Posted By M. Thompson I have worked as a safety rep / coordinator within the steel fabrication industry for the last 7 years or so, and can tell you that this is fairly usual practice. Is it a fibreglass face shield, or plastic? the fibreglass full face shields should have a data sheet with them when new, telling you of their abilities. also, there are usually 2 lenses on these, which, although are breakable, it's vastly unlikely that a grinding disk will break off and go through them. Also, on a normal clear face visor, there's more likelyhood of bits going up under the visor, which doesn't happen on the welding screen, as it comes under the chin. The other option is that you contact the supplier or manufacturer of the visor. I'm not saying it would never happen, but I'm relatively confident that it is reasonably practicable! Hope this helps, Mike.

Posted By Chris Packham My first action would be to consult the manufacturer. If he does not confirm its suitability, then my response would be that it should not be used for the purpose described. It is a duty placed on the employer to ensure that any PPE supplied is suitable for the purpose. Since you have no way of testing the performance of the item in terms of impact protection, in the absence of the supplier's confirmation, how can you consider you have fulfilled this duty? Chris