Welder's first kiss

[radioman]

That woulda worked if it had been O/A.

would've been nice but I dont have any of the old school stuff. but thanks for pointing that out - had to google it whats oa - very good point.

 

[varmint]

Not a welding story, but when I was young, in the '60s, I was a construction coordinator on a big research building project. It was a remodeling aspect that leads to my story. One day, the boss electrician asked if I could stay late- he needed to have someone watching him when he made some connections in a high voltage cabinet, and he wanted to wait until everyone had left for the day and it was quiet. It was located in a service corridor, about three floors up, with open grating floors- above and below. He was worried about someone surprising him. He said he couldn't work with insulating sleeves and gloves, and he had to stick his bare arms between massive hot copper buss bars to get into the back to hook up some cables. He said that if something happened, DO NOT try to rescue him. I forget the voltage, but maybe 600 something? Went off without a hitch, but made me appreciate union wages!

 

[joshuabardwell]

For us newbies, how about the top three safety tips to avoid a "kiss". I'd rather have mine from my wife...

I would start with appropriate safety gear and dress. Safety gear and dress will protect you both from the heat/sparks, but also protect you from the electricity to some degree. A heavy pair of overalls will be more resistant to electricity than a light cotton T-shirt, so if you do happen to come into contact with something live, you will get less of a zap with the overalls.

Electricity can be thought of like water, flowing to and from ground. Your goal is to avoid becoming a conduit for that electricity. So if you are wearing gloves and you touch the work piece when it is hooked up to ground, the gloves stop the electrical flow and you don't get shocked. If you were not wearing gloves, but were standing on an insulating mat, same deal. Wearing gloves, heavy clothing, and thick-soled shoes will contribute multiple layers of protection. Bear in mind that, in my example, I didn't get even the littlest bit of shock until I put my knee down on the wet ground. The wetness made enough of a conductive path between my skin and the ground to give me a little tingle. But when I was standing up, the insulating property of my boot soles prevented me from feeling anything.

The worst place you can be is between the stinger and the ground clamp. Grab the ground clamp with one bare hand. Grab the bare metal of the stinger in the other hand. Now the welder is going to try to push all of its amperage through your body. Fortunately, it's still a relatively low-voltage circuit, and your body is relatively high-resistance, so your shock will probably not be life-threatening, but most people wouldn't find it pleasant. The way that this may be likely to occur in real life is that you are touching the work piece, connected to the ground clamp, with one bare hand, and you accidentally brush your body with the tip of the electrode somehow. Being still somewhat timid around the welder, I always set down the stinger in a safe location, away from the work piece, before taking off my gloves and doing whatever manipulation I need to do.

The worst shocks are those that cross the heart. For example, when you touch an electric fence with your hand, the shock goes up the arm, down the body, and out one or both of your feet into the ground. By comparison, a shock going from hand to hand crosses the chest and is much more likely to result in a medical emergency. Or so I'm told. Electricians practice the rule of, "Only one hand in the box," meaning that when working with live circuitry, they always keep one hand out of the box, so that if they do get shocked, it goes out their feet and not across their body. Again: the relatively low voltage of welder circuits means that shocks from a welder are less likely to be life threatening, but nothing is out of the question, and I don't know anybody who likes getting shocked on a regular basis.

 

[daugen]

thanks Josh.

can you give another example of "one hand in the box"?
As in something I might do stupidly with a welder?
Avoiding the obvious like not standing in a pool of water, does a metal welding table, for example need a
ground rod?

I've been shocked a couple times in the water near my boat at a dock, and it's a very unpleasant feeling. You can't get out of the water
fast enough. Lots of small kids don't and get electrocuted by bad marina or power pole grounds.
While it may be advisable to stay grounded in many things in life, seems lots of rubber insulation is the garb of the day
to avoid just that grounding.

I'm asking newbie stuff that is covered in chapter one of every welding manual I'm sure. At least Amazon confirmed today they refunded my money spent on the welding book that never showed up. So now the local library is tracking it down for me.
I would think that any store bought welding table would have to be very large, to hold all the required warning labels...

Well at least at the end of the day my new welder arrived. Will unpack it tomorrow and take pics.

 

[joshuabardwell]

thanks Josh. Does a metal welding table, for example need a ground rod?

I have heard folks talk about grounding their table, yes, but I don't think it's common. If you think about it, it's not really necessary. Imagine that you were welding on your tractor's bucket. There's no welding table at all, right? The bucket is connected to the welder's ground clamp, which provides a "drain" for the electricity, similar to how a ground would, but there's no separate ground rod or connection. The bottom line is that, by wearing your safety gear, you can avoid getting shocked most of the time. And if you do get a little shock, well, most welders have a relatively low open-circuit voltage, so it probably won't be too bad. Don't grab the bare electrode with one hand and the work piece with the other hand, and you should be okay! The other way I have read about welders getting themselves into trouble is if they are welding up underneath something and are laying flat on the ground, and the ground is wet, and then they put the stinger down on the ground, or the welding lead insulation has a cut in it or something. If you're going to lay on the ground, and especially if the ground is wet, it's recommended to have an insulating pad.