decided to go with cheap knockoff disc because they were part of some product line that our supplier was pushing and they didn't want to hurt their feelings. 🙄 We had complained multiple times because the discs would randomly fly off the backing pad, finally one of the pads flew off while I was buffing at full speed and hit me right in the jewels. When I was able to compose myself I went straight to the office and let them have it. That was the end of the knockoff discs.
@@thorfinsky1427holy shit, glad your nuts are still both there brother
It's why I don't understand you never see anybody burning anymore. - Is it lack of skill or monkey see monkey do. - Save your bottle caps an buy a plasma if you can't burn and leave the death wheels to the Bob Villas.
Thank you so much for taking the time to share all of this. You very likely saved more than one of us from death. Bless you
Found you by complete accident today . . . I am not even a welder but I do enjoy creating things for no good reason with tools I probably shouldn't be buying because I don't know how to use them but I always feel like I'm going to run out of time if I have to take the time to start a new lifestyle just to learn how to use each new tool :) So I really do like people like you who can share detail of What ifs that had actually happened. Your delivery style is perfect my man , do not change a thing ! I have crazy admiration for you already and it's only been one video I have seen. Wish you all the best sir and thank you for sharing knowledge that cost you plenty of blood, sweat and perhaps even some tears over the years with us all for nothing but a click , well maybe a few more clicks cause for like and subscribe and the bell ringer. Thank you sir!
Your first paragraph described my thought process 100% accurately! I seriously should not be left to my own devices when making decisions about using tools. 😂 And, this is the reason I subbed before the video even ended. I will probably never do any welding, but I have this info filed away in my brain just in case.