Читать книгу Welding For Dummies - Steven Robert Farnsworth - Страница 63

You can suffer burns from two different sources while welding: hot metal and ultraviolet light. Burns caused by hot metal are self-explanatory, but you may not realize at first that you can also receive a burn from the ultraviolet light that’s a part of arc welding rays.

These rays are the same as what’s generated by the sun, except welding rays are much more concentrated. I’m sure as a child you heard to never look directly at the sun, right? Well, you certainly don’t want to look directly at a welding arc either. If you do, you can easily suffer burns on your retina, and you may lose part of your eyesight. These types of burns are called flash burns or arc eye, and as you can imagine, they’re extremely painful. You feel like you have something in your eye, and usually that’s caused by a blister on your eyeball (fun!). And just because you don’t feel the effects immediately doesn’t mean you haven’t been affected — they start about 8 to 24 hours after you look at a welding arc. Damage can occur even when the light is reflected off of a shiny surface.

To reduce the risk of burns while welding, minimize the amount of ultraviolet light reflected from the welding arc by painting the surfaces of your welding workspace (even the walls) with a flat, dark-colored paint (black and dark blue are good choices). You should also always wear a welding helmet and protective clothing, as I describe in “Gearing Up to Protect Yourself” earlier in the chapter.

Metal you’ve just welded will be hot, of course, so you need to make sure no one burns themselves on it. If you have to walk away from the weld, even for a minute, write “Hot” on the piece with a soapstone so passersby know not to touch.

Handle all hot metal with pliers to prevent burning your hands, even when wearing gloves. Another habit to develop is using the back of your hand (cautiously) to check to see whether something is hot. Put the back of your hand about a foot away from the potentially hot piece and move it slowly toward the piece. If it’s too hot, you’ll be able to tell when the back of your hand gets within two or three inches.