Welding Tips and Tricks

Ok, have any of you guys experienced any burns around your eyes from welding, even with a hood on?

I'm TIG welding a custom shop (dish tables, medical grade cabinets and artsy stuff) and I've recently started to get burns just under the eyes (the 'bags') and on the upper eyelids, even though I'm wearing my helmet. At first I thought it was my helmet (Yeswelder Q800D), so I bought a new, quality helmet (Viking 3350). Today I got home and the burns are back.

Shade is on 10, I'm only running around 100 amps and the hood is down whenever the pedal is pushed (unless I'm moving the pedal with my foot and I have an 'oooops'...), so I'm trying to figure out why I'm getting burnt even though I've got my helmet on and down.

Anyone go any experience with this, or any ideas? The only thing I can think of is to find some sunblock that I can wear around my eyes, but that's going to be really annoying, especially when the sweat starts running ( and right now, that's within 2 hours of getting in the shop at 7am....).

Thanks in advance,
Rob

Yes especially on SS work. It reflects much more light back at you.

I'm glad I'm not crazy and someone brought up stainless before I did. Yes, shiny reflective metal surfaces can absolutely bounce the arc up under your hood enough to give your face and or neck a mild sunburn and for some reason stainless seems to be heads above any other material for doing it. Maybe it's just that a lot of stainless tends to be more polished than other materials and therefore more reflective, but during a pontoon repair I did once a portion of the welding was done on a polished stainless steel table. Despite it being less than an hour total welding and all the other crazy out of position tig I did wasn't in places that would allow much reflection up under my helmet, I had a sunburnt looking face and mild eye irriation/arc eye for 2-3 days after.

Hi vis tape on uniforms and jewellery does it too. So we cut off any reflective tape and keep necklaces under shirt, I completely remove rings / golden finger nooses anyway. Maybe Dark drill shirt if you can.
Make sure inside of helmet is matt black, it usually is but worth checking.

Shit... It wasn't SS as I've just been welding up mild steel frames, BUT I am welding on a Stronghand Tools welding table with a nice, SHINEY top....

Thanks guys, I would've never figured this one out. Luckily, I've been putting sun screen on and it's going ok.

test

Don't get it. I've said my piece twice now and the only thing that went through was "test". Keeps telling me to log on to post. I AM logged on

Nuke32 wrote: ↑Fri Sep 10, 2021 11:11 pm Don't get it. I've said my piece twice now and the only thing that went through was "test". Keeps telling me to log on to post. I AM logged on

mods may have not cleared your post.
due to the large amount of spammers each person is checked before they are allowed to post, that can take some time. especially if its the weekend or staff are busy.

i do mod duties on another forum and fortunately that one has automatic checking so i only have to check the few it flags.

Please remove my profile if possible. Definitely a glitch somewhere. Not much fun. Can't leave a post without getting a "logon" message.

Nuke32 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:54 pm Please remove my profile if possible. Definitely a glitch somewhere. Not much fun. Can't leave a post without getting a "logon" message.

thats not a profile issue, thats more of a browser and cookie issue.
find the cookies for this site and delete them. then log back in and remember to tick the box.

also it would pay to turn off any add blocking setup in case its blocking the cookies.

Don't rely on sunscreen. If your getting burnt under your eyes your eyes are getting burnt. You will end up with cataracts. A dark shirt is a must and a welding hood bib. Don't mess around with your eyes bro. even if you don't loose your sight all together you wont be welding if you can't see well enough. Like if one eye gets worse than the other your depth perception is diminished or just gone. You get cataracts and can't see because there is a black spot where ever you look at, forever. Protect yourself!

I agree that wearing sun screen is sort of like removing the smoke detectors to take care of that annoying beeping from all the strange smoke filling the room, while getting minor UV burns on part of your face doesn't mean your eyes are in line to receive the same level of exposure, it's a lot better to know you'll dealing with a situation where reflective surfaces are causing UV to reach your face underneath your welding helmet and therefor something needs to be corrected to eliminate that, than just prevent your skin from reacting leaving only the most important part of your face to protect from UV exposed to it. If anything one should use any UV burns around the face as an early warning sign that your eyes themselves may be also getting exposed and thus look into correcting the situation by either adding additional cloth/leather protection like a neck guard/helmet bib or backhood to your helmet or taking care to avoid those reflective surfaces. Remember your skin isn't as sensitive as your eyes in the first place either. Especially once summer rolls around I can tig weld for a good 15 minutes or longer in a T shirt or even tank top and have zero skin redness/sensitivity the next day from it, Yes I know it's still bad for your skin, and not best practice. But my point is that if I welded for 15 minutes without a hood, well.... you get the picture.

Hey guys, sorry for taking so long to get back to this, but I JUST got out of the dermatologists office.

So, turns out it was 'burns' per se, but actually Periorbital Dermatitis. Otherwise known as eczema around the eyes. The radiation/light from welding probably just aggravated it, but it didn't cause it. Haven't picked up the prescription for it yet, but she told me it was just Hydrocortizone, just at a slightly higher strength than OTC.