How to Use Welding Safety Equipment

Series Summary

Welding is the process by which metals are joined or united. Usually welding involves melting the metals themselves or some filler material into a molten 'weld puddle' that then cools and hardens to form a strong joint. Until the end of the 19th century, the only welding process was forge welding, which blacksmiths had used for centuries to join metals by heating and pounding them. But later, more advanced ways of joining welding became possible like arc welding, oxyfuel welding, and resistance welding. But whether using energy sources like a gas flame or electric arc, or more advanced sources like lasers or electron beams welding remains a dangerous but extremely useful fabrication process.

In this free video series, our expert Terry Leafty will teach you about safety equipment including hoods, body protection, sleeves, and welding hats before showing you the different types of welders. Terry will teach you how to make welding adjustments, how to fill gaps, and how to clean and refurbish your welder, and how to change the welding tip and nozzle. Whether your a master welder or mechanically challenged this video series has tips and advice that can help you.

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village I'm Terry and I'm going to show you how to use a welder. Right now we're going to talk about welding equipment having to do with safety. Of course you always want to start off with gloves. These gloves are mainly used for heavier welding; it would be for like stick welding. These gloves here we use for tig or mig welding because there's not, there's not as much heat generated and when your tig it's a little more intricate. You can't really, you feel like a bear with these gloves on but it's just actually whatever your choice is. This hat I have on is a typical welding hat. A lot of people think it looks goofy but the purpose of it is, is to keep your hair from catching on fire. And the reason why bill comes down so far is because when your welding overhead you can pull it over you ears. You can get those little hot bebe's in your ears and it doesn't feel good and they will burn all the way to the eardrum. I've done it many times so anyway that's the purpose of the welding hat is to keep from catching on fire and to cover your ears. It's always good to wear safety glasses, you don't really have to wear them under your hood but if you know when you?re flipping your hood up and down your when your grinding throughout the day you might want to have those. These also come in an amber which helps you if your in a shop where your welding a lot around a lot of other welders they are good to wear underneath your hood for the fact of you have a lens in your hood and it's glass on this side as it is here. If there's someone welding behind you their reflection will catch here and bounce into your eye. Although you weren't looking at the weld all day you really were and you don't even know it. You'll know it about one or two o'clock in the morning when your eyes start feeling like they have sand and won't stop burning. All right I have on a just a basic pair of steel toe boots, a lot of welders prefer slip ons, it depends on the application. The only thing about slip on boots the set back to those is that you see you get little creases in your pants. What do think is going to happen if the spark falls down in there and it's over the cuff of your boot? It's going to go down your boot and down in between your toes. I've done it so I know this is a no this is a fire hazard right here. You don't want your pants to be split or have a lot of holes and you catch on fire as did my shirt did this morning. But anyway a leather boot with a leather tongue, you don't want any kind of, any kind of synthetic rayon or anything on the top because it will catch on fire because sparks will go down in your feet. You don't want to weld with tennis shoes on just a good leather boot with a safety toe. It doesn't have to steel but at least a safety toe is good."