Welding Safely 焊接安全

Proper Ventilation for Welding Tips &

Techniques

"Hello, My name is Mac and I would like to talk to you about welding shop ventilation.

Now inside of a welding shop, we have already talked about the different types of

gases that we use and the smokes that can occur when you are welding, and it is

good idea to have adequate ventilation. Adequate ventilation can be as simple as

opening a door or window and letting in some fresh air but in a lot of cases in larger

shops it is necessary to have a duct work installed with proper fans and make up

heaters or cooling systems that will heat or cool the air, fresh air as it has been drawn

into the building to replace the air that has been sucked out by the ventilating fans.

Proper ventilation systems can also include smoke eaters that filter the air inside of a

welding shop taking out the smoke and dust and part of fine particles in the air. It is

very important for your health to protect yourself from smoking gases. They can cause

a long-term health effects if you are exposed to them chronically."

Tool Safety for Welding Equipment

Now a welder in a welding shop will use a wide variety of tools power tools and hand

tools. Lets discuss power tools first, this is a small grinder and it is a very useful tool

and you will find them almost everywhere. Now if you pick this tool up and you notice

that it has got a frayed electrical cord with exposed wires do not use it, get it repaired.

Another thing that I often find in welding shops is the welders will take their shielding

guard off of the back of grinder. This is really a bad idea. This can cause some very

serious hand injuries. The guard in on there to prevent you from actually bringing your

hand into contact with the grinder, the moving part of the grinder the disk while you are

working with it. It is also designed that when you set it down on a surface and the

wheel is still turning inadvertently that it does not take off on you. It is important that

you keep these kinds of tools, grinders, electric drills etc. in tiptop operating condition.

Working with a tool in poor condition is a recipe for disaster and injury. The other kinds

of tools that you will use are hand tools, wrenches and this a hammer we found a

broken one in our shop. Now I have seen a lot of welders over the years take a broken

ball-peen hammer like this and instead of replacing the wooden handle they will just

weld a piece a pipe on to it and that is really not a good fix. Steel handle on a

ball-peen hammer is a kind of fix that is second rate than as you use it the handle can

break off and the head can fly away or the handle can slip out of our hand and the

hammer can strike someone. Very, very poor idea. Tools maintained properly that the

jaws and wrenches are not stripped, so that they are stretched that they slip off of nuts

somethings like that. Good condition, good quality tools safe working environment."

Tripping Hazards When Welding

Now a lot of welding shops have a lot of weld cables, hoses for air tools, extension

cords for electrical tools and very often they are scattered around lying all over the

shop. In addition there will be material flat bar or pipe etc. cut offs from different

machines, just scrap metal lying around in the shop they become a tripping hazard

and good housekeeping is essential for a safe environment in your welding shop.

Welding cables, when you are done with them, they should be just coiled up, hung up

off the floor or put away so that the people cannot trip over them. TIG torches, stick

electrode whips all of these things should rolled up put away. If you are not using it put

it away. A special interest is this item here, this is the leftover of a spool of MIG wire

when it is changed and very often I will find these things lying on a floor, that is a

tripping hazard, it is a snare, someone will walk through that get their feet tangled in it

and end up been brought down by this trip wire. The proper way to dispose these roll

it into a bundle make a bow tie out of it tie it up like this and throw it in the garbage as

soon as you are done with the stuff. It is dangerous and it should not be left lying

around."

Handling Gas Cylinders Safely When Welding

Now here I have a high pressure gas cylinder on a MIG machine. This is an inert gas

and when these bottles are to be changed you have to follow the following procedures

to be safe. You will notice that when the gas bottle is sitting in the machine it is firmly

restrained by a chain, that keeps the bottle from falling over. Now the problem with

this is this is just a brass top on top of this cylinder here. If this cylinder were to fall