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Tack welding tig without a helmet

bw77

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I have no experience with TIG, just stick.

Watching Orange County Choppers, the guys do most of their tacking using a tig torch and no helmet. Is that considered ok to do?
 
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ishiboo

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Oshkosh, WI
I have no experience with TIG, just stick.

Watching Orange County Choppers, the guys do most of their tacking using a tig torch and no helmet. Is that considered ok to do?

They look the other way/close their eyes. It's not a particularly good idea. UV from welding can actually go through your eyelids, it's that intense. If you have some quick tacks to do sure, but don't make it a habit.
 

Grumpy365

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Brazoria County Texas
I think they are probably taking with a MIG (not a tig), but I may be wrong.

It's fine just don't peek or you will feel the sand man coning to visit you before bed and you'll be putting potatos on your eyes in the morning.
 
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I run a shop with 35 welders, you won't see it in my shop. Not because I'm some SOB. Because they are professionals and they understand the long term negative's. If your a welder that alone is hard enough on your eyes. Why would anyone want to add more risk doing closed eye tacks.
 

HotShoe

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Flash burn is nothing to mess around with. Do yourself a favor and get an auto darkening helmet. Works great and you won't put your vision at risk. You should also get in the habit of wearing a jacket or some type of cover. The UV burn you can get on your arms, etc. from welding is nasty.

The various TV shows promote a lot of knucklehead habits that would get you fired in any shop.
 

Orangestang

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Glendale ,AZ
Have I done it? sure but I also have welding gloves on and look the other way. What gets me is the lack of safety gear. How can you tack/weld with no welders jacket, gloves, safety glasses and a helmet. Are they trying to look cool? Its the same when your welding/grinding on cars. I've had my one trip to ER to get metal out my eye and that was with safety glasses on.
 

darkk

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Willimantic, Ct.
I have no experience with TIG, just stick.

Watching Orange County Choppers, the guys do most of their tacking using a tig torch and no helmet. Is that considered ok to do?

NO! NO! NO! OCC guys are hackers! without regard to their health or the equipment they work on. Again...NO! NO! NO! the long term affects can be devastating to your eyes. If you happen to wear contact lenses, you can weld them to your corneas! Welding or flash burn hurts like sand in your eyes. You only have one set so take care of them.
 

ARAMP1

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It was explained once on powerblock, the reason most shows do that is because the camera and stage lights are so bright, the helmet is already darkened, so they quickly look away to tack.
 

Zeke

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You can get a burned retina even when looking away with the eyes closed. The burn spot may be way over in your peripheral vision, but it will be there. You have to completely turn your head away. A real function of a welding helmet is to stop radiation from hitting anywhere on the face. Smart welders wear thyroid protection as well. TV fabricators are idiots for the most part.

And yes, they are tacking up with MIG and TIG.
 

fatkidracer

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DuBois, PA
they tack with a MIG for the most part on that sorry excuse for a TV show. if your REALLY good and your fit-up is Really good you can cup a TIG torch and use it to fuse tack and never see the weld flash.

place i used to work didn't even have a MIG in the shop so you had to get good at tacking with a TIG. but its always better to wear a hood.
 

bad_idea

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It was explained once on powerblock, the reason most shows do that is because the camera and stage lights are so bright, the helmet is already darkened, so they quickly look away to tack.

i'm not buying that excuse. i work w/ professional welders in ship repair and they tack with a regular lense. for that matter i was tacking with tig (not mig) this morning with a regular shield. it doesn't take that much coordination. they are just lazy.

have you seen the episode of horsepower when the guy got a chunk of something in his eye w/ a die grinder? he had glasses on, but blamed the loose fit of the glasses. he gave a quick lesson to the audience saying to buy close fitting glasses to avoid that issue. no, no, no, thats what face shields are for. do not learn technique and safety from the tv shows.

osha standards are driven into my head at work, and i carry them into the home garage. my brother came over to the house Saturday w/ his wife while i was welding my workbench up. she said i was dressed funny! :) i was wearing my steel toed boots, long sleeved denim shirt buttoned only at the neck and wrists (to protect arms, but it's too hot out to button all the way up), leather gloves, safety glasses, face shield and ear muffs (i was grinding when they drove up) - and shorts. i know, should have worn pants, but it's too hot to follow that rule!
 

John in OH

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I run a shop with 35 welders, you won't see it in my shop. Not because I'm some SOB. Because they are professionals and they understand the long term negative's. If your a welder that alone is hard enough on your eyes. Why would anyone want to add more risk doing closed eye tacks.

+1 !!! I retired from an electric utility ... generation side. Our maintenance crews and our contractors (boilermakers and pipefitters) did a tremendous amount of welding. Any type of welding nonsense without proper eye protection was grounds for immediate dismissal ... and the unions totally supported this position.

Don't be a fool, NEVER screw around with anything that could damage your eyesight. Especially when good auto darkening hoods are readily available at any welding supply store.
 

240sxguy

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Madison, wi
I was foolish and fabricated all day during tacks with no helmet on and got terrible "sunburn" from it. It's a bad idea.
 

Frank The Plumber

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If you weld with the TIG unprotected for about 15 minutes you will smell some one cooking chicken. You may pause and look around and wonder, Who is cooking chicken at 9 AM on a Monday?

You then go back to work and the chicken smell is back, you go out side and look around.

Who in the hell is cooking chicken?

You start to think, that chicken smells pretty good, I think I shall have to some of that chicken for lunch,where is this place where they are cooking this chicken in this neighborhood I am working in?

You weld a bit longer. Again this chicken smell. You may go out searching now because you are really getting quite interested in this chicken.

You walk around up and down the street asking all of these people, "Do you know where the chicken place is?" Each seems just as puzzled as the next, it's as if you are filming "JackAss" or something.

You come across a young lady whom you ask, Excuse me do you know where this wonderful smell of chicken is coming from and finally you get the answer.

"Dude it's you. you smell like chicken"

About fifteen minutes later your arms turn bright red. Later that evening when you go home your wife will ask you. Did you have chicken for lunch today, it smells really good.

Sure, it smells good but the cancer is a *****.

And flash goes right through the eyelid skin, it's about a shield of 1/2.

Must smell like chicken a lot at OCC.
 

ibedayank

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OCC...an example of what NOT to do
they are not bike builders but catalog parts assemblers

a triumph chopper does not use a harley frame or floorboards
 

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Buckgnarly

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Had arc burn once.....I USED to close my eyes for quick tacks.

One time and if you have an once of brain you'll never do it again. Others are simply too dumb to learn from others....wish I had not been in that group....:thumbup:
 

gte718p

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I can speak from experience. I've had flash burn from tacking without glasses. Not fun.
 

gorilla

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Why would you want to risk your eyesight? Use a good auto-dark helmet. A good rule of thumb is if they do it on OCC don't do it. Most of their work gets buried under a 1/2" of Bondo.
 

ozyborn

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Apr 26, 2011
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Tack weld anything anyway without a helmet? Idiots. You only have one set of eyes. Take care of them Even taking all the precautions, you will get flashburned at some time. Then a raw potato slice is your friend.
 

justanengineer

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Motor City
OCC? Know them, hate them. Monkey attitudes like theirs are a big portion of the reason I enlisted (grew up 20 mins from their shop). I remember way back when they had issues when a few of their bikes fell apart on the road and customers sued, but never did hear how they got out of those cases. As for what they pass off as fabrication, I wouldnt do it.
 

nismomans13

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just for the record, every single person in the world with a welder has tacked something without wearing a hood at one time or another. You can say you never did it a million times, but at some point in your life weather you recall it or not you laid down a quick mig tack because you needed to and you just didn't have your hood close. As usual the saftey police are in full effect here.

Sure its not reccommended, but laying down a tack here and there by closing your eyes isn't going to cause flash burn, you won't go blind, and the solar system won't implode. But my official recommendation as a certified welder is wear your hood as much as possible.
 

Frank The Plumber

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just for the record, every single person in the world with a welder has tacked something without wearing a hood at one time or another. You can say you never did it a million times, but at some point in your life weather you recall it or not you laid down a quick mig tack because you needed to and you just didn't have your hood close. As usual the saftey police are in full effect here.

Sure its not reccommended, but laying down a tack here and there by closing your eyes isn't going to cause flash burn, you won't go blind, and the solar system won't implode. But my official recommendation as a certified welder is wear your hood as much as possible.

Not Me!
I personally dislike a MIG unit, MIG weld and therefore use only SMAW, OXY or TIG. You're not getting a tack in those systems without getting a full *** kicking load of light in the retinas.
 

Falcon67

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Merkel, TX
My helmet hangs on the bottle, so it is always with the welder. One time I did a tack and forgot to flip down the lens on my old hood - ouch! Went and bought the autodark the next day. My autodark is rather sensitive to bright light on the weld area, which I really need so I can see dammit. I just keep moving the light around until it dooesn't trigger the helmet.
 

Zeke

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just for the record, every single person in the world with a welder has tacked something without wearing a hood at one time or another. You can say you never did it a million times, but at some point in your life weather you recall it or not you laid down a quick mig tack because you needed to and you just didn't have your hood close. As usual the saftey police are in full effect here.

Sure its not reccommended, but laying down a tack here and there by closing your eyes isn't going to cause flash burn, you won't go blind, and the solar system won't implode. But my official recommendation as a certified welder is wear your hood as much as possible.
Maybe you have thick eyelids.

The other thing about auto dark lens is when you are leaning in on a project and something between the work and your sensor on the helmet blocks the light. Blam! You get a good flash. The welding instructor I had for 2 years says the green tint is good enough to prevent burn on a short burst.

Hah! Maybe he has green eyelids.
 

Buckgnarly

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Maybe you have thick eyelids.

The other thing about auto dark lens is when you are leaning in on a project and something between the work and your sensor on the helmet blocks the light. Blam! You get a good flash. The welding instructor I had for 2 years says the green tint is good enough to prevent burn on a short burst.

Hah! Maybe he has green eyelids.

The good autos also use magnetic field sensors to eliminate that problem
 

bad_idea

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at this point i would venture to say the horse is barely recognizable. i hope the op gets the message loud and clear.
 

StingRay

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Saskatoon,SK. Canada
Even clear safety glasses add a small degree of flash protection. They filter out some UV and will reflect a bit of the flash away. It's enough to help some if you are caught near a weldor when they stike up an arc before you can close your eyes and look away.
 

iajonesy

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Iowa
If you look carefully you will find dozens of unsafe acts at OCC. They drill,grind,water jet,shear,and many other operations without safety glasses or shields of any kind. They also throw various items at each other. They (the Pauls) should have just shot each other years ago..... oh wait they wouldn't have gotten rich if they did that.

Mike
 

lilredex

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Toronto
Hand held "instructor's shield would be a minimum..............anything less is just plain stupidity.



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This would also make a very good sheet metal project if you have some old duct work in your stash. Look for the larger 4 X 5" lense size. Good for shop "visitors" who want to watch you work, too!
 

Frank The Plumber

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Maybe the old guy there Paul is getting harder to understand because of exposure, dare, ummmm, ummm, from all dat dare dum stuff he has ben a doin over dare for all dos dare years, ummmm ahhhhh, ummmm, yah, dare.
 
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