As a medical doctor and a weldor the DUMBEST thing you could do is to weld without a helmet. The pain you are feeling is the singeing "read cooking" of the vitrious tissue, compare it to boiling an egg its all protein anyway, and retinal nerve tissue. The human body is fairly forgiving hence the return of vision, (the pain is from all of the inflammatory markers going to the damaged tissue to create healing, almost like a mini EMS system) However if you continue to do this, you will have irreversible nerve damage, "read you will have permanently damaged vision, or you will be FUCKING BLIND" You are also having UV damage to your skin "read cancer" and inhaling toxic gases far worse than your PAL MALS, read "lung cancer, now not at 50" This is not my opinion as a Hot Rodder, this is a medical fact from a licensed medical doctor. Please DO NOT ever weld without a helmet. Would you take a gun shot to the chest without IBA or Kevlar? You only have one set of eyes, I don't care how DUMB you are or think you are, welding without a helmet will only make you a BLIND DUMMY... and if you continue to do so carry on Chet their your eyes not mine YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! ps if you can't see the puddle or weld without a helmet, you have no business welding in the first place... Let a pro do it, as obviously you are not skilled enough to do it yourself. Go look at the sun directly all day, its the same difference... most five year olds do it for 2 seconds and realize that something isn't adding up and they stop.
The UV from arc welding goes right through your thin skin eye lids. If you weld without protection you are going to very seriously damage your eyes very quickly. You are also exposing your face to extreme amounts of short burst radiation. You will get cancer eventually. You watch these TV shows where they have some less than handsome wanting to show his face as much as possible, flashing himself and closing his eyes, you get the "idear" that this is normal and this supports your attitude that it's too much hassle to cover your eyes and face and arms. Well it is not too much hassle. Too much hassle is what the OP has gone through here, he has damaged himself. Hopefully he recovers and has no vision or skin damage. If you get a minor flash one of the best soothing things to use is potato juice. Squeeze a potato to get the juice out of it, drop it into your eyes, it is neutral ph and has oils and vitamins that will soothe you. If you are in severe pain get to the doctor or an eye guy pronto, in some cases you may have elevated eye pressures that can damage the fine blood vessels in your eye. Get to the eye doctor, FAST. Tell him exactly what you did and he will try to save your vision. They can not transplant eyes, despite what some people think, this is all you get. Take good care of them. I hope you recover well enough to read this post soon, take care.
Just to clarify here: A MAPP gas torch that has the violet spectrum in it's flame cone emits radiation, it is recommended that a 2 or 3 lens be used. An OA torch emission generally requires a 3 to 5. A stick a bout an 8 to 11 lens. Tig can be higher than 11. It can vary depending upon the setting of the machine which is why the auto darkeners are nice as you can tone the lens. If you are not sure about what precautions to take it would be a good time to research the requirements. I'm sure a lot of us expose ourselves to minor UV radiation more often than we should, which is also just as harmful. In truth, any flame you look at or any energy reaction you look at has an emission of UV. Please don't fool yourself into thinking that this is limited to your arc welder.
hopefully not too o/t, but my old boss just took a trip to china where they are having need for tons of welders right now....he brought back pics of some of them welding, they actually use a piece of hand held sandpaper with 2 tiny holes poked in it to see the weld!!!!
I guess you have a high need for welders when you blind them in four hours. You'd think some of them might take a look at the harbor freights they are making over there. Or at least rob a peice of lens glass from someplace.
To those who claim to be able to arc weld without eye protection, show us some examples of your work. Can you pass a 6G certification test? If not, you are not welding, only bubble gumming. Lives depend on welds. Do it right or don't do it at all
don't know if it has already been said but you don't need to be the one welding to get burned. I got mine working on the mechanicals of a dozer while the welder was working on the undercarriage. After 8 hours of indirect exposure it was a painful night, or maybe I'm just a puss but now I am a much more careful puss.
Oh, come on now. most of you guys have made a couple tacks without your hood on. You know holding the piece by hand in some god awful position just to see your hood hanging on the bottle way out of range.
I didn't read all of these posts because I just can't believe the talented people that we have here on his board would do something as dumb as weld without eye protection.With todays new self darkening helmets there is simply no excuse to do something as foolish as this. I saw my dad go temporarily blind many years ago when he did this on a simple home project. Just seeing the first arc without a helmet or goggles will let you know its dangerous and to stop immediately.
Although I see your point, the answer is No. As in welding, which is true for most of life, preparation is key. You shouldn't put yourself in that position. Don't be lazy, be prepared... The amount of radiation is directly proportional to the amount of damage done... Furthermore, how do you know that the one tack is not enough to permanently damage YOUR eyes? We all have different tolerances for different pathology. Some people smoke their whole life and don't get as much as a sniffle, while others inhale second hand smoke for 5 years and die of metastatic lung cancer. I have seen this all my life, again prevention is key! If I can help just one person with my rant here, my job is done as a physician....
A few years down the road you will go to a Dermatologist for the little sores on your face that won't heal and he will cut out large chunks called Malignant Melonoma. Sunburn and weld burns are very much the same.
Melanoma is bad juju... Especially if you are caucasoid or of Northern European descent... Further if someone in your family has had cancer you are more likely to get it...
only 15 yrs? i got my first taste 50 years ago,u'll toughen up but ur eyes WILL suffer. i'm glad i've got one of the best eye guys ever!for 35 years he's picked shit outa mine,and won't scold me but guilts me into the best saftey stuff and i still get ' caught' once in a while. watch for wheel acid too! stings like HELL!
Even while wearing a helmet I have had arc flash and steel in my eyes. Wear your damn protection people! But you can't fix stupid. I have got arc flash from auto darkening helmet not coming on fasten enough, from other welders, from the relfection of my own arc(welding aluminum or s.s.). I had slag bounce of the inside of my helmet and stick to my eye. I have had steel so far in my that they used a dremel tool to clean it out. All this while wearing safety glasses and a welding lid. Wear your damn eye protection! Roger
Thats because u are scarring your retinal tissue and it toughens up. That does not mean you are not damaging the tissue. Eventually it will scar to the point of no return... i.e NO VISION...
Had a friend that I worked with for 25 years. He was a plumber and I the welder. He knew that watching welding would hurt his eyes. The poor guy ended up blind after a heart surgery. But you can't keep a good fella down. He needed to weld some cloths lines for his wife. He had his wife look through a hood and tell him if he was sticking the two pieces together. Well that night he figuried out that being blind didn't stop the flash burn. I kinkda laught at him and he said Why you laughing. I told him he had thumbs, and he asked what the hell thumbs had to do with the welding. I told him he could have put both his thumbs in the gap he was never going to fill with .023 wire. He got a chuckle out of it. Alway use some kind of protection when welding, flash burns are a bitch.
Yes on the starch from potatoes. The idea is to get the juice in your eye to heal the blistered surface and sometimes just a slice of potato won't do it. I figured this out while following this bomb-ass apple potato cake recipe I found. YOU NEED: -Potatoes -cheese grater -paper towels -bowl -eye dropper Grate a poato over the paper towels. Squeeze bundle of potato gratings in the paper towel over the bowl. YOU WILL BE AMAZED HOW MUCH JUICE you will collect! Then apply generously with eye dropper to eyes. Do this many times before laying down with patato slices over your eyes.
Yeah... I'm very Scot Irish. Skin cancer from exposure like that runs in the family. Furtunately I'm a good listener. I've made a fair share of mistakes, but I also remember every horror story an old timer has ever told me. Honestly, it took a lot longer to get staunch about gloves than helmets so luckily my hands took the brunt of my failure to listen.
LOL!!! Been there done that!!! At 2 AM I ended up in ER and they put some wonder drops in my eyes. Instant relief!!! Unfortunately it was short lived. 15 minutes later and I'm begging for a couple more drops. Unfortunately these drops cannot be used regularely as they can do damage. So they gave me pain pills and just before we left for home, I got those wonder drops!! Relief again ...... for 15 minutes!!! Damn that hurts, I feel your pain!!
Several have used the excuse that they do it because they can't see with their hood. Do they wear glasses or need to? A good welder needs to be comfortable and able to see the work. A magnifying lense or "cheater" to go inside of your hood is less than $10. Magnifying or reading glasses cost about the same. An optomitrist can make special glasses to improve sight through the hood. These options allow you to get closer to the puddle and allows you to see what the puddle is doing. You can't control that which you can't see. It takes frequent practice to be a good welder. Not all auto-darkening hoods are equal. The more expensive models have more sensors and react to the arc more quickly. HF models are better than nothing, if you are careful to keep the sensors pointed to the arc. They asre less effective when doing TIG, because the arc is more concentrated, but, more intense. Any of the above options is far cheaper than the price of a trip to the ER. Just think, it would be terrible to loose your sight to the point that when a lady walked into the room and you couldn't tell whether to whistle or hide.LOL
Properly tinted goggles and full face shields are appropriate protection for O/A welding. However sunglasses are not safety glasses and are subject to shatter on impact. Nor do they provide adequate protection from sparks and slag. Protect your eyes. They are the only ones that you will ever have.
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