mig welders sometimes spit out these little ***** of molten metal. When you get real comfortable and you're laying a good bead one of them will go in your pants or in your shoe. You'll feel it start to burn and now you have to make a decision. Do you keep on welding and hope the hot ball cools off before it melts into you, or do you stop welding and not finish the best weld bead you ran all day?

Ever see a person suddenly jump up and do a real freaky dance once he finishes a weld? That was a hot ball.

Sometimes they go in your ear, that's pretty painful

 

your scaring me, stop!











j/k

 

thats why you're suppost to be wearing long pants (so the metal doesnt fall into your boot) and a face shield...




then again, i am guilty of the 12midnight, barefoot, shorts and tshirt, turn your head just before you pull the trigger weld...

 

i've been burned from one end to the other. usually finish the weld, especially if it has to pass a leak check.

 

ede, i hear that, leaks are more painful than hot *****. Do you dance after the weld is done? There's a song that goes with that dance, it's all 4 letter words.

 

I was overhead welding once when one of those hot ***** got caught in the inside elbow of my bent arm. I was wearing a welders coat but those things don't protect you from slag sticking to the surface. The pain was excruciating but not like the pain when I straightened my arm and tryed to shake it off, causing the ball to enter the cuff of my glove and give me a hell of burn on my wrist. I still look like Quy Chang Idiot 15 years later.

 

.........and a long sleeved shirt so you dont flash-burn your arms

my friend is a welder at a truck body shop and he flash burned himself this past New Year's Eve by wearing a T-shirt to work

 

Yeah, you guys are right... be sure to wear good gloves and long pants/shirts. I'll tell you one thing though... if you do feel any heat through a leather welding glove after grabbing some hot metal, PUT THE METAL DOWN AND GET THE GLOVE OFF QUICK!!! Once the heat gets in there, it continues to burn you for quite some time as the leather holds the heat just about as long as it resists it in the first place. Found that out while taking a piece of metal across the garage to the quench bucket... Note to self, bring quench bucket closer to work before heating metal...

 

I've had a few go down the back of my shirt... not fun, lol

 

on a mildly related note..


after years of soldering, i have no sence of temp in the very tips of my fingers..... so i can touch hot solder and it doesnt really hurt or anything.

 

that's how a lot of my burns are. i've got scares 1/2" or bigger across and for the most part they never hurt all that much, and it's not like i'm a tough guy cause i'm not.

 

i where a full body jumper and i have a all coton fited ball cap i that i put on back words so stuff dose not go down my back.

 

The WORST spot to get a slag burn is in your belly button-besides takin out your ear drum of course. Weld'in under a semi trailer one day at the shop layin on my back doin overhead and man my tummy got hot, finished the weld and had a nice gooey white pit next to my belly button-in the belly button crator- where it burned through my shirt. Felt like I did a million sit ups everyday for 2 weeks straight every time I had to bend over.
And now a torch story Building a set of ramps for a semi-so they can back-up/slide under an RGN trailer- on a saturday for a driver and had my holes in the knees with the white strands going every which way levis on. Trimmin down a peice of 1" thick flat stock and noticed my legs were getting kinda hot, but paid no attention...for a little while...pulled my sheild back and looked down and both pant legs were engulfed. Looked kinda dumb doin the chicken dance jumpin around slappin my knees cussin up a storm Still to this day get slag streaks and nice sun burns cause I aint smart enough to put on long sleeves or a leather jacket, well, usually the jacket is laid over something in close proximity so as not to burn something with the molten metal flyin around

 

Mig welding sucks!! Makes my work clothes look like mothes got em'......Good Ole' metal mites lol.........I actually prefer to stick weld even though it's more time consuming but alot less painful and I am over joyed when something needs to be tigged! But, then again hard wire isn't too bad though......

 

if you don't like the spatter with gmaw (mig) change to O2/ar mix. try spray or pulse mig, can't be beat for strength, depesition rate, or looks.

 

I hear ya there but for the job that we have contracted we use Co2 for that oh so nice bite

 

Ever see how a small cloud of fire can travel over the fuzz on some clothes?

 

ever see how a bit of slag can melt a pair of cheap sneakers to your foot

 

I saw something pretty damn funny at school a few months ago.. can't remember what he was using though, if it was a welder or a torch, but a guy didn't close the fly on the cover alls he put on to do whatever he was doing... got a nice hot one down his fly... you guys shoulda seen this guy dance, lol

 

I work in bridge fab. shop and one of the funniest things I've ever seen (to me/not to Him) was a guy wearing these over-sized (crotch-to-the-knees) pants while using a heating torch with a big rose-bud on the end. He was pretty lazy and stopped to rest. The torch had a long wand on it and He set the tip on top of His boot, holding it like a cane. There was a small gas leak at the end and gas was filling His big pants and His partner was grinding and threw sparks at His feet. From what I heard, the fire burned all the hair off His legs and His nuts and had second degree burns all over. Needless to say, He never came back after that.

I've seen alot more than that happen (even death and dismemberment). All jokes aside, you can never wear enough safety equipment while working around torches and welding equipment. 8" boots w/pants over them (not tucked in) and long sleeves are best. ( Don't forget to take that gold jewelry off).

 

About a year ago I had a similar experience. I was doing some cutting with a torch right about chest level. Had all the protective gear on(one peice coveralls, face shield, hat, gloves...) Well I had a big chunk of molten metal some how roll off the face sheild, bank off the colar of the coveralls and roll down inside them. I felt it right away and grabbed the coveralls and kinda fan it out till it cooled and all was well(so I thought), about 3 seconds later my stomach gets really hot, I look down inside the coveralls only to see flames coming up at me. After doing the crazy Im on fire dance and taking the coveralls off I noticed I had a 1 foot diamater hole in my tshirt and pretty much no hair left on my belly.

Just goes to show you can wear all the protective gear you want and **** still happens.


Kevin

 

You're Right!

 

kind of sad- a friend of the family electrocuted himself tig welding. I still don't understand how that could happen. maybe the high frequency?

 

jmd i'll disagree, you can wear too much protective equipment. guy at place i worked, nuke, burnt up. trouble was he had 3 layers of coveralls on and the seams all taped. he caught on fire, on his back area, and didn't know he was on fire till it was blazing real good and couldn't get the zippers opened up because of 2 pairs of surgon gloves plus welder gloves, also taped. however in most cases your point is correct you can't be too careful.

 

Was welding some bridgingin some rafters one time, with my body twisted and turned upside down welding below myself, really messed up position. Anyhow, a piece of slag lands onmy knee where my long jeans are wadded up as my leg is bent, burns through my jeans and starts traveling down my leg. I am trying to right myself on the rafter so I can straighten my legs out (am having to hold on with legs) flip my hood up, finally get stood up, pull boots off and do the hot slag dance on top of the rafter 75 ft in the air.

Was a very dangerous experiance but as I look back onit it was rather amusing.
Scoty

 

Glad I'm not the only one.......................

 

heres what also sucks.


running out of gas.

and NEEDED a weld done.



and then spending 15-20 mins swapping your welder from solid wire to the crappy innershield stuff... only to make a 2min weld.


and then wrecking a perfectly good spool of wire by dropping it as you go to set the machine back up.


then it turns out, i welded it wrong and STILL have to do it again tonight.

i had a bad night lastnight..

 

If a person allows sweat to run down their arm and they holes in their gloves (if they're wearing any), the slang term for this is "electro-zapped". I've known this to happen.

 

I would never "tape " any clothes on for any reason. I meant have all your body parts covered with protection. However, these guys hanging from rafters, I don't know what to tell someone like that!

 

jmd i bet you would tape the seams and zipper if you were in a nuke

 

You're Right. Sorry! I seem to have "tunnel vision" on one particular industry. I'm a "bridge man", not alot of experience anywhere else. I'm also not one to act (or sound) like I know everything. Just sounding off about past experiences.


P.S. I wouldn't be wearing tape in a nuke because I'd be standing behind you, turning down your welds (HA!HA!).
I don't weld much anymore. I'm a QC supervisor/CWI.

 

I weld alluminum,stainless.blackiron and galvinized metals and if your getting slagg pieces big enough to burn you that bad from useing a mig welder its not set right, or the metal is contaminated. galvenized metals are the hardest to weld and some times you cant avoid slag with that type of metal.

 

CWI 93080921

 

BOOM!!!! I guess I'm nothing special, huh?

 

Think that's bad try arc welding with spatter falling on your head.

 

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, BOUGHT A T-SHIRT!

 

jmd i wouldn't say that, more like we're members of the same club

 

Yes sir, you're right. Just carrying-on a little.