How to Weld - TIG Welding

Step 8 One Last Check

Hold the electrode in your dominant hand. Make sure it can move freely (untangled, unhampered cord).

Comments

[Obertass]

Are you wearing welding mits when you actually weld?

[themotorman]

I weld have a pacemaker and also am an EE. Sure, if you have a defibrillator in your body NO WELDING!! But if you have a pacemaker then, and depending your reason for a pacemaker, you should be OK. The reason for concern is that if you have to have a functioning pacemaker to stay alive minute to minute then a failure of the pacemaker will mean you die! Most pacemaker users rely on the pacemaker only occasionally and if it failed their own heart would be OK for most of the time.. It is a risk but reasonable.. the number of deaths or injuries due to using a welding system must be very very small as I cannot find any reported. If you are going to weld.. keep the wires away from the pacemaker and do not wrap it around your body...this sounds a bit stupid even if you don't have a pacemaker to me. If you are worried get a pacer monitor and see how your heart functions while you're welding.

[Judy L Durrant]

My dad has welded his whole life, he does it as his business. He just had to have a pacemaker and defibulator put in. He was told that he couldn't weld any more, I need to know if there is a way that he can still weld. It's his love, and I worry about him if he can't get back to normal. Please help if you know of any way that he can weld. thanks, Judy

[themotorman]

I am so sorry about your dad . If he has a pacemaker AND a defib then there is a small risk that the defib will be initiated by the electrical energy from the welder. As the risk is not known both as to whether the welding will affect his defib or not and also even if it did affect the defib if the defib going off would be really bad for your dad. It is not a pleasant experience. It would be perfectly safe to use a torch, oxy/acetylene, for welding. There is even some risk with this as if he became unconscious when welding he could burn something down. Again unknown risks. The bottom line is that your dad should decide himself what he wants to do with the rest of his life, without my pacemaker I would have died , probably in a car accident maybe killing others too. You will find that the doctors opinion is too not do anything but then life without risks isn't worth the living. Only your Dad knows what is best for him I have said this already but it is so, so true. Best wishes. ron themotorman.

[rayfalcon]

ok what if the user(s) are pacing at 62% then what also with my mom she tried mowing last year using a 22 hp wide body murray lt and she claimes that the pacer was lighting her up.....is this possible themotorman says: I weld have a pacemaker and also am an EE. Sure, if you have a defibrillator in your body NO WELDING!! But if you have a pacemaker then, and depending your reason for a pacemaker, you should be OK. The reason for concern is that if you have to have a functioning pacemaker to stay alive minute to minute then a failure of the pacemaker will mean you die! Most pacemaker users rely on the pacemaker only occasionally and if it failed their own heart would be OK for most of the time.. It is a risk but reasonable.. the number of deaths or injuries due to using a welding system must be very very small as I cannot find any reported. If you are going to weld.. keep the wires away from the pacemaker and do not wrap it around your body...this sounds a bit stupid even if you don't have a pacemaker to me. If you are worried get a pacer monitor and see how your heart functions while you're welding.

[themotorman]

It is possible but most unlikely. The only way that a pacemaker would malfunction, apart form normal electronic part failures, is for the lead wires to pick up a signal and it gets interpreted as coming from the heart. The pacemaker has a built in computer that looks at the input and can sort out "noise" fairly well. If by a strange chance the noise was about the same as the normal heart beat then there might be some confusion, this would lead the pacemaker to pace the heart a little differently. Most of us without pacemakers have anomalous heart beats all the time and we don't notice. When I got my pacemaker my wife was so afraid that I called the pacemaker company and got them to re-assure her that I wouldn't die when I used the welder! One final word on this is if it bothers you don't do it.. that applies to everything in life and there is risk in everything around you. BTW I am not a medical doctor and any advice is just my opinion, nothing more..

[rayfalcon]

Ok there's something that everyone that has viewed this tutorial has forgot to comment on and to post as a Major Hazzard health aleart and warning.
If the cord I e. cable wire feeder ect is coiled and the coil is around you Not only will the wire not feed right as with mig welding but it can also be lethal to the user as he / she can stop his/her heart via eihd (electrical heart difibialation) or inducted electricity into your body amounts to the same thing as having a set of difibulators set on 36,000 joules and using them on yourself.
It could even go as far as blowing a hole in you heart .

[themotorman]

Get the facts correct if you are going to be specific, 36,000 joules is not only impossible to generate by any means outside of a major power station it is irrelevant to the safety issue. A defibrillator in a hospital might put out 400 joules max (FYI that's the same energy as a 45 slug !!) and that is with the pads smack onto the body.Blowing a hole in your heart . come on now...let's see your reference on this one!

[stasterisk]

"wire not feed right"? there's no wire feed, and no cable wire feeder, except for the piece of filler metal in your hand which, in some cases, is optional. I think what you're saying is that being in the middle of a coil of wire carrying high current can inductively damage you. Do you have a source for that? Also, I'm not sure what you're saying about mig welding, other than that you might be confused? Please clarify

[masterochicken]

 I think he was trying to say that the wire would not feed right IFyou were MIG welding.

[rayfalcon]

step 2Don't Poison Gas Attack Yourself, etc.
Welders don't live very long.
Smoke including welding smoke is usually full of some poison or other.
Manganese poisoning is one of the hazards, especially if you do a lot of welding in confined spaces. Wear a respirator with the proper filter.

New Zealand has a great online manual on welding safety. The number of ways to harm yourself with welding is truly amazing. I took a welding class once. It turned out I'd been doing some really dangerous things. Lets say you need to arc weld a distance from your welder. So you carry a coil of cable. If you weld with that coil of cable around you, you can stop your heart with an induced current.
yeah i think you are right it is inductive but in the medical fields we call it eihd
but heres a link that will take you to other great sources for it . I originally asked about it when i had to contact licoln electric about one of their electric ac to dc welders while working at the local hospital here in london ky
they were the ones that told us( the Hospital) that it can and usually is lethal. also any one with a pacemaker or atrial defibulator device Is NEVER supposed to weld or be around them at all.....although some of the companies like biotronic and medtronic say that its ok.
oh heres the link before i forget http://www.instructables.com/id/S9PFV3CFMMD5MAM
Great i9nstructable also by the way I just tried it about an hour ago and it works great!

[rayfalcon]

Below is what i was in referance too the same applies with mig arc and straight homemade welders. the link to the infor listed below is provided also

It turned out I'd been doing some really dangerous things. Lets say you need to arc weld a distance from your welder. So you carry a coil of cable. If you weld with that coil of cable around you, you can stop your heart with an induced current.
yeah i think you are right it is inductive but in the medical fields we call it eihd
If you weld with that coil of cable around you, you can stop your heart with an induced current.

http://www.osh.dol.govt.nz/publications/booklets/welding2006/index.html

http://www.instructables.com/id/S9PFV3CFMMD5MAM if you all still do not know what im talking about then it seems as im not the one confused anymore
ive included all links and even included the text describing the risk.

[appsman]

I looked through the material you linked to and could not find any mention of stopping your heart inductively by looping the cable around your body. If your going to make a claim like that, it would have been more helpful to pinpoint the reference a bit better (if it's really there). I'm not disagreeing with you, but I've still seen nothing to back up the statement.

[CHEVY6998]

I would recommend the opposite. You should always feed the filler material with your most dexterous hand (writing hand) and trail with the torch in the opposite hand.