How to die while arc welding at home: the top 5 ways | Auto Expert John Cadogan

I have been welding for 60 years and still do at 82 ,but my close calls were a little different. I did a lot of underwater arc cutting and welding .never attempt to use an A/c machine for any in water work it will kill you. Be careful of hydrogen gas build up when cutting any structure that can trap gas. It will blow up when it gets a spark. Remember salt water is very conductive if your ground comes off it can be shocking. I almost killed my partner when my cutting rod touched his copper helmet. Out of the water it can be just as bad. Using heat to bend stainless can be a disaster. Be very careful cutting on containers if you are not sure what was in them do not try to crank your acetylene gage over 15 lbs , especially if you are cutting underwater .boom .watch where those sparks go when working around fuel . Sorry about so much writing but if saves one person from injury it was worth it.

One of the horrible jobs I had once was working in a factory on a line with 6 other guys and part of the work we had to do was grind down galvenised metal. We all were coming down with what we thought was flu. I looked into it further and realised it was Metal Fume fever. So I put all my researched material together and took it to the bosses. Not surprisingly they already knew about this and just could not be bothered doing anything about it because we were all Job agency employees and they could just get more when we got sick of putting up with it. Well I stood my ground and insisted that they supply the correct PPE and within hours we were all issued with the correct filter masks.

I'm 70 years old and I've been welding at home and on some jobs for over 50 years. After watching your video I realized, I'm lucky to be alive. Thank you so much.

As someone who received their first welder today, and haven't even set it up, I'm so thankful that there are people like you who talk about this kind of thing. Everyone wants to tell you how to make great welds, but none of them talk about how to survive doing it. Good on ya!

I actually survived a WD40 accident a few years back; lost my beard, eyebrows, eyelashes, nasal hair, and hairline in the process but fortunately still alive. Put a nearly empty can down and accidentally popped it. The bang made my ears ring for two days and it took a week for the burnt hair smell to go. The can embedded itself in every surface in the shop except my face, my face getting the flash fireball instead. I'm only an occasional welder, but that gave me a lot of respect for the process, and for general shop safety. Great video, thank you!

Welder here. I think you did a good job of covering the main safety points. PPE is key, and I see so many mechanics on Youtube welding without gloves or sleeves. A couple of points I'd like to add - never weld around or on fuel tanks. There are ways to do it but the only really safe one that I'd be happy to recommend is to fill the tank with water. If you're not prepared to deal with that, get a professional to do any work on fuel tanks that have had fuel in them. There are other methods, but they should not be considered 100% safe as it is so easy to get it wrong. Surprisingly, a lot of people think (or don't think) that it's OK to weld on the outside of a tank if it is otherwise sealed. The other point is confined space work. While it's unlikely that your average handyman will need to do that kind of thing, there's a whole slew of OH&S regs that need to be followed if you want to undertake this kind of work. It has happened though, that back yarders and farmers have killed themselves by not understanding how dangerous it is to enter a tank, bilge, underfloor area etc especially with a welder. When I was working in a ship yard, I heard about another ship yard that had a death. One of their experienced welders had to enter the nose cone of an ocean prow (the long torpedo bit on the front of an ocean going ship). For some reason it was late in the day and he decided to go in alone and get the job done. He dragged the stick electrode up into the prow with him, and while he was trying to drag it up past him to the working face, he contacted it on his chest. Just so you know, the big welders used on these sites are usually earthed externally directly to the hull. They are AC units with quite a high OCV (90V or over). Since it was the end of the day, they didn't find him until the next day, and that would have been a really awful way to go. I don't know what happened to the shipyard but several very important safety rules were broken, most notably you are not allowed to work alone in a confined space, and the shipyard that I worked for had a "board" where you had to hang your tag on to let the site supervisor and everyone else know that you were inside so they do things like not turn the ventilation off and go home at the end of the day, and you always had a buddy welder or trades assistant with you at all times. The tags were multipurpose and had your specific number on them - you handed them over to get tools and equipment out of the store, and to hang them on the confined space board to let people know you were still inside. I won't go into all the reasons why confined space work is so dangerous, but I think that it's fair to say that most people seriously underestimate the danger.

If an Australian dude warns you that something is dangerous… you listen

Good job! My dad was a long time Iron worker. He told me once that I should drink milk after welding galvanized metal. I thought he was nuts so I went to research. It was true. The explanation is very Bill Nie the science guy. In short the minerals of the milk bind to the bad stuff and is expelled naturally. when you get older you finally start seeing that your parents do really know something !

As a welder it’s good to see someone getting basic safety information out there.

Zinc's a monster. I tried alloying brass in my shop and got the temperature wrong. It went straight from solid metal to dense clouds of white fog. The space I work in is much bigger than a garage, and I had a bay door open so I was able to hold my breath and run away after putting a lid on it. The one problem with random how to videos is that they always show the successes, never the panicked retreats :)

The first lesson I got as a teenager from my uncle was "galvanized will kill you" and thankfully someone else on the tube identified the break clearner problem. What you don't know can kill you. Thanks for keeping the knowledge flowing.

Within the first few minutes it's clear how well spoken, prepared, and sourced your videos are, and I think I've just found a new favourite DIY educator.

"A Big fuckoff fireball" is my new favorite quote

I've been a professional welder for 15+ years, can confirm, these are all great points. Proper PPE is essential in all welding applications. I personally wear an Adflo 9100 rig at work 10 hours a day and it has made my life so much better the last few years. No more blowing black shit out of my nose at the end of the day, no more worrying about those accumulative chemicals you were talking about, and no more having to worry about people trying to talk at me while I'm welding because by now everyone just knows I won't be able to hear them while I've got it on! I'm super curious who thinks you can't electrocute yourself with a welder, I've never heard anyone say such a thing but I don't doubt there are those people out there. If there is a safety thing to deny, there's some dip shit out there more than willing to fall on the grenade. The number of people who flat out refuse to wear PPE in the first place is mind boggling, I deal with it all the time. Hell, even just getting people to wear their damned safety glasses is a daily battle. Maybe I'll start posting photos of people with shattered cutoff wheels jammed in their eye socket. But I digress.😂 Great video!

Years ago, at a metal fab shop, my job was to tack 100's of small pieces together for some project. NO HELMIT . You just look away for each tack. At the end of the day, all I could see was bright blobs of light, By the time I got home, It had already started. I laid in bed for three day's with cold wash cloths on my eyes, witch is the only mild relief from what felt like hot sand was poured into my eyes. After watching John's video..... Ya, three out of the five things I've done at one time or another. Lucky to be alive. Everyone needs to see this video at least once a year as a refresher course!

I've been a fabricator for over 40 years and my worst experience was welding on a piece of equipment overhead. I typically welded wearing leathers - cap, gloves, aprin, jacket. I tried to cover up as much as possible to avoid a fire ball hitting the skin. Well a fireball popped into my ear canal and I jumped up as fast as possible ran to the nearest bathroom and poured water into my ear. I heard a sizzle sound and felt instant relief. I started wearing ear protectors that you squeeze into the ear just for safe measure when welding overhead after that. Great video! 👍

As a hobby welder I really appreciate the information. The presentation and language is how working men communicate to make sure safety is maintained. Kudos

Amazing. You saved my life 5 times today. No body ever covered this. Thank you, thank you.

It is great to see a video that has everything done just right. Clear, Amusing, 100% Relevant, and Valuable.

I'm a retired industrial engineer - I had to investigate a ship yard accident in which a MIG gun was lying on a welding table, about 2 feet away was a near full 12 ounce can of Acetone. Someone tossed a chipping hammer onto the table, it hit the mig gun, squeezed the trigger and sent about 3 feet of 5/64 FCAWG straight into the can of Acetone - It didn't explode, but went into flamethrower mode, set off an overhead sprinkler and took a half million dollars of equipment out of commission.... About your little orange rattle can welder- I've got a pretty nice home metal fab shop. My prime welder is a heavy ESAB Rebel multi-process- but after lugging it and a big 220 7KVA generator out to my tractor to weld broken bits more than a few times, I bought one of those $120 6 pound 110/220 140A chinese inverter stick welders like you've got - figured I could tack up whatever was broke to hobble back to the shop... I was blown away by how good it really is - lays down astoundingly good filets on 220 - deep penetration, can do fancy dime stacking with 1/16" rod, and even though it says its got a 30/70 work/wait limit, below about 50A I've burned two dozen rods in a row without stopping longer than the rod change on 3/16 mild steel plate.