Lincoln' Electric’s Scott Skrjanc offers great tips for maintaining safety while TIG welding. Be sure to keep these tips in mind when you read next week’s “Welding Starter Guide” on TIG welding. Also note: for the most part, these safety tips could be applied to welding in general, regardless of which branch of welding you take up. Transcript is below.
Hi, I’m Scott Skrjanc with Lincoln Electric. Lincoln Electric’s the official sponsor of EAA, and today I’d like to talk to you about TIG welding safety.
Now TIG welding. . . There’s a lot of UV light that comes off of TIG welding process, so you want to make sure that you are protected – both your eyes, your skin – so you ought to make sure you have the right clothing.
First and foremost, I have some leather. . . excuse me, some sleeves here that protect my arms. I’m wearing a short sleeved shirt. It’s hot outside. Ok. I use these actual sleeves to help me do that. So [when] I’m not welding I can take these off. When I’m welding I can just pull them up, and that will protect my skin from the UV light. Now UV light will burn you, and it doesn’t turn tan, so you must protect your eyes and your skin.
Also, I’m wearing gloves. I’m actually wearing some TIG welding gloves, and TIG welding gloves are kind of unique. You want them to fit nice and tight, almost like a gardening glove, so you can feel the torch and feel the filler metal in your hand. So you want a nice pair of TIG gloves. You don’t want to wear old stick welding gloves or MIG welding gloves, something like that.
Also, you want to definitely protect your eyes. OK. Always wear safety glasses. Anytime that you’re going to TIG weld you always want to make sure that you’ve got safety glasses on. You never know when something’s going to fly up at you [and] hit you in the eye. So you definitely want to have a decent pair of safety glasses that wrap around and protect the side of your eyes.
Also, you want to protect your face and your eyes from the UV light. It’s a very bright light, very tense heat. So you want to make sure you wear a full face helmet.
This is a 4X6 welding helmet:
- Auto darkening
- Solar powered
- No batteries
- Has four sensors
- And it’s adjustable [from] 9-13 (because some people use the number 9, some people use the number 10. It all depends on you, the person.)
But, when you’re welding. . . if you’re actually welding and you lift up your helmet it’s like someone took your picture with a flashbulb camera. You want to darken this actual lens, and you can do that by actually pressing the actual buttons on the inside. That adjusts the actual darkness of the helmet.
So those are some basic safety tips for TIG welding. Again, you want to make sure that you are fully protected. You don’t want to do this without any protective gear. Have fun TIG welding. See you later.