Another HF bozo...

[URY914]

I was reading on FerrariChat (no, I don't own one) where one guy just discovered all the great deals to be found at Harbor Fright. He was bashed pretty good by most of the relpies. Then one guy agrees with the first guy and posts that his "favorite score was the auto darkening welding helmet for around $30." This guy is trusting his EYES to a $30 welding helmet?!?!? He is slowly going blind and doesn't even know it.

It never fails to surprise me how cheap and stupid people can be about their own safety.

 

[Kelly]

I was reading on FerrariChat (no, I don't own one) where one guy just discovered all the great deals to be found at Harbor Fright. He was bashed pretty good by most of the relpies. Then one guy agrees with the first guy and posts that his "favorite score was the auto darkening welding helmet for around $30." This guy is trusting his EYES to a $30 welding helmet?!?!? He is slowly going blind and doesn't even know it.

It never fails to surprise me how cheap and stupid people can be about their own safety.

while i agree that alot of the things sold at HF arentvery trust worthly, not everything they sell there is junk.

the welding helmet you are referring to would NOT be allowed to be sold if it was dangerous.
the difference between the nice miller helmets and HF helmet are:
the time it takes to darken: the HF is around 1/12000ish whereas the miller ones are 1/30000ish
the size of the viewing window
the coverage around the neck and on the top of the head
the miller probably has a nice headband, and is probably thicker plastic.

please dont take this as me calling the HF mask great,
but to claim it as unsafe, i dont think is fair.

again, this is just my take of things.
im surprised someone on a Ferrari board even admitted shopping at HF. he probably had his assistant go buy it

 

[OldCarGuy]

I'm with URY914 on this one.
I would no sooner protect my eyes with a $40.00 Harbor Freight welding helmet than I would work under a car suspended by a cheap imported lift that isn‘t ALI/ETL Certified. My personal welding helmet choice is a Hornell Speedglas.

 

[URY914]

There is no way to gauge if the glass is tinted correctly. You use this helmet for a year than go to your eye doctor and he says you have burnt retinas. What are you going to do then? This would effect your eyes very slowly and you may not realize it is happening.

To say it would not be allowed to be sold if it was unsafe is a bit naive. Unsafe products are sold everyday.

 

[eschoendorff]

Now wait a minute! I have a HF auto dark helmet and it darkens in 1/25000 sec. I have NEVER been flashed by it and it works just fine.

I think that you guys are too quick to judge something by it's price. Show me ANY evidence that a $200 welding helmet will keep anyone more safe than a $60 one. There are plenty of people who use the HF helmets and who are quite happy with them.

Granted, HF sell a lot of ****. But if you buy using common sense and have realistic expectations, I can't see how you can go wrong.

It amazes me how many people think that something is inherently better because it has XYZ brand name on it.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

 

[URY914]

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Obviously, that seems to be the case here.

 

[Jokeman]

Now wait a minute! I have a HF auto dark helmet and it darkens in 1/25000 sec. I have NEVER been flashed by it and it works just fine.

I think that you guys are too quick to judge something by it's price. Show me ANY evidence that a $200 welding helmet will keep anyone more safe than a $60 one. There are plenty of people who use the HF helmets and who are quite happy with them.

Granted, HF sell a lot of ****. But if you buy using common sense and have realistic expectations, I can't see how you can go wrong.

It amazes me how many people think that something is inherently better because it has XYZ brand name on it.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

I wouldnt trust my eyes to a 60 dollar hood. Especially with the reputation HF's tools have.

 

[eschoendorff]

Obviously, that seems to be the case here.

You gotta be kidding....

 

[Rickster]

the welding helmet you are referring to would NOT be allowed to be sold if it was dangerous.

Check if your welding helmet has some sort of ANSI or ECE approval sticker on it. If not, they'll probably have just enough test data on hand to show they pass a reasonable specification within an acceptable tolerence for factory error. I don't have a welding set-up yet but I plan on a purchase sometime in the near future and, sorry here, but I won't trust my eyesight to Harbor Freight. I like good old HF and for a lot of things they're just fine, but IMHO some things are worth spending a little more for.

 

[toxicz28]

the miller probably has a nice headband, and is probably thicker plastic.

While I will agree about the headband,it is nice, the plastic isn't very thick. It's actually pretty flimsy. The Miller helmet is more suited to TIG welding(no spatter).

 

[Rory Bellows]

I don't own one but the HF helmet meets ANSI standards.

 

[rockwithjason]

It would be funny if the glass in the HF unit came out of the same factory as the speedglass unit....

 

[ZRX61]

Now wait a minute! I have a HF auto dark helmet and it darkens in 1/25000 sec. I have NEVER been flashed by it and it works just fine.

I had THREE of those POS **** out on me in less than a month... after they exchanged the 3rd one I left it in the box & PX'd it a while later for a metal cutting bandsaw
I prefer my welding helmet to react to the arc, not randomly at any time... & I don't want them turning on & off every 2 or 3 seconds when running a bead.....
The Miller XLi I have is light years ahead of the HF helmet...

 

[eschoendorff]

I had THREE of those POS **** out on me in less than a month... after they exchanged the 3rd one I left it in the box & PX'd it a while later for a metal cutting bandsaw
I prefer my welding helmet to react to the arc, not randomly at any time... & I don't want them turning on & off every 2 or 3 seconds when running a bead.....
The Miller XLi I have is light years ahead of the HF helmet...

I can't speak to your experience, but mine works flawlessly.

 

[the intimidator]

I agree with everybody here I would not trust my eyes to a cheap welding helmet of the sort that harbor freight sells and the other discount tool stores sell. That said I know a few people who have bought them and have not had any issues with them. I weld with a miller XLix series helmet It is a very lightweight comfortable helmet and it simply works as it is suppost to and does a very good job at it. As for the guy with the Ferrari shoping at HF well he must have spent all his mony on the car or he simply isnt all there

 

[trust]

I, too, have a helmet and as long as the battery is good it works fine, there was some osort of certification lable on it but I don't recall whose. The harness is a POS though.

More interesting to me though was that once while in HF the 'foreign national' in front of me returned a tool, don't recall the specifics, and the clerk asked her supervisor how to code the return as the customer didn't speak enough english to answer her questions. The Supervisor said 'just mark it DUI' I puzzled over that for a while and finally the supervisor leaned over and said 'done using it' That still makes me laugh.

 

[OldCarGuy]

It would be funny if the glass in the HF unit came out of the same factory as the speedglass unit....

I don’t think so. The Speedglas helmet is made in Sweden, and I would venture a guess that Harbor Freight’s are made in China.

Indeed Some of HB’s helmets meet the old ANSI Z87.1-1989. But All of the Speedglas’s meet the newest standard of ANSI Z87.1-2003, along with Europeans Community’s CE EN 379 and Australian AS/NZS 1338 standards. Hornell has puts far more energy into designing and manufacturing their present products, along with developing future products.