General Welding Safety Tips & Techniques

Video Transcript

"I have been asked to give you some safety hints on things not to do while doing arc welding. Over the years, I have seen a few silly things done. For instance the apprentice welder who looked into the end of his MIG gun to see why it was not working right and pulled the trigger and shot himself in the face with a MIG wire. That is one of the things that you do not do. Another time I saw a welder change a high electrode with his bare hand, grabbed it like that and tried to change the electrode, gave himself a burn on his hand, just silly things. When you go the pick up a piece of hot steel that you have just welded do not use your gloves on your hands only if you pick up hot steel with your gloves you actually burn them bake them and they become useless. Use a good pair of pliers to pick up hot steel with. Another thing that you need to be aware of is that some welders will take the oxygen barrel on a cutting torch and blow dust off of themselves. This is really a bad idea because using pure oxygen to clean your clothing saturates your clothing with oxygen and then if you start welding again your clothing becomes extremely flammable and you can be seriously burnt. Avoid also using paint thinners, gasoline, for instance gasoline or diesel fuel in portable welding machine getting it splashed on your clothing and then going back and start to weld again. You could catch fire and be seriously injured. Please be careful."