Technical it doesn't have to be red to be hot...

How many times do I tell myself that?

I still don't listen to myself though.

A few minutes ago I was welding a couple of small pieces on my welding table. After I had laid down a couple of pretty nice beads (at least for me) I bumped the piece which was not clamped to the table. There was one of those welding magnets laying nearby. You know, the ones that look like a fat arrow. Well the smokin' hot piece of steel flies right over and attaches itself to the magnet.

Before my brain could stop my hands I reach for the steel to disengage it from the magnet. Instant burn blister on the thumb and index finger. Did I have a glove on the hand? Of course not. I was just going to do a quick weld of a minute or less, why bother to put on a glove?

fwiw I had a small pair of needle nosed vise grips right there on the table that I use to pick up hot metal with. Needless to say I didn't think to use them either

While I had been working I had been repeating to myself over and over "It don't have to be red to be hot; it don't have to be red to be hot; it don't have to be red to be hot"

OK; I'm through beating myself up. Thanx for listening.

A couple of asides:

I'm the epitome of the old saying "Just because you HAVE a welder does not mean that you ARE a welder."

and:

(it looks like I did something wrong in attaching a pic. You'll have to click on the icon to see it)

 

Hahahaha! I mean....hope you didn't fry yourself too bad..

 

Well it's not like it's gonna be fatal or anything, but it sure did tick me off. Like most things in life I'll get over it.

 

Don't beat yourself up. We've all been there. Shoot, my grandpa raised me to hand things to people handle first. You know, if someone wants to borrow a screwdriver or pair of scissors, you hand it to them handle first. It's safer and courteous. I think you know where this is going.

Fast forward to me being a grown *** man who ought to know better, and one day this fella I was working with asked if I could hand him the soldering iron. Long story short, they had to put a zero on the "days since last workplace injury" board that day.

Yeah... I said my grandfather raised me to be courteous, not smart.

On a related note: I don't know about the rest of you animals but my welds are perfect. My "JB" welds, that is.

I will say, I'VE NEVER HAD ONE OF MY WELDS FAIL... to look like a sick dog took a wet dump on the metal I thought was clean.

Take care of the thumb and finger. Hope you heal up real quick.

 

As Ringo said...



Joking aside I've had my share of molten adventures...ouch...hope you heal up soon @atch...
​

 

A few years of 'welding related' foundry piece work in my younger days rendered my fingertips numb to most anything heat related. Only time I realize I've picked up something red hot is when I smell it. Fingerprints are pretty much non-existent. Over the years that aspect has been a curse and a blessing.
Stuff your hand in a glove with a little Water Jel and you'll be fine in no time. Good luck.

 

Play that backwards!!!!..... .....

 

A glove doesn't always protect you . About a month ago I was cutting some 1/4 plate with my plasma cutter. I thought I had it all covered up Hobart tinted safety gl***es, welding gloves, welding jacket.
It was cutting great and all of a sudden I must have hit a bad spot in the steel because it flared up and made a mess of my cut and I felt the back of my bird finger on my left hand feel hot. By the time I got the glove off there was a blister on my finger covering from the middle knuckle to the hand.
Funny thing is it never hurt. It must have burnt the nerve endings.
I put it off as Chinese steel as I buy a lot of s**** steel from a company that buys cut offs from the local factories around this area. They sell it for 35 cents a pound.

 

Good tip.
Ive learned over the years the quicker you can run water over a burn like that the less damage and sometimes it even prevents a blister.
When there was no water close by I’ve even instantly brought the burn to my mouth or spread spit on it and listened to it sizzle in there. The flesh is still burning even after removing the heat source.

 

Haha, let me tell you from my own experience ,you´ll think it´s funny and laugh at yourself as soon as the pain is forgotten.
Frequently my Dad comes over with some broken junk he ripped off some equipment out in the woods and of course he is in a hurry and can´t wait the whole day , so I quickly expressweld his stuff back together so he can brake it again with sheer hydraulic force and impatience just to get back to me to have it welded back up again. So you see, that occurance has some history and he just can´t wait until everything has cooled, no, he always grabs it, swears, grabs it again, yells at me for not telling him it´s hot and stop laughing, and is off for the woods. Soon it´s that time of the year again

 

I wear thin leather gloves while welding/cutting, I used to wear thick stuff. Issue was with the thick stuff I tended to get careless. By the time I felt the heat, it was too late. Thinner gloves keep me honest

 

Amazing how many people will walk up to the welding bench you are using and pick something up to look at it.

 

I had a great idea hit me this past summer. Went to the shed grabbed my grinder and some 12 gauge and started cutting. Totally forgot that I had flip flops on and dropped a hot nugget betwixt my piggies. I'm jumping and shaking my foot so I had to reach down and pick it out. I hobble into the bathroom and run my foot in some cold water. I finally popped the blister and had them wrapped up for a couple of weeks.

Sent from my moto z4 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

What's hot is when you get one of the larger weld splatters down inside your shoe and it burns the inside of the shoe and melts it to your skin where it just burned a hole through your sock! Yeoooow! Ask me how I know!

 

Yep , fire hurts like no other.

 

Whenever I picked up a piece of metal or part that was too hot too handle and then immediately dropped it the old time welder at the dairy I worked at after I got out of the Army would always say, "heavy wasn't it". Still say it to this day, even when its me grabbing the "heavy" part. Tony was a crotchety old fart but he had a good heart and I learned a lot from him.

 

I'm an electrician. My school instructor used to have a fit if he saw any of us working with an unneeded tool in our hands. He said that wrench will fall in between two hot legs and blow up into hot pieces of metal flying right into your face. We were taught to look at the job as a bunch of little jobs and to never multi task..

 

Ummm, yup, got three holes in my ankle, open boot, droppage, hop around, can't get the boot off fast enough.....good news is....it never happened twice.

 

Yep, created my fair share of self-inflicted burns over the years...you can never be too careful!

We have a guy in the shop who brought some parts to a welder; when he returned to pick them up later on, he asked, "Is the weld dry yet?" We had a good laugh over that one!

 

i'd occasionally pick up something hot and upon realizing how hot it was, i'd drop it immediately.

i had a friend who would laugh and ask what's the matter rick, was that heavy?

i'd say no bud, it was ****ing hot.

 

I gotta deal with repaired aluminum castings..... Sometimes I drop one because it's so freakin' hot..... And then I gotta deal with the "concrete finish" on the castings...

 

Had a buddy who always said, " My welds may not look good, but they won't hold either."

 

I asked my concrete guy if there was a guarantee on his concrete. He said yes, I guarantee it's gonna crack and I also guarantee nobody's gonna run off with it. LOL

 

This really happened. It was July/August and hot as hell. My job is to go inside an industrial washer unit and do some repair to the overhead monorail that carried suspended parts through it. There is no floor to this washer, just a three foot deep tank of water/cleaning solution that I had to work over. I put some four foot long 2 x 12s, which spanned the inside width of the unit, to stand on. I'm using 3/32" welding rod and will be welding overhead in a somewhat constricted position. I usually worked in bib overalls and I was that day. Well, as I was chipping away at a p*** that I had just made and piece of hot slag went down my bibs and ended up sitting smack dab on the head of my pecker. I'm hanging on with one hand, chipping hammer in the other and the welding lead slung over my shoulder. All this while standing over a pool of water.
By the time I got out , the slag had burned itself into the rather tender flesh.
As I was a single man at the time it really changed my lifestyle. The first week I had to stay home and put lotion on it, which was not so bad, and can become habit forming. Doctor was concerned with infection as with any other major burn.
It took about six months to fully heal. That was about 30 years ago. And for those of you that wonder about the long term effects, let me proudly tell you the the head of my **** looks great.

 

Fortunately there was a bucket of quench water at the grinder which is really close by. I stuck the thumb/finger in there for a couple of minutes and that helped a lot. As the shop wood stove hasn't had a fire in it since last winter and we're in the middle of a cold snap the water was pretty cold. It was too late to prevent the blisters though.

I've got a few scars from those too. Usually from the summertime when I wear shorts when working in the shop. Long pants that come down over your boots prevent that.

Reminds me of the old story you've all heard where the p***erby picked up (and immediately threw down) the hot clutch disk that had just been removed and thrown on the ground between rounds at the races. "Hot?" "No; just doesn't take me long to look at a clutch disk."

See previous comment.

Reminds me of my high school football days in the 60's: I wasn't very big but I sure was slow.

 

I can ***ure you that my best welding ever as been in locations no one will ever see with the exception of roadkill, if it's a out of the way and out of sight bead it will be perfect but front and center it will look like a ****. HRP

 

Cutting an old roll cage out of a dirt car, working in a real tight place, trying to reach around the back where I couldn't see and shot the flame straight down the inside of my offhand glove. Got the wrist and the palm of my hand.

 

Except for maybe falling on ice and cracking your tailbone. Ice is HARD and I'm clumsy.

 

And here I thought that the only ice in Temecula was in your drinks...