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Hi DSP, Thought I'd repost my previous thoughts on welding hoods as I really have nothing new to add: The most important part of a welding hood is the lens as it protects your eyes. Welding is very hard on your eyesight. I went from a minus 125 vision correction to minus 575 (coke bottles) in 20yrs of full time welding. I then backed off of full time welding(8hrs/day) to 8hrs/week for the next 10yrs then to couple welds a year for the next 10yrs and my vision in the past 10yrs has returned to minus 450. Not good but showing just how welding can effect your eyes. There is a difference in a plastic lens and a all glass lens. A plastic lens will create a weld puddle distortion of two weld puddles with-in the lens area. One phoney weld puddle and the real weld puddle. This distortion can be best seen while Tig welding but is present under all types of welding. A all glass lens will stop the distortion. The best glass lens I found is called a Cool-Ray lens. The glass cool-ray lens has a layer of gold over the glass face. They cost about $60 eh but well worth it as your eyes will not be tired nor burned at the end of 8hrs of welding. Being there is a layer of gold on the outside of the lens, you want to use a fiber gasket, then a clear glass lens, then the glass cool-ray lens, then another clear glass lens on the inside. There is a gold colored plastic lens, this is not the correct lens! Plastic corrective eye glasses will also give the weld puddle distrotion. How can you tell if your eyes have been burned or your feeling the effects of welding? At night just before you fall asleep with your eyes closed you will feel a very warm feeling in your eyes. This is welding burn also called flash burn. Your eyes are telling you to do someting different! Welding shade number:
I found over the years that a number 10 cool-ray is good for stick and Mig welding and a number 12 is good for Tig welding. The best welding hood I've found is the Huntsman 411P. It's made from a lite weight fiber thats easy on the neck and cool on your face after 8hrs of welding. Plastic or fiberglass hoods will heat soak while welding where as the fiber hood will not heat soak. This will cause you to become tired easy thus letting your eyes wonder and not consentrating on the weld puddle. Autodarkening welding hoods:
I'm not a fan of the auto hoods. One, they use a plastic lens and you get weld puddle distortion. Two, there heavy and your neck will let you know it at the end of the day. Three and the big one, what comes first to make the autodarken feature work? The ARC strike! so your eyes will pick-up a small amount of arc flash before the lens darkens. So how do you tell where to stike the arc? Place your electrode next to where you going to strike the arc then flip down your hood, then strike the arc. With experience you will quickly master striking the arc where you want it. T_Bone
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