Welding Tips and Tricks

I've been following the advice on feeding rod while watching TV, etc and have now clocked up quite a few hours.
The result is that the 3 fingers of the glove are now a shiny dark grey from polishing the rod.
How do you folks usually clean this off without damaging a not cheap glove? I have some good car leather cleaner but haven't tried anything yet.

Couldn't get a single hit from Google..
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I used to care about how the glove looked but what you will find as you go, the glove is going to get wrecked no matter how much you clean it or try to preserve it.

There is really no point, If you don't like the discoloring, I would get black palmed gloves instead of white. Any piece of stock material you touch has some type of dust or similar stuff on it, steel especially and it will discolor your glove.

I'd be more concerned with what any type of leather cleaner might be putting into your gloves (to later contaminate the rod) than the aluminium residue.

I normally have 3 pairs of gloves on the go at any one time; the best/new pair, the well-worn pair and the 'headed for the bin' pair.

I use the best pair for super clean jobs and finicky detail welding work that must be super clean. The second best pair I use when I know I'll be handling dirty steel and doing some fabrication work that doesn't need to be pretty. The third pair, the really worn ones that have had the fingertips scorched and hardened, just become general work gloves.



Kym

It's not the look I was concerned about. Couldn't care less about the colour. It was more about how there's so much being said about being super clean with aluminium.
What's the point in wiping down the rod with acetone, etc then running that rod through an oxide covered glove?
Remember you're talking to an old newbie here and a simple hobbyist to boot

Anyway, the auto leather cleaner worked a treat. Ran a quick bead without the slightest hint of contamination.
Cheers

I just finally broke down and bought a couple new pairs of tig gloves after 2 years of using the same pair. I hated to give them up but I finally burnt a hole in the thumb from pulling red hot tungsten out of the torch. They look like I was wiping an elephants ass that had the runs really bad and I never noticed any contamination. If you give your filler rods a quick scrub with a scotch brite that eliminates more crud than what can be transfered from a glove....unless your welding for NASA and then they probably buy your gloves for you. Unless you are doing class A welding get your base metal clean and melt something together. Are we supposed to wear freshly laundered clothing to weld in a dirty shop too?

We had a guy on the facebook page that claimed to have used the same gloves (pair) for almost 30 years.He claimed that he only used them for arc on time and removed them for everything else. I have trouble accepting that, because even being careful, mine wear out.

Mick

Well.... Lets consider it for a second.

Aluminum oxide technically oxidizes and so passivates when it contacts oxygen, that's how it protects itself, its similar to stainless. Passivation i think is reserved for stainless but what the hell, its essentially the same concept.

By you running your rod through your hands does not break the oxide layer on the rod, nor are you deoxidizing it at any point unless your gloves are sandpaper. (not trying to give you a hard time or anything, just trying to teach you a lil' somethin'.)

The only thing you do when you run it through your hands, is clean it of any dust or particles that may be on it.

I have personally never done it that way and I have never had a problem with my welds being contaminated due to the filler rod, I only have issues with the parent metal. The only time you really have to worry about your rod getting filthed up is if your cutting steel, wood, tile or any other material and your rods are exposed (which they shouldn't be if that's the case) and dust can settle on them.

Good practice is to keep them protected, we have a mill near us that have a welding station, all their rods are mixed and exposed, covered in sawdust and what not. When I work there I have to wipe all the rods I plan to use with alcohol or acetone or it will get contaminated but in my own shop, they are exposed but I don't cut a whole lot in there and I keep them stored high up.

weldin mike 27 wrote:We had a guy on the facebook page that claimed to have used the same gloves (pair) for almost 30 years.He claimed that he only used them for arc on time and removed them for everything else. I have trouble accepting that, because even being careful, mine wear out.

Mick

A recon he must have been exclusively burning one of them soft rods, with his glove.

Olivero wrote:Well.... Lets consider it for a second.

By you running your rod through your hands does not break the oxide layer on the rod, nor are you deoxidizing it at any point unless your gloves are sandpaper. (not trying to give you a hard time or anything, just trying to teach you a lil' somethin'.)

The only thing you do when you run it through your hands, is clean it of any dust or particles that may be on it.

I respectfully disagree but do thank you for trying to teach me something.

The shiny grey finish on my glove where the rod has been continually sliding through is aluminium residue and not dust or particles that might have settled on the rod.
The rod is continually super shiny and I've polished enough aluminium in my time to know the residue it leaves.
It doesn't need to be sandpaper to polish aluminium. I can polish the alloy bullbar on my truck with a micro fibre cloth... and it turns dark grey.

Anyway, the glove is now clean and has the advantage of not being as slippery as it became with the alu residue layer.
Cheers

I use different gloves for each material, aluminium, steel, stainless, etc. Each glove is separated in box. Friend of mine stores each par in a plastic bag which I might do when I replace these. My aluminium glove does have impregnated aluminium similar to yours from time of use. Just the nature of soft materials. I use my aluminium glove for magnesium too. You been doing prolly hours of practice feeding rod so accumulated months and years worth of residue on a short time depending on how much aluminium you weld. I personally would make it an aluminium glove only and get yourself different ones for other materials. As my gloves get worse I use them for material handling or demote them to what I consider junk steel welding (welding on steel repair projects, hot rolled, cold rolled, general purpose steels basically) Gloves for steel I'm not to concerned with so stainless and aluminium gloves can become my steel gloves. However I do have a set just for 4130 cromoly. I tend to be overly anal about organization of my tools. Some great weldors do a lot of welding with a dirty glove so..... Do what you think is necessary for your applications.

I keep a pair of gloves in a bag that I use for titanium. I use brand new gloves for aluminum and when they start to get dirty i put them on and cover them with soap, go to the sink and basically was my hands but keep the gloved on. rinse and dry. The come out very clean. If they dont come out clean they become my gloves for doing steel or stainless. Because I supply my own gloves i have tried many brands and many ways of keeping them in good shape as long as I can.

I have found that just throwing them in the washer will not destroy them. They may shrink and stiffen a little bit, but it was a successful enough experiment that I now do it regularly.

Unless your gloves have oil on them it really doesn't matter. I'll run steel and aluminum through the same gloves. Titanium is the only one I don't.

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I've never washed any of my welding stuff, but my wife washes the leather stuff she uses for riding horses all the time. She puts nice stuff in a nylon mesh bag (it's a hay bag if you're into horses) to protect it. Cheap stuff like gloves she just throws in the washer without the bag. Then she throws it all in the washer on cold cycle using liquid soap called "Castile". When it's done she lays it flat to dry or hangs it on a hanger. When it's dry she rubs it with saddle soap, not sure I'd do that part on welding gloves because it's kind of waxy stuff.
I've been thinking about washing my welding jacket, it's filthy and has always been kind of stiff. I think washing it might make the sleeves lay better when I'm dragging my arm across something.

My wife has to throw her leather stuff in the bin....