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Speaking of fire, the second thing you must make sure of is that you have adequate safety gear available. Metal working is dangerous, and doing what you can to reduce the chance of injury or disaster is paramount. Having an extinguisher within easy reach, as well as a proper welding mask, gloves rated for welding, protective sleeves specifically designed for welding, and non-flammable attire (especially polyester or other plastic-type clothing unless you're fond of skin grafts) in good condition are all requirements before starting any job. Don't let those geniuses on the reality TV motorcycle “fabrication” shows fool you: welding in a t-shirt and just closing your eyes to tack weld is a sure-fire way to get you injured. I also seriously doubt these guys are doing any work other than quick poses for the camera, as anyone who has welded in a t-shirt can tell you about how much a welding sunburn hurts.
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A fully charged extinguisher is an absolute must for any welding project. Make sure to keep it within easy reach, not in a cabinet across the room. Fires generally go from “huh” to “oh shit” in no time.
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Welding sleeves protect your arms from spatter burns and sunburns. Those “fabrication shows” featuring guys welding things with their eyes closed and a t-shirt on means they're not welding anything other than the quick tack welds you see on TV. I've given myself a gnarly sunburn after only about 30 seconds of arc time.
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Welding gloves are also a must. Thick ones like this help keep your hands from getting burned by all but the dumbest activities, but also make it harder to feel what's going on. Since I use my left-hand pinky to stabilize distance from the workpiece (think British tea-time), thick gloves help keep the skin grafts to a minimum.
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| Leather steel-toe work boots are another must. Bought for a mere $30 from the local smiley-face super store, these boots keep my toes from getting squashed and “hot foot” to a minimum. Anyone who has had a welding ember burn through polyester shoes in an instant, then get trapped on top of a foot knows why you should get proper boots. Denim pants draped over the boots are another must. |
The last item, and one I didn't have set up for this article, is a good welding surface made of metal. Metal welding surfaces are beneficial because they are not very flammable and they also save you from the annoyance of having to clamp your welder's grounding cable to your workpiece. Instead, you can just rest the workpiece on the metal and clamp the ground to the surface somewhere convenient to complete the circuit. Make absolutely certain you do not use galvanized metal for your welding surface (nor should you weld it), as the gasses given off by burning galvanized metal can cause a wonderful experience known as metal fume fever.
Since I have yet to harness enough chi to invoke metal fusion, I'm going to need some tools. For this project, my list of tools is fairly short: welder, angle grinder, vice, magnets, and clamps. For my welder, I make do with a communist-child-slave-labor-assembled Metal Inert Gas (MIG) job from the local ‘Freight. It's lasted a number of years, and while it has a pretty harsh and not so consistent arc, it gets the job done well enough considering its price. Looking back on the money I've spent on this welder (and its replacement after I burned up the first one), I should've looked into something better for a couple of reasons: much cleaner, more consistent arc, better feeding mechanism, and easily bought consumables from the local welding shop. I use an auto-dimming mask from there as well, and haven't gone blind as a result in 10 years of hobby welding. The optics suck, but it works well enough. For shielding gas, I use run of the mill Argon/CO2 “mild steel mix” bought from the local gas supply place.
For more on Fabrication Tools and Equipment, check out this excellent post from MotoBlog:
