No matter whether you like to weld for your personal reasons or you are an industrial worker where you need to weld on a daily basis, welding hazard is real and apply to all welders.
Welding equipment is globally same and the safety guidelines apply equally to all as well. Today, I have included 12 welding safety tips so that you can keep yourself safe from the welding hazards.
12 Welding Safety Tips
Read The Manual
Welding is not a child’s play. Every welder has its own manual on how to operate it. It contains all the safety procedure and guidelines that you may need. Make sure you read the manual very carefully.
Also, make sure other employees (if any) are also familiar with the manual. Most manufacturer now keeps the manual online. So, if you lost it anyhow, you can download it from the online as well.
Auto Darkening Helmet
This is a must-have gear that every welder should have and wear during the welding. By darkening the lens automatically the helmet protect your eyes. Make sure your auto darkening welding helmet meets ANSI standards.
If you have the industrial grade helmet, it will have many features like adjustable shade settings and you can use the same helmet for cutting and grinding as well.
Cover Yourself
You need to wear the dress properly while welding. The ultraviolet and infrared rays can cause serious damage to your exposed skin. There are many incidents of catching sparks in open pockets as well.
There are lots of serious damage incidents just from the spark while welding. To be safe, make sure you button your shirt collars. Make sure you wear your welder dress properly.
Avoid Electric shock
This is a common threat for every welder. It happens mostly to the newly appointed operator. Any electric shock during the welding can be deadly and life-threatening. Almost every arc welder works between the electric voltage ranges of 80 to 100V.
Depending upon the prior health condition, any electric shock can damage the operator badly. You should never ever touch the electrode or the work circuit. Do not forget to wear the dry gloves while welding to avoid deadly electric shock.
Protect Your Eyes & Ears
You can’t look directly to the light or sparks generating from the welding with your bare eyes, right? It’s so damaging for the eyes! So when you remove the welding helmets, don’t forget to wear the safety goggles. The safety glass will ensure the prevention of slag entering your eyes.
Along with protecting your eyes, it’s important to protect your ears as well. The welding process may employ some kind of noise creating equipment that may create the loud noise. Any loud noises are bad for your ears. So you should wear the hearing protection equipment like earmuffs as well.
Protect Your Feet
As per the recommendation of the experts in this field, you should wear high-top leather shoes or boots as part of your welding safety protection. Make sure your pants legs go over the shoes.
Wearing the table tennis shoes or cloth shoes is a bad idea. Only the high-top leather shoes can protect your feet properly.
Wear the Right Gears
There will be a lot of super hot debris while welding. Getting in the touch of this debris can burn your skin and do damage to other parts of your body. So you must wear the right gears to protect yourself from such hot debris.
So, in addition, to wear the leather shoes, you must wear the leather apron as well. The leather apron will prevent your clothes catching fire from the debris. Avoid wearing synthetic apron; it will help the fire to catch easily.
Breathe Clean Air
In any sort of welding, there will be huge fume and smoke. Breathing them is seriously injurious to your lungs. So the first rule of thumb is, never weld in a confined space. Make sure there is a well-ventilation system going on.
You can use the exhaust hood to remove such fumes from your working environment. In some case, you may even need respiratory equipment. So consult your safety specialist if you are an industrial worker.
Don’t Burn Yourself
Already welded equipment is very hot and you should take precautionary measures to handle them. You must use insulated gloves if you must handle such hot equipment. Let the hot equipment cool down and then again you can start working on them. Just be careful not to burn yourself.
Avoid Explosion
As I said above and you know it already, there will be huge sparks during the welding. That’s not the problem. There will be a huge problem when such sparks ignite the flammable gas! The gas cylinder for welding is always under huge pressure.
So try to keep it away from the sparks. Also, make sure the gas cylinder is protected against huge heat as well.
Work Environment Safety
Don’t make your welding work environment congested, even if you are doing it with a small welding machine. It should be as clear as possible. That will help you avoid unwanted fall from the accidents. Avoid working in a wet or cramped working area. All the employees should keep in mind the safety rules of the environment as well.
Have Fire Extinguishers
This is mainly related to the safe work environment requirements, but you should give huge importance to have installed fire extinguishers in the place where you weld normally.
Wrapping It Up
There are even more welding related safety tips but I have already covered the most important tips. If you follow the above-mentioned welding safety tips, you are making a safe welding environment for yourself.
Don’t forget to share it with your friends and families who might need it badly.
It’s good to know the welding area should be kept clear and anyone there should stay safe. We need to have someone come repair part of our warehouse. We’ll have to make sure everyone knows how to stay safe when we do.