Looking to reduce your life expectancy...

92U 3406 said:

That's all most of us can afford these days.

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Yes, beef is pretty much off the menu here due to outrageous prices.

Birken Vogt said:

Yes, beef is pretty much off the menu here due to outrageous prices.

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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.

Camshawn said:

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

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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.