I posted this a response on another forum but thought it would be of interest to a lot of members. Can't see anyone in their right mind applying. Welder (Gouger) - ClearStream Energy Services (monster.ca) The carbon from gouging on its own is very bad for your lungs. Chromium is about the absolute worst thing for your lungs. A full-time job involving both, might as well pick your burial plot. I don't care how good of respirator or ventilation the shop has there is not enough money in the world to put your health in that much risk. This line from the ad is hypocritical. I think a person would have to be on drugs to even apply! This position has been identified as a safety sensitive position and will require completion of drug and alcohol testing. Occasional gouging in an open area for relatively short periods can be done relatively safe. A full-time job on chromium carbide inside of pipes wouldn't take much to pose a serious health risk.
I wonder if they will provide a positive-pressure SCBA, or supplied air respirator. That would eliminate respiratory exposure.
Still not worth the risk. Not sure what happened but 92U and my other response disappeared. Strange.
Hexavalent Chromium concerns started a few decades back, prior many welders were subjected to lung damage that doctors had few ideas what caused. With all the Stainless going in as piping, metal shops building SS fence or sheet panels, the welders were presented this on a mass scale. Welding with gas or arc on high carbon steels the black boogers we blew were as bad as in the coal mines. Most smoked as well making it all the worse. Supplied Air respirators helped, better shop ventilation helped but all too many conditions required full on exposure even to today. Welding is no worse a trade than electrician or mechanic where end up exposed to all manner of chemicals that absorb thru skin and protective measures are at best iffy to complacent excuses to not pay for damages. Much as hearing protection is purported as the fix all where has been noted anything over certain dB levels nothing helps. We all pay a price for doing our jobs, desk workers pay in Vit D Deficiencies and poor air quality health issues as mass allergies, constant flu like symptoms, white skin that does not heal well and onset osteoporosis at earlier ages. Every task we take on has concerns, just have to pick our poisons.
Response was on the other thread I think. Welding is definitely a nasty process. Like I mentioned on the other thread, the extent of my welding is maybe welding up a small crack on a thumb or a small fabrication job on a table. Even if its just a couple quick tacks I still put on the P100 respirator. We've got a decent filtration system and makeup air setup. Very rarely can you see/smell any smoke/haze in the shop, which is good.
Pretty much just pick your poison. I wish I'd have taken PPE a little more seriously in my early days though. I've always worn safety glasses 100% of the time regardless of company policy. I'm convinced they've saved my eyes several times over the years. These days I'm always wearing nitrile gloves when dealing with oil, fuel, etc. I'm even to the point where I've started wearing a respirator when using the varsol tank or painting. Even at home I now put on a dust mask when cutting boards and what not. There's risk to every occupation but I'd like to not be broken by the time I hit retirement if I can help it.
I read an authoritative article a few years back where the doc stated that mechanics live 5 years less than the average, simply because they paddle in used engine oil daily with mostly bare hands, and used engine oil contains more carcinogens from the by-products of combustion, than anything else around. A friend was a plumber, and he got mesothelioma at 74 and was dead in 6 mths. They traced it back to the amount of white asbestos used in plumbing and piping, that he handled many times, over 50 years.
Painting the truck, had to keep airflow OUT from the shop, with a Full face respirator and good 3M Cartridges did not smell paint of reducer when painting. Modern Enamels are hard on lungs as much as anything.
Breathing in air will also kill you, takes about 120 years or less, but it does in the end.
In 93 and 94 I worked for a irrigation and domestic well company. I had to cut and weld on galvanized pipe and culvert on a daily basis. Before I started work there an agreement was made first, I would be supplied a brand new Jackson fresh air hood with filter/battery pack belt. If it isn't clean raw material I won't weld it. Has to be clean.
That's especially true standing around me at about 9 am each day, I also fart at a certain time each day.
I think in the case of the gouging job I posted even a PAPR helmet would need new filters several times a day. There are hazards in most jobs but on a scale of potential risks to your health this job would be near the top. Can't see anyone wanting to go inside pipe to gouge 8 hours on a daily basis. I think it would take a toll on your body too having to contort your body for hours at a time everyday.
Depends on how heavy and fast you breath Oxidation rates can vary but as with steel inevitable and incessant.
Cannot say I helped myself very much early on Four major food groups for over twenty years Caffeine Nicotine Salt Sugar additional supplements of Chocolate, Barley Soda, Corn Squeezins, Popcorn and Pork Often the corn squeezins and barley pop was blended, not the best idea ever had.
It's the popcorn that did it.
Popcorn is actually very healthy. Apparently it contains more polyphenols that most fruits. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/popcorn-nutrition-and-health
About the only thing kept me alive for some time in past.
I’ve always tried to follow best practices in PPE but I didn’t always know… I’m really anal about safety glasses, boots, and hearing protection but don’t always recognize the need for dust masks or respirators. I will cut something on the saw or weld and not put a respirator/dust mask on as I will only be a minute. I recognize the flaw and am working to be better but it is hard. I think about it as I’m finished the job. Hopefully writing this will reinforce better habits. Cam
Pork is the hidden killer. The Jews, the Muzzies, and the Bible are right. It'll give you MS, liver cancer, massive weight gain, and it carries a host of diseases. It's the Wurst of foods. https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/is-pork-bad#TOC_TITLE_HDR_3
That's all most of us can afford these days.
Yes, beef is pretty much off the menu here due to outrageous prices.
I wait until they slap the 30% off sticker on when it hits throw out day. I've noticed the meat departments aren't stocked as well as they used to be. I'm willing to bet they don't sell enough to make it worth processing large quantities of it.
Grinders are pretty dangerous too, my brother chipped a tooth when it climbed up his hoodie drawstring and I dropped one one time and it bounced and hit my leg with a huge cut. Then there's the dust too.
Then speak to old timers like my Dad my Uncle his brother, smoked, drank whiskey, working aviation they washed in Av Gas then used Lye soap made locally for skin and clothing cleaning. Major BBQs smoked meats, drove cars with less than adequate brakes armstrong steering on roads kids today call challenges for motorcycling and at speeds that defy imagination. These men painted and sanded or welded and ground no masks, my Dad lived to be 83, Unc to 93, biggest ill effect was Dad’s alcoholism. Mom never smoked, was cautious of diet and bad habits, died at 64. Were others on other side of coin, Grandfather Mom’s side, lead miner, welder helper, dead at 60 and with losing voice box at 53 to cancer, FIL at 73 died from COPD smoker, worked carpentry and worked asbestos with fiberglass no mask his lungs like leather sacks. Cannot determine what will kill any of us, I still dream of the beautiful woman fulfilling my wildest fantasies where her jealous rage hubby takes me out while I am doing the deed!!
I would like to live a long life but i have to many things weighing against that. My biggest fear is i will not get this Farm cleaned up before i die . I fill ok and dont think any thing is wrong but i am at the age were i need a full check over but i hate to spend $15000.00 to have it done.
I liked doing the carbon arc stuff. No one wore a dust mask and I never saw one of those fancy close fitting shields with filters or air supplies in all the time I was turning wrenches and welding. You always did the carbon stuff with the doors open if you were inside. The worst stuff I worked with was the flux core welding wire. You didn't want any wind and the smoke was thick, heavy and sticky. When done running that stuff your face was streaked with sweat running down through the residue and I always felt a little nauseous after a long run. The welders that I saw with lung problems were the ones who smoked a lot. Many would have a lit cigarette in their mouth held off to one side when they flipped the mask down to weld.
One idiot I worked in a shop with had a fancy welding helmet with a backpack type deal with 3 filters. He wanted the company to pay for the filters and they were about $25ea. if I recall. Company said no. Shop had pretty good ventilation and he was the only one with such a helmet. Really stupid thing was that he'd take his helmet off to have a smoke. He tried to justify it by smoking the lowest tar cigarettes! He also had some kind of seafood allergy and nobody could even have a tuna sandwich in the lunch room. Seems to me he should go somewhere else if it's that big of a problem. He was a real piece of work. I worked beside him pipe spooling and he had a custom boombox cabinet complete with a cooling fan. He turned it up so loud you couldn't hear yourself think even with ear plugs. He figured he could just change employee numbers with me because mine had 77 in it. He was born on 7 7. Thankfully the payroll guy told him off and said he can't just switch employee numbers. He tried to get me fired so a new hire that he knew could could go to the pipe spooling area. When I asked my night shift foreman if there were any complaints from the day shift foreman he said absolutely not, I put you pipe spooling so you could get some experience and your X-Rays pass so all is good. I think he was close to getting fired. He had been there about a year longer than me but was laid off about a month before Christmas. About mid Jan. the laid of workers were called back. The shop superintendant had a meeting with everyone and said unfortunately the laid off workers did not get a bonus. I was biting my tongue trying not to grin at the idiot.
We've done some pretty sketchy stuff in tanks, SCBA or supplied air goes a long way.
Gouging chromium in a confined space on a daily basis?
Yeah we've done reclad jobs on chemical equipment. The whole point of supplied air is to feed the guy air from outside the environment, same setup we use to sand blast in tanks but for gouging/plasma work obviously it has to be FR gear and run protective wrap over the hoses. That's in addition to ventilating the space.
The absolute worst coveralls for welding are the FR rated ones. While they don't technically burn with a flame, they melt holes in them extremely easily. They are pretty thin material too. Heavy cotton are the best or Carharrt overalls. Cotton can burn but not that easily unless you shoot sparks directly at them. Yeah, sand blasting is bad too, especially inside tanks. I had to help a sandblaster once when waiting for blueprints. You could only add sand to the pot when he stopped blasting for short periods.
Cool thing with supplied air is you can run a cooler so you're feeding chilled air to the masks or hoods, makes working in a confined space a lot more comfortable.
Definitely help but take some getting used to.
We started wearing FR pants and shirts at work (industrial electrical) I have been wearing 14 oz jeans made from a fabric called ultrasoft from Ago Industries out of Ontario and they are standing up very well. The shirts are a little lighter. I do some welding here at home and have some scorch marks on the sleeves and knees but have not had any burn through yet. My FR bib coveralls and jackets are heavier and for me crawling around over pipes and around large valves, they slide over edges rather than tear. Cam
One place I worked at was given some fancy new FR coveralls to try out by a supplier. Boss gave them to the most accident prone guy in the building. 20 minutes later he hands them back with a bunch of major burn holes in them.
Ago has some good products. They make covers for Mig, Tig and plasma torch cables.
Fr's are only flame resistant for like 2 seconds, I don't think they really do anything. The first set I got we're really thin and water would bead off them and we're my favorite thing to wear out in the heat.
FR as we witnessed testing were designed for high energy electrical flash overs. Designed not to auto ignite on the high energy flash heat. Worthless as to much else as to longer duration high heat or flame impingement. All too many safety idiots expect more than the clothing can handle. Was determined 100% cotton clothing 14oz or heavier washed in low volatile detergents and no softener agents(mineral oils) applied are actually more effective as to general flame impingement. Testing done at AB Chance test facility outside Centralia MO
NFPA70E was the Arc flash requirement of clothing, It has been extensively adopted to arena it does not fit but is expected worn. We had to wear full outer coverall and hoods to perform electrical switching where the under clothing had little value for arc flash redundancy and 100% cotton was fully qualified. Again the Safety Idiots expanded scope without any research based on Their interpretations of the rules. Continuous Arc as during welding is not applicable as to the resistance to damage in these clothing lines. Wearing leathers over 100% cotton is found a better choice in all circumstances while welding but the requirement has been applied for FR clothes that has no business there.
Clearly I’m almost dead. Used to rub used motor oil on my arms so I could stick weld in a T-shirt. Did cryogenic tanks for years, only time wore a hood was a manhole carbon arc job. Still don’t wear a mask when welding or cutting but know I should. Also still smoke, just not under the helmet anymore. Need to do better without a doubt. Just always want it done fast and good. Those damn 6” cutting disks are flying cuts when you bend one or drop it and see a little chip and say it will be alright.lol Got hit with on in the nuts onetime ooohhh that hurt.
When painted years ago, wore a ball cap backward a pair of goggles over glasses and Petroleum jelly on any uncovered skin. Masks, who needs masks. Shot Imron with dust masks where was determined either a filter cartridge respirator for good ventilation or outside air hood for close confines was minimum. Employers did not care the rules, just get it done and worry of litigation later if ever. Body men were short lived where most did not make 66.
I have to agree of the longevity of painters working automotive paints. Lots of lung problems going with that long slow death. I equated it to black lung found in coal miners. Fire retardant coveralls weren't a thing when I was welding. All the steady welders had a can of spray starch sitting on their tool boxes and would coat the sleeves and fronts of the coveralls before getting into weird positions and cramped spaces. Dingle balls would just roll off.
We had a younger guy who did 95% of the painting at the shop and I know he did some with Imron. Also know one time while cleaning the gun up after painting he made the mistake of pulling the trigger while wiping the spray tip off with his other hand. He had a nasty sore on that hand for several days. It was not too long after that he got sick and was diagnosed with leukemia and only lasted a few months longer. Not sure if anyone else made the connection but I know I sure thought about it many times! As I recall he left a wife and maybe half a dozen young kids.
Epoxy base paints with self etching capability, nasty stuff. Sad to hear lose one so young.
and yet so many think it’s macho not to wear gloves and they wash their hands in the parts washer or with brake clean.
The iso-cyanates in the 2-pack paints is the deadly stuff. Always made sure I had the air-wash hood and the proper filter cartridges when doing 2-pack. We like to think we're invulnerable, but the figures show otherwise. Not many people understand your skin is your bodys largest organ, and carries out an amazing range of protections that stop us from getting toxins and poisons in our system. Even the pH of your skin plays an important part in killing a lot of bacteria, viruses and other toxins that would ordinarily kill us if they got through. But modern industrial manufactured chemicals aren't found in Nature, and they come with a host of dangers. A spray-painter friend who always used minimal protection has just had a kidney removed because of a large tumour. I would lay $50 the source of the tumour was in the fumes he breathed in over the years, or the paints and thinners and solvents he splashed on himself regularly.
I have been wearing black nitrile gloves since those arrived on the scene. No reason not to.
We have driver that has no worries-he's one 265 lb bacteria all by himself.
I never used to use gloves, dust masks, hearing protection, safety glasses or leathers when welding. I have used most all of it for the last twenty years or so. Can't get on a construction site around here without using all of it. I just take out my hearing aids now for hearing protection. I have used steel toed boots as long as I've worked. I have four broken toes on my left foot that healed up nice. I still feel the pain when I get out of bed in the mornings.
I used to use latex when I could find them, but they seem to have been banned out of existence. Modern nitrile are more stretchy though than they used to be so it's not so bad.
I remember the days when the sun would be shining in thru the shop door. Guys running 3/32 gasless wire ,grinding and cutting . The grit floating in the sunlight was incredible. Now i keep a bunch of old furnace fans around they work great to move the air. I ran some 3/32 NR 311 a while back and wore my respirator. Always wore gloves when welding and the round bug eye goggles when burning.
The smoke from self-shielded flux-core is really thick. A Lincoln rep. up here tried to say the white floaties in the smoke were like milk and wouldn't do you any harm. Yeah right!
I have stories of shops I've worked in and almost hired in. I declined to work at a few places that I would have liked to work at because of either the constant parts degreaser fumes similar to the old carburetor cleaner smell, in the whole shop, and others that had very strong ketone fumes, they were aircraft related shops that had to clean parts with ketone, I think it was not allowed for them to have a vent system to pipe it out of the building but okay to poison the employees with the fumes. Then there was a particular machine tool cutting coolant that was a paint remover, and that was said by an industrial health specialist that was brought in for training us.
MEK, Methyl Ethyl Ketone was a prominent parts cleaner back in the day. Can transition thru skin, some glove materials, and in air into lungs. We used that to degrease and remove sludge on engines and transmissions in some shop work.
But bacon sure is goood!