Welding Jacket

   / Welding Jacket
  • Thread Starter
#21  
One thing I learned over the years is beware of these nice warm fuzzy mixed fabric shirts, a few little sparks can set the shirt on fire. After a few spots of weld I almost had to do the stop drop and roll once, the sleeve lit right up but fortunately just some slap rap and tap put the flame out.

I caught my heavy cotton button up shirt on fire a few weeks ago with the grinder. Dumb move on my part!
 
   / Welding Jacket #23  
Could be like Clint Eastwood in that movie with the stove plate under his poncho. Bullet AND Fire resistant.
 
   / Welding Jacket #24  
When I welded professionally, I always kept a full leather jacket in my tool box but never used it for welding. A heavily starched cotton shirt was all I needed for normal welding. When using a lot of 6010 rods, I would sometimes use a leather sleeve on my left arm because that arm seems to catch all the fire on a right handed welder.

I brought out the leather when I had to do some overheat arc gouging or plasma cutting. Cutting a hole in a schedule 160 header overhead with a plasma cutter is guaranteed to give your leathers a work out. I remember once I had to do that and was laying on a sheet of plywood. I punched the hole and had to quickly raise my body up off the plywood due to all the hot metal rolling und me. The plywood was burned everywhere and a perfect outline of my body was left unburned. This was 1.5" thick Inconel header that I had to cut a 1" hole in to install a new weld-o-let. Inconel has such a high melting point that it takes a lot of power to punch thru. Once I got a small hole in it, it was no problem putting all the molten metal inside the pipe but getting that initial hole was a killer.

Getting the occasional buckshot trickling down your shirt and into the nether regions is why I learned to TIG weld.
 
   / Welding Jacket #27  
I scored a leather Hobart welding jacket, at TSC, for ten dollars, on clearance with a coupon. For the money, it's awesome! Very hot in the summer, but nice, this time of year. I am more of a light hobbyist. Did do some welding, today. Looked terrible, but it held.
 
   / Welding Jacket #28  
What ever you do buy one that's slightly larger than what you think you'll need. I bought one of those green fabric style ones and it works ok when i use it, but I think it must have shrunk I hadn't wore it in awhile went to put it on the other day and felt skin tight! Honestly I put on a few pounds since I used it last. Naturally as soon as I put it on my wife and her friend walked in to the garage and both of them started laughing there A$$es off at me. :) I usually use the sleeves, not so freaking hot.
 
   / Welding Jacket #29  
Women are cruel! Try laughing at their appearance. Actually, Better not!
 
   / Welding Jacket #30  
I did end up getting the blue 'black stallion' welding jacket for xmas! Fits perfect and my wife actually said it looks good on me. She did add a caveat, not to go out to town wearing it though. For those wondering, I bought an XL (which is my size) and it fits comfortably over a long sleeve tee shirt so I am happy. And no... no pics but it did happen! :laughing:
 

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