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boyleblue  
#1 Posted : 12 April 2017 14:59:35(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
boyleblue

Hi

During recent maintenance work an experienced fitter was welding and when obtaining new welding rod he lifted welding shield and slag popped of workpiece into his eye.

Is it common practice for welders to wear safety glasses or safety goggles under welding shield ?

Want to try and implement practical corrective action

Any help would be greatly appreciated

HSE Chris Wright  
#2 Posted : 12 April 2017 17:53:14(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
HSE Chris Wright

I would never enforce the use of both, the welding lens is designed to be used in lieu of glasses. Welding as we know emits high heat levels which can cause operatives to sweat more and glasses are known to fog - this, in my opinion, causes more of a safety risk.

A Brown  
#3 Posted : 12 April 2017 18:09:43(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
A Brown

I would agree with the above in general, but looking at alternatives such as photoreactive masks or 'flip up' welding masks may also highlight opportunities to prevent recurance.

We recently purchased a positive pressure air hood with flip up reactive welding glass over a full face shield for our metalwork technician. It came via BOC (or whatever they are called these days) and was surprisingly affordable - but we only have the one guy to kit out. I think it was around £300

He was initially sceptical, but is a very quick convert. Now he walks about like the love child of Darth Vader and Iron man! only issue is he can'r combine it with ear defenders, so has to use plugs (along with our other efforts to reduce noise)

Al

johnmurray  
#4 Posted : 12 April 2017 19:43:54(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
johnmurray

There is an endless selection available. A cheap option is the basic helmet, but the clear/tinted pair flip up leaving another plain lens for eye protection. Usually clear polycarbonate. About a tenner, minus glass. From there, the sky is the limit. Up to several hundred pounds. The next option up is a helmet with photo-reactive glass... All this is pretty basic stuff....
chris42  
#5 Posted : 13 April 2017 07:58:37(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
chris42

In the last place I worked we had the exact same issue. We found the welder would remove their masks often and we had a number of eye injuries. We found a supplier of ultra-low profile glasses which fitted very close to the head. The helmets were air fed and we never had a problem with them steaming up. To be honest no real difference to a welder who needed prescription glasses to see.

Chris

Nick A  
#6 Posted : 20 April 2017 13:41:58(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Nick A

I have direct experience of this issue, when we changed to battery powered air fed respirators the issue from a welding perspective almost disappeared, we do however when grinding insist that our fabricators wear safety glasses underneath full face grinding visors, we still have occasional issues with foreign body injuries to eyes, usually when removing the visors, but the volume has reduced considerably.

Regards

Nick

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