3 Tips for Better Weld Visibility

you ever feel like you're welding blind like you can't see the weld pool through your mask well it's a very common thing and it's a question that we get a lot hi I'm Andy Fogarty from the at-home water comm and I'm here for King metals comm and today I'm going to give you a couple quick and easy tips to be able to see what you're doing through your math so this is a really common problem and honestly it still happens to me quite a bit as well when I'm using an older mask over time you just you you learn you almost get a sixth sense of what it is that you're doing and you learn how you know how things sound you know how the gun feels you know the trajectory that your hand is supposed to be moving that's something you get with more and more experience but until you get that kind of experience and even after you have that experience you need to be able to see what you're doing so here are a couple things that can cause you to not be able to see what it is you're doing now one of the things that causes this is just an inexpensive mask or a cheap mask now there's nothing wrong with cheap Mash if that's all you can afford that it's better than nothing but the problem is with a lot of lower end masks is they don't activate as fast maybe they do in the beginning but over time a short amount of time they'll start to wear and they just don't activate as fast now what that does is it creates that although it's just a split second I mean just split second up a flash before it activates that's enough of a flash on your eyes to affect them and I know a lot of you know what I'm talking about you get kind of this white blindness or you'll be able you'll see spots and you might not know why it is and that's what it is it's just that split-second of a flash that's so bright it shocks your eyes and it takes them a while to to figure out what's going on now one way to combat that flash is to obviously just get a better helmet now I understand that that's not an option for everyone because better helmets well they cost a lot of money sometimes more than the welder than your youth that you're using so what do you do if you don't have the budget if you just simply don't have it and I understand well you can go very old school and just go with the old handheld masks now obviously we've robbed the glass out of here for something else but you can pick these up really inexpensive Home Depot Lowe's any hardware store is going to have these and you know it has a super dark piece of glass here and you just hold this up while you're welding and there you go you're good now the downside to this is you are losing a hand while you're working you don't have a hand so if you're doing a lot of making and you're new to this you don't know how to hold the gun you're using the the two hand technique where you're resting the gun on one of your hands well that's obviously going to be a problem the next problem is these are so dark that you literally can't see what you're doing until you start welding you need that light that flash from the well to be able to see through these glasses so what if that's not an option for you either you don't want to go that route and you still want to use an auto darkening mask well a quick and easy way pair of sunglasses now I have a nicer pair of sunglasses but it really doesn't matter so these are polarized but honestly we've done this both ways you just put your sunglasses on then put your mask on over your sunglasses and that gives you an extra layer of protection from that spark now I suggest the polarize if you have that just simply because polarized are made to help keep that nastiness from the sunrays out and that is basically what we're looking at here when we're welding is it's like looking at the Sun now third and last tip is just to take your mask and set it outside in the sunlight for a while let it recharge that's how these masks charge they're actually solar-powered you'll notice on your auto darkening mask somewhere you're gonna have little lenses here that look like solar panels and that's exactly what they are they're solar panels that's how these masks recharge and get their strength so just set it outside in sunlight for a while before you start welding but I'll give it a little bit more juice for when it's starting and of course it'll start to charge up some more while you're welding know if it's not charging you're not noticing any difference and you notice it's getting worse then you just need to replace your helmet all together hate to say it but that's just what you need to do you need to protect these eyes all right that's it so hope these tips helped you out while you'd be able to see your weld a little bit better I know that's such an annoying pain in the butt to not be able to see what you're doing so that's it I'm Andy fo ready from the at home Walter calm and I'm here for King metals calm and hey if you want more great tips like this come over the at-home welder calm sign up go in the community and we're gonna send your weekly tips and tricks and other cool stuff that you need to know as a DIY welder that's it I will see you again next time

Channel: KingMetalsInc

Views: 159,107

Rating: 4.4821324 out of 5

Keywords: King Architectural Metals, Andy Fogarty, King Metals, welding, welding tips, welding visibitliy, welding accuracy

Id: JqXsDY1lf0s

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2015