My aching eyeballs after practicing FCAW.

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I have nice, modern Miller MIG and TIG welders and can weld fairly well. That said...

If I were in the market for a helmet, I'd compare response times and make sure I bought one with the best available.

I also wear a blue Miller welding jacket, always. Not so much for burns, but to avoid the 'secondhand' glare that will come under the helmet if you are wearing a light colored shirt. The reflected glare is quite capable of doing damage.

I also have gotten to where I will weld when I need to...but I don't go looking for excuses to weld. If I have a job that needs especially good looking welds, I often take it to a local welder and have him do it. That's because there's no way to do a really good looking weld without looking deep into the puddle....and I don't wanna do that. I run on 12 or 13 shade and let the weld suffer a little if it needs to.

I also never weld then run out the door...I always stick around at least 5 minutes to make sure nothing has started in fire. That's not eye safety, but it's another rule I follow when I weld or use torches.

My friend above...he also told me a simple fact - your eyes only have a certain number of cones and rods, and when they're gone, they're gone. There is no reset button you can push to start over.
 
5 minutes? Nope. I sit at least 1/2 hour.
Welding jacket? Good. Can get lightweight ones. Not a lot of money either. I have an 8,000 lb leather one.
Weld burns from the glare? Very harmful,wicked sunburn. if i need to weld bare hands, its at least nitrile gloves. Most often good leather gloves, not them 5 cent fuzzy leather ones.

so its not just a helmet, its all the gear to keep you safe. No welding with crocks on!!

i wear proper steel boots, 100% while in my shop
 
Make sure you wear gloves, my buddy in his early 30s got skin cancer from welding with no gloves. He didn’t weld often either. Luckily they were able to cut it out off his hand/wrist area, it was melanoma.
 
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No, you guys don't know what you're talking about. There's no need to wear gloves. I see them all the time on Hot Rod TV and Paulie Jr. and every other black T-shirt/tattoo/earring car show.....they never wear gloves. I've seen them weld up entire frames in their black shirt with rings and bracelets on and no gloves. Come on, man!
 
I once met a guy....he told me he had been in a work-related accident and they thought for a while they would have to remove most of his tongue. I told him, "That would be terrible..."

He agreed, and told me without his tongue, he wouldn't even bother having sex anymore.

I said, "Really....??"

"Yep," he said, "What good is having sex if you can't tell all your friends about it!!??"

The point is....your eyes are what enable 95% of your life. Take care of them.
 
oldkimmer said:
Is this a solar powered helmet? Did u charge it? Did u turn it on? Kim
Click to expand...

Solar / battery. I've set the adjustments to where the lens goes dark when I point the helmet to the neon ceiling light.

I've been researching helmets and am seeing highly rated ones below $100 for weekend hobbyists and over $230 for more serious models. The same seams true when considering optical clarity.

The education continues!
 
A picture with the $400.00 Speed-Glass hood. Not much if any difference in the lens quality. This hood is not recommended for out of position welding IE. overhead using FCAW or SMAW. So it has now been regulated to my shop work and GTAW only.By the way I'm using a small Hobart 140 welder, welding studs to a column for attaching wood on a custom home I worked on. This is a great hood but not really needed for a hobby welder. I purchased my first Speed-Glass hood in 1993 and used it daily up until 2017 with only replacing the head gear a couple of times. Hence when I replaced it I did so with another Speed Glass. The white hood gets used the majority of the time now.
Kevin
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I haven't done any research into it, but I have to wonder if ANY auto helmet carries with it a higher level of damage to the eyes. It seems even the fastest response still let's some light hit you eyes before it darkens. And of course, we've all had those times when the lens fails to darken and we get a big zap.
 
One of the previous comments that stuck in my pointed head was that being a newbie, I could have been straining to see the puddle or hard focusing on the arc while trying to figure out WTF I'm doing. That's when I started down the rabbit hole on lens clarity. Probably splitting hairs that don't need splitting. Have the twitch to jump back in though. Twice now since the eye doc found "nothing wrong" and I promised the little woman I'd sit on the sidelines until Jan, I've had my neighbor that planted the welding seed over to work on his trucks. Both times, I drag out my welder to watch him save the day. I'll die of old age before I learn how to weld if I have to sit it out for weeks after every fifteen minutes of welding.:BangHead:
 
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