Have the rays from a welding arc ever caused you any discomfort? Possibly you should have been wearing safety glasses while working, but you didn’t. Perhaps you welded without a protective headpiece. If you’ve ever gotten an arc burn, you know it’s going to be a long, painful night no matter what prompted it. If you get your eyes burned on the job, you might wake up with a sandpapery sensation in the middle of the night. It will hurt more if you open your eyes at this point. It will be even more excruciating if you shut your eyes. Do you believe that putting drops in your eyes will aid you? A lot more suffering is on the way. All you can do is buck up and wait it out, as there is not much you can do to help the situation.
Get some frozen peas or another vegetable from the freezer and place them over your eyes if this happens to you. That’s going to make things easier to bear. It’s possible that after two or three hours of this, you’ll fall back to sleep out of exhaustion and wake up feeling better in time for work the following day.
We are still surprised by how many fabrication facilities we check out that don’t require their employees to wear eye protection. It’s crazy enough that people still opt out of protecting their eyes when they tack, weld, grind, and cut. It is your responsibility to keep yourself safe no matter what your employer says about the subject. Many people at home are counting on you, so please take precautions.
No one wears protective eyewear just for kicks or to show off their style. Our eyes need protection from things like flying objects, grinding dust, welding spatter and sparks, and the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the welding arc, so we wear goggles.
Yet, safety glasses have a reputation for being irritating to the wearer’s face. Scratched lenses diminish visibility. They fog up quickly, necessitating frequent removal for wiping. Perhaps they come in contact with your welding hood. Although annoying, none of these issues compare to missing work to visit the emergency room. Spend the extra money on a new pair of safety glasses if your current ones have any of these problems. It may take you no more than two minutes to walk to the supply room and retrieve one of these from the desk where they are provided to all employees.
Welding safety glasses are still required even if you’re working in a covered area. If the welding lens shade is designed for the process being used, it should block all of the UV rays coming off of the welding arc. However, if you don’t wear safety glasses, it could be disastrous if any flying particles penetrate your helmet. It’s impossible to keep welding spatter out of your helmet, whether it comes from your own arc or someone else’s. Wear welding safety glasses at all times to prevent injury to your eyes.
Tack welding with the hood up, huh? Or perhaps it’s a hoodless version. A welding helmet is still required even if all you’re doing is tacking. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you’ll be saving time by doing this. Without a welding hood, the cornea can be damaged by the welding lights. Taking it a step further, if you tack weld or even weld without glasses, you will eventually damage or lose an eye.
It is the responsibility of both employees and management to identify potential safety risks and take measures to eliminate them from the workplace. Welders, in particular, will find this to be the case. Every day, welders are exposed to hazards such as toxic fumes, burns from excessive heat, and molten metals.
Welders can protect themselves by wearing protective gear correctly (PPE). Protecting one’s eyes and face while welding is an absolute must, and it’s the responsibility of both the worker and their employer to know how to do it safely.
What are the best safety practices in protecting face and eye?
Protective headwear for welders typically includes helmets, face shields, goggles, and safety glasses with side shields. Welders wear these protective items to keep their eyes and faces safe from the harsh light, sparks, and spatter produced by welding.
Workers should double-check their goggles before beginning any welding project. Scratched lenses can cause significant visual impairment and should be replaced. Lenses in safety glasses are especially vulnerable to damage if they have been damaged in any way (such as being chipped or cracked). Any goggles with straps that are too long, too short, too twisted, or too knotted should be tossed out and replaced.
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In addition to goggles or safety glasses with side shields, you should wear a face shield or a welding helmet to protect your eyes. It’s risky to use only one form of eye protection. Without side shields, a welder’s eyes can be instantly burned by UV light in a flash.
Goggles must have adequate ventilation in order to prevent lens fogging. Protective eyewear made for use with chemicals should be worn by welders who must work in an environment with potentially harmful dust, fumes, mists, gases, or vapours.
Most eye protection has filtered plates that prevent damaging wavelengths of light, such as ultraviolet and infrared radiation, from entering and damaging or even blinding the eyes. The amount and quality of light reaching the retina can be adjusted by choosing the appropriate filter shade. Normal welding procedure calls for the welder to start with a shade that is too dark to see the welding zone, and then work their way up to a lighter shade that provides a clear enough view of the weld zone without lowering the shade to an unacceptable level.
Fatter filter plates, with higher numbers, block more visible light. To be as safe as someone wearing a No. 14 filter plate, a welder can get away with a No. 10 filter plate in his welding helmet and No. 4 filter lenses in his goggles or safety glasses. To help welders choose the right filter shade for the job, the American Welding Society (AWS) publishes a lens shade selector chart (F2.2-89R).
In order to be effective, safety glasses must provide a snug fit. The optical centre of the lens should be in line with the pupil, and the bridge of the nose should fit comfortably. The straps of safety glasses should be worn low and snug on the back of the head.
Welders who require corrective lenses have the option of using either standard safety goggles or a pair of prescription safety glasses to shield their eyes while they work. When working with high voltage electricity, however, welders should not wear metal eyewear. Wearing contact lenses in dusty or chemically rich environments can be problematic.
After each use, face and eye protection must be cleaned thoroughly to remove any dust or debris. Products designed to clean lenses without damaging speciality coatings are commercially available. Keep your clean eyewear in a container that seals tightly, out of the reach of dust, moisture, sunlight, and heat.
Constantly keeping an eye on worker safety is a crucial part of managing a productive company. Things like tools, barriers, signs, and other forms of personal protection are in play here. Protective eyewear is crucial, even if welding equipment seems like a minor contributor to overall workplace safety. Workers in many industries, including medicine, glassmaking, and construction, regularly risk injury to their eyes. Welders are particularly at risk for developing eye injuries or diseases due to their exposure to flying particles, fumes, and radiation.
UV and infrared radiation, which are not visible to the human eye, are also produced during welding and can be just as harmful as the visible light (IR). Since workers cannot see or feel invisible radiation, they may be unaware of the risks associated with exposure. The effects may not be seen for a long time. Solar radiation, radiation from common household appliances, radiation from microwave ovens, and so on are all present in the environment constantly. However, because of the brightness of the light and the frequency with which welders are exposed to it on the job, they are at a greater risk for health problems. The welders aren’t the only ones who could get hurt by the bright lights, though; anyone who works nearby could get blinded.
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Cataracts are another hazard that can affect workers if they don’t take care of their eyes. The normally transparent lens of the eye becomes opaque. Those affected may experience blurred vision, the need to replace prescription eyewear frequently, double vision, and sensitivity to light. The only reliable method of treating cataracts today is surgical removal. How much preferable it would be if this condition could be avoided entirely by simply using appropriate eye safety protection while welding.
Welders aren’t the only workers who might be put in harm’s way by welding, as was mentioned earlier. Temporary visitors to the area should exercise caution. In order to keep non-welders safe from the potential dangers associated with welding, some businesses use a shielding curtain. This may not always be the best or most feasible option, however. Additionally, some welding tasks may need to be reviewed by others, making close exposure a necessity.
Welders and others can choose from a variety of solutions designed to shield them from the sun, fumes, flying particles, and slag. However, a face shield or helmet combined with UV-blocking lenses or goggles will provide the best protection. Although the face shield should provide some shade, welders frequently remove it, so it’s also important that the glasses they wear have adequate UV and IR filtering to protect their eyes.
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is subject to stringent regulations imposed by Authorities. The issues addressed range from the cleanliness and dependability of provided tools to the employer’s responsibilities when workers supply their own tools. They also provide guidance on how to talk to workers who are affected by hazards and how to get the most out of your safety gear. When it comes to PPE, they demand that either the employee’s prescription is built in or that the glasses are able to be worn over them.
Government agencies in the United States estimate that around 2,000 workers sustain eye injuries every day on the job from either not wearing any eye safety equipment or from wearing equipment that is inadequate for the task at hand. For welders, the most common causes of injury are sparks, splinters, and shards of metal and other materials that fly off the work surface. It is not enough to simply wear eye goggles, face protectors, and welding helmets; you must wear the right ones to avoid injury or blindness on the job.
What are the correct lens colour and filter shades?
Aside from the obvious risk of being hit in the face by a flying object, other hazards in the workplace include radiation, strain, and fatigue to the eyes. Wearing protective eyewear, such as goggles, shields, or helmets with the appropriate lens colour for welding work can help keep you safe from eye damage. For everyday indoor work that doesn’t require special impact protection, a clear shade is a good option. Mirrored shades in gold, blue, or silver shield the eyes from direct sunlight by reflecting and diffusing the light. Wear amber-tinted protective eyewear when working in dim conditions.
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Protective eyewear, in particular those designed to shield the wearer’s eyes from radiation, should have a filter shade number that corresponds to the colour of the lenses. Torch soldering is best done with lenses that have low shade numbers, such as 1.5. The use of electric arc welding requires higher filter shade numbers, such as 15. In general, welding glasses with a higher number will block more radiation.
What should be the right fit for welding?
If the eye protection doesn’t fit properly, it won’t matter much what colour the lenses are or what kind of filters are used. Choose safety goggles that won’t slip off your nose because of perspiration. They need to be in close proximity to your face as well. Too much tightness causes dangerous gaps at the corners. Check that the nose bridge and the back of your ears are free from any contact with the glasses (known as a three-point fit). When it comes to helmets, you want to make sure they are a snug enough fit that they won’t come off no matter which way you try to wear them.
Inexperienced welders often neglect to protect their eyes and suffer permanent damage as a result. Welders flash is caused by the radiation emitted by the welding arc and can be damaging to the eyes. Safety glasses protect the wearer’s eyes from harmful ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) radiation emitted by the welding arc. Protecting one’s eyes from flying debris and fume irritation is a double bonus of welding glasses.
What are the welding lens shade numbers?
When picking out a pair of welding glasses, the shade number is the most crucial factor. You can find welding goggles in a wide range of colours. The lens’s recommended shade depends on the type of welding being performed and the amperage being used, and the shade number indicates the lens’s darkness. Some welding techniques result in a brighter arc than others, necessitating a darker shade for such operations. A lower shade number is needed for other types of welding so that the weld pool can be clearly seen. Minimum shade 3 is recommended for torch brazing and soldering, 8-12 for SMAW/stick welding (depending on amperage), 8-10 for GMAW/MIG and GTAW/TIG, and 14 for carbon arc welding.
Welders have a fantastic new technological option in auto-darkening welding glasses. They’re easier to wear and transport than a traditional welding helmet, and their reduced bulk makes them ideal for working in confined spaces. If you’re worried about getting burned while wearing these, you can protect your face with the optional Servore faceguard.
The controls on these eyeglasses couldn’t be easier to use, and they come in a wide variety of tints from #5 to #13. The glasses come with two buttons-one to adjust the level of darkness and another to adjust the level of sensitivity-on the side. They have a wide field of view and can respond instantly and precisely to alterations in illumination. These aren’t compatible with prescription eyewear, but the included frame can be used to have custom lenses made.
Extra toughness is provided by the shock- and heat-resistant construction of the frame and lens. It fits snugly thanks to the strap and its small size, but it still has adequate ventilation thanks to its air vents.
Although these safety glasses are significantly more costly than the alternatives, they are of the highest quality and will serve you well for all of your tasks in the workshop.
Finally, it goes without saying that anyone in a welding shop, whether they are actually welding or not, must always wear protective eyewear. The arc’s rays can reach your eyes through various reflective surfaces, including walls, screens, stacked steel, welding equipment, and other surfaces. If the rays are hitting the side of your eye, you can get arc burn even if you don’t see it or feel it.
Wearing protective eyewear beneath a welding hood is a must, and by now you should be convinced of that. But what about the welding lens’s shade number? Is there any relevance?
Welding shades come in a variety of colours. Most welding helmets offer lenses in the standard range of shades 9-13. Modern automatic welding lenses allow the shade to be changed with the turn of a dial or the press of a button. Thus, it is important to be able to choose the correct shade when using oxy-fuel cutting equipment or when performing GMAW welding in spray mode.
Conclusion
Wearing safety glasses is essential when welding because of the risk of injury from flying debris, grinding dust, welding spatter and sparks, and the welding arc’s painful ultraviolet radiation. Frozen peas or another vegetable should be obtained from the freezer and placed over the eyes if this occurs. It’s possible to get back to sleep after suffering for two or three hours, and then feel better in time for work the next day.
Welding requires the use of protective eyewear, which can be irritating to the face and tends to fog up quickly. When it comes to workplace safety, both employees and management have a role to play in spotting hazards and resolving them. Particularly vulnerable are welders, who may be hit by flying debris or splashed by molten metal. Welders typically wear protective headwear such as helmets, face shields, goggles, and safety glasses with side shields when doing their jobs. Even if you’re working in a covered area, you should always wear welding safety glasses to protect your eyes.
Without a welding hood, the welding lights can damage the cornea, and tack welding or welding without glasses can cause permanent damage to the eyes. Prior to starting any welding project, workers should inspect their protective eyewear. Any safety glasses with broken lenses should be discarded, as should any goggles with straps that are too long, too short, too twisted, or too knotted. Welders who must work in an environment with potentially hazardous dust, fumes, mists, gases, or vapours should wear protective eyewear made for use with chemicals. The amount and quality of light reaching the retina can be adjusted by selecting the appropriate filter shade, while filter plates should block harmful wavelengths of light like ultraviolet and infrared radiation.
The optical centre of the lens should be in line with the pupil, and the bridge of the nose should be a comfortable fit. In order to protect their eyes from high voltage electricity, welders who need corrective lenses should wear either standard safety goggles or prescription safety glasses. Contact lenses can cause problems in dusty or chemically rich environments; therefore, it is important to keep face and eye protection clean and stored in an airtight container. In addition to visible light, invisible forms of radiation such as ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) can cause damage. If employees don’t protect their eyes, they risk developing cataracts.
Cataracts can only be effectively treated through surgical removal, but avoiding them altogether is preferable. This condition can be avoided by wearing proper eye safety protection while welding. A face shield or helmet coupled with UV-blocking lenses or goggles will provide the best protection for welders and others from the sun, fumes, flying particles, and slag. Strict regulations dictate that PPE must either be integrated into garments or worn over them. An estimated 2,000 workers sustain eye injuries every day on the job due to inadequate or lack of eye safety equipment. In order to prevent injury or blindness on the job, it is not sufficient to merely wear eye goggles, face protectors, and welding helmets; the right ones must be worn.
Wearing goggles, shields, or helmets with the right lens colour for welding work can protect the eyes from radiation, strain, and fatigue. For example, if the lenses of your glasses are brown, then the filter shade number should be 1.5. Low shade number lenses are ideal for torch soldering, while high shade number filters are necessary for electric arc welding. Protecting one’s eyes from flying debris and fume irritation, safety glasses shield the eyes from potentially damaging ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) radiation emitted by the welding arc. Auto-darkening welding glasses are a novel technological option for welders; these glasses are more comfortable than a traditional welding helmet and can be easily transported, making them useful for use in confined spaces.
They feature a range of tints from 5 to 13, as well as 2 controls to fine-tune the darkness and sensitivity. They can instantly adjust to any changes in lighting conditions and have a wide field of view. It’s important to wear safety glasses under a welding hood, but what about the tint? The standard range of lens shades offered by welding helmets is 9-13; however, when using oxy-fuel cutting equipment or performing GMAW welding in spray mode, it is crucial to select the appropriate lens shade.
Content Summary
- If you’ve ever gotten an arc burn, you know it’s going to be a long, painful night no matter what prompted it.
- If you get your eyes burned on the job, you might wake up with a sandpapery sensation in the middle of the night.
- We are still surprised by how many fabrication facilities we check out that don’t require their employees to wear eye protection.
- It is your responsibility to keep yourself safe no matter what your employer says about the subject.
- Spend the extra money on a new pair of safety glasses if your current ones have any of these problems.
- Wear welding safety glasses at all times to prevent injury to your eyes.
- In addition to goggles or safety glasses with side shields, you should wear a face shield or a welding helmet to protect your eyes.
- The amount and quality of light reaching the retina can be adjusted by choosing the appropriate filter shade.
- Welders who require corrective lenses have the option of using either standard safety goggles or a pair of prescription safety glasses to shield their eyes while they work.
- Wearing contact lenses in dusty or chemically rich environments can be problematic.
- Welders are particularly at risk for developing eye injuries or diseases due to their exposure to flying particles, fumes, and radiation.
- However, because of the brightness of the light and the frequency with which welders are exposed to it on the job, they are at a greater risk for health problems.
- In order to keep non-welders safe from the potential dangers associated with welding, some businesses use a shielding curtain.
- However, a face shield or helmet combined with UV-blocking lenses or goggles will provide the best protection.
- Personal protective equipment (PPE) is subject to stringent regulations imposed by Authorities.
- They also provide guidance on how to talk to workers who are affected by hazards and how to get the most out of your safety gear.
- It is not enough to simply wear eye goggles, face protectors, and welding helmets; you must wear the right ones to avoid injury or blindness on the job.
- Wearing protective eyewear, such as goggles, shields, or helmets with the appropriate lens colour for welding work can help keep you safe from eye damage.
- Wear amber-tinted protective eyewear when working in dim conditions.
- Choose safety goggles that won’t slip off your nose because of perspiration.
- When picking out a pair of welding glasses, the shade number is the most crucial factor.
- The lens’s recommended shade depends on the type of welding being performed and the amperage being used, and the shade number indicates the lens’s darkness.
- Welders have a fantastic new technological option in auto-darkening welding glasses.
- Extra toughness is provided by the shock- and heat-resistant construction of the frame and lens.
- Although these safety glasses are significantly more costly than the alternatives, they are of the highest quality and will serve you well for all of your tasks in the workshop.
- Finally, it goes without saying that anyone in a welding shop, whether they are actually welding or not, must always wear protective eyewear.
- Wearing protective eyewear beneath a welding hood is a must, and by now you should be convinced of that.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do you need to wear glasses when welding?
Electromagnetic energy given off by an arc or flame can injure workers’ eyes and is commonly referred to as radiant energy or light radiation. To protect from radiant energy, workers must use personal protective equipment, such as safety glasses, goggles, welding helmets, or welding face shields.
What happens if you weld without glasses?
Welding without adequate eye protection may cause photokeratitis, conjunctivitis, cataracts, skin cancer, burns to the retina and burns to the dermis.
Why do welders lose their eyesight?
Exposure to infrared light can heat the lens of the eye and produce cataracts over the long term. Visible light from welding processes is very bright and can overwhelm the ability of the iris of the eye to close sufficiently and rapidly enough to limit the brightness of the light reaching the retina.
Do safety glasses prevent welders from flashing?
Tinted safety glasses are useful when working outside or to help minimize the effects of arc flash if you accidentally touch a torch to a workpiece without your helmet down when welding. For mechanical work inside the shop, clear lenses are the best.
Does arc eye happen straight away?
The symptoms of arc-eye typically appear several hours after exposure, when the eyes become red, watering and painful, often with a gritty feeling. They may become sensitive to light.
