Helmet, Don't Need No Helmet

[Tim McCoy]

Found this cruzin the web looking for old vulcanized fiber (cardboard/paper) welding masks/helmets.

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_jan2008/PaperWeldingHelmet.htm


Nuff Said???
:lol:

[tzonoqua]

I find this very sad. Hope people think about this when they choose to purchase cheap imported goods.

[Glenn]

Like many things, you can not tell if this is set up so carefully that it appears real, or it is in fact real.

[edge9001]

Like many things, you can not tell is this is set up so carefully that it appears real, or it is in fact real.

I've seen several peopl ewho have done this same thing before. One man in a ship yard dropped his welding mask into the water, insteads of losing the time to get a new mask, made something similar from a spare set of welding goggles and a sheet of sand paper another craftsman had on hand.

[Fosterob]

When I was in school a guy was welding in a booth with his sunglaases only. The instructor explained that eye color has to do with light sensitivity. Made sense to me, mine are light blue and very light sensitive. The guy with sunglasses was dark black eyes.
Rob

[Glenn]

I have seen people hold a 2 x 3 inch welding lens (no hood) in front of their face and weld, or tack weld by shutting their eyes, or just holding a hand up to block the flash. It is not recommended or safe.

[Fosterob]

The UV light from the arc will give you cancer and you will probably die without proper shielding (leathers). A friend of mine did all his tig work in shorts and tee shirt, Figured since there were no sparks he was ok. By the time he showed any signs of cancer it was through his entire body and he was dead a few months later. He was in his late 30's. Always protect yourself from the arc.
Rob

[ThomasPowers]

Having spent some time in a 3rd world country I can attest that safety is a very low priority and if you complain; well there is another million or two people who would be happy to have your job and feed their families without complaining!

Looking ahead I can say that some of the countries that are currently eating our lunch are going to run into *major* problems with pollution and the number of people sick, deformed, etc from pollution and bad working conditions. Unfortunately dealing with such problems are much more expensive than preventing them!

[Mainely,Bob]

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that in order to move forward we are being forced to regress?

We`re already paying for these "major problems" in toxic toys,building materials,etc being sold here after being made in 3rd world countries.
We all breathe the same finite amount of air and pull food from the same oceans worldwide.It`s just a matter of time before the pollution we close our eyes to across the ponds starts making us sick and deformed too.
Instead of exporting those dangerous jobs and polluting the air and water by shipping hazardous manufacturing processes overseas in the name of higher profits we might be better served to pay a little more for things made here and not buy from companies who perpetuate the damage to their workers and the environment until they clean up their acts and improve the conditions.
It really does have an impact on far more than your personal finances to buy from the sources either doing the damage or simply allowing it to happen in search of a more profitable bottom line.

I would argue that it is FORTUNATE that it costs more to deal with these problems further down the road rather than prevent them now.That simple fact means the abuses have to stop at the point where it becomes too costly to continue rather than continue in perpetuity.
We learned that lesson here a few decades ago.Maybe we should share that information and be exporting it instead of our manufacturing.

[used-iron]

Had a relative that was always tacking and running short beads no helmet ,peeking thru his fingers or closing his eyes, half the time in a T shirt.Full time welder ,so lots of exposure.Just died at age 56,full of cancer,most centered in throat. Always in a hurry. So is there a connection? Good guy ,good welder, miss him. If its worth anything,i always wear a lid and cover up no matter how short the weld or how hot. Lee from NYS land of taxes

[Francis Trez Cole]

well if it is real it is sad. They make good real cheep welding helmets if its $60.00 here it must be about $5.00 there. Skin burn is no fun I was welding in a stainless steel tank and the back flash after a few minuts I could tell I was burning I then put a pair of welding goggler on under my helmet (should have had a hood live and learn) when I was done about 3 hours and took off the goggles I looked like a red racoon eyes hurt for a week. I cant say it enough SAFTY, SAFTY. I have even added a piece of welding jacket to the inside chin of my helmet helps when welding overhead

[Bentiron1946]

I have had some real bad "sunburns" from my old arc welder, never gave a thought to it. I always wear a helmet but not leathers. When it would be over a 120F in my studio I was feeling proud of myself wearing a long sleeve shirt and my skin would still get pink after a day of welding, but it wasn't day in, day out. When I was in the Navy we had a guy go blind because he kept watching the yard birds weld when he was on fire watch, all he saw after awhile on fire watch with them was a white/blue ball in the center of his vision. **** of a way to get out of the Navy. :o

[jimmy seale]

like granny used to say...an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure...be safe in doing your endevers..

[MattBower]

Instead of exporting those dangerous jobs and polluting the air and water by shipping hazardous manufacturing processes overseas in the name of higher profits we might be better served to pay a little more for things made here and not buy from companies who perpetuate the damage to their workers and the environment until they clean up their acts and improve the conditions.

Another way to look at it is that in this guy's shoes I might consider it a good deal to work this way compared to the alternatives, and I might be glad there were people willing to pay for the goods I produced.

My point being that safety and eco-consciousness are luxuries that our ancestors also couldn't afford to worry about when they were as poor as this guy likely is, or was until he got that job. And it's not clear to me that putting him out of work would make him better-off, or that it's my place to make that decision for him. (And let's not kid ourselves: at the margin, that's exactly what we're talking about.) You're absolutely right that it's not just our pocket books that we should consider when we look at these sorts of situations. Guys like him are in many cases literally working for a living. And while I might not starve if I always paid a little more for American-made goods, I don't know about him.

[Bentiron1946]

After looking at that fine "welding helmet" that fellow had and after doing some long neglected research on American history. I was wondering what it was like for some of my long ago kin folk working in the steel mills in the 1850's to the 1890's and they weren't a whole lot better off than that fellow with the sunglasses and paper for a welding helmet. Now I'm not a fan of what the unions have turned into, just another form of big government, but if you take the way back machine and see what they had done to promote the safety of the American work place they certainly deserver my thanks. The American worker, union or nonunion, owes a debt of gratatude to the men who stood up to wealthy, greedy owners of American business that didn't care how much it cost their workers in terms length of life lost to work for them as long as they got every last ounce of work out of them for the least amount of money. Safety was of no concern to factory owner, money was his concern, that is the concern in the Asian markets, labor is abundant and if one worker will not do it there are ten more standing in line for the job, just as it was in America with all of the new immigrants arriving who were willing to take a job no matter the risk. I feel sorry for that man or any other person that has to work in unsafe conditions and can't have a say in it. That is a crime against humanity.

[Mainely,Bob]

Seems now the wealthy,greedy owners of American business are exporting those crimes against humanity to improve their bottom line once again.

I would be willing to bet that like most of the people working under barely tolerable conditions that guy in the pic is producing something for export and neither he nor his friends and family can afford to buy the goods he labors to make for other than local/domestic use.
My point is,we no longer tolerate this sort of thing here at home.How could it possibly be OK to subject someone in a foreign country to these working conditions to produce something we consume?
We all live on the same planet and are all part of the human race.What make some of us expendable and some not?Who has the power to decide who will get used up and thrown away so others can profit from or enjoy the fruits of his labor?
Out of sight,out of mind is not a viable option for me.

[MattBower]

My point is,we no longer tolerate this sort of thing here at home.

We no longer tolerate it because, as a country, we can afford to no longer tolerate it. (And the costs are basically hidden; because we're a nation of plenty most of us just don't notice them.) We're in a position, as a nation, that's very different than a great portion of the rest of the world. I'm not at all sure it's my place to tell those other nations what they can and cannot tolerate. See below.

I would be willing to bet that like most of the people working under barely tolerable conditions that guy in the pic is producing something for export and neither he nor his friends and family can afford to buy the goods he labors to make for other than local/domestic use.

So? It sound as if you think making goods for export is a bad thing. Why? Would he and his country be richer if he were unemployed? The Chinese (I don't know that this guy is Chinese, but he could be, and in any event China is a good object lesson) have been exporting just about as fast as they can produce for a couple decades now. Over the same time they've gone from more than 50% of the population below the poverty line, to less than 10%. I do not think this is a coincidence. Producing for people who want to buy your goods is a good thing. It increases the wealth of both parties. The fact that they may be on different sides of a line on the map doesn't change that.

How could it possibly be OK to subject someone in a foreign country to these working conditions to produce something we consume?

It's "OK" if the alternatives are even worse. And I think they probably are.

Look, this is like child labor in factories overseas, or Dickens's complaints about awful labor conditions in the early Industrial Revolution.* By our standards in modern America, both things are/were absolutely horrible. But it's a kind of conceit to think that we modern Americans are so much more "enlightened" than people Over There, or Back Then, and because of that we know what's best (or would've been best) for them. It is horrible that there are places in the world where children have to work full-time jobs. However, there are places in the world where children have to work full-time jobs. My observing that reality is horrible does not make it less real. There's only so much we can do -- or should try to do -- to "fix" the rest of the world to our standards. Our efforts to cure these kinds of ills are very often worse than the disease.

So we force some American manufacturer to shut down factories that were employing child laborers, or to change the makeup of the workforce. Now the kids don't work. We feel good about ourselves. See how enlightened we are? Let's pat ourselves on the back. But why do you think those poor kids were working? For giggles? Because their parents were heartless monsters? Possible, but not likely. Because they were under some legal compulsion to work there? If you can show me that's the case, I'll be right there backing you up. But more likely they were working for the same reason most other people in the world work (and the same reason that a lot of my not-very-distant ancestors spent big chunks of their childhoods doing backbreaking work on the family farm): because they needed the fruits of their labor to get by. And we're talking here about parts of the world where the world "need" often has a much more serious meaning than it does for Americans. So who's going to make up that lost income? You? What now? Somebody starves? Ends up homeless? Has to start working in some even more dangerous/degrading/perhaps illegal job to make ends meet? In our efforts to make ourselves feel good, have we actually made life better, on average, for the people we claimed to be helping? Eh. I'm skeptical.

There are often a lot of very bad unintended consequences when we try to fix things we don't understand. And there's an awful lot about the world that most of us don't understand. I'm just suggesting that we should take a step back and a deep breath before we start "helping" people in ways they never asked for.

I'm going to drop this here. I've said my piece, and I don't come to these forums to debate these kinds of issues. One of the things I like most about the various metal working forums I visit is that they're places for me to talk with people about something that we have in common, rather than arguing about things on which we disagree. There are a million other places on these here Interwebs where I can do that, if I want. I only spoke up in this thread because the sentiment seemed to be leaning one way, and I thought it was important to give another perspective.


*Dickens did have some valid complaints, but the biggest abuses were the result of imprisoning the poor and using them as virtual slave labor. Slavery is always and everywhere wrong. So to that extent I certainly agree with Dickens.

[Mainely,Bob]

We can agree to disagree then.
I just won`t spend any of MY money to support those conditions.

So,how does everybody feel about the death penalty?

Kidding,just kidding.I DON`T want to know!

[MattBower]

It's perfectly clear! The thing about capital punishment is....

:P

[Tim McCoy]

Thanks for all the input about what I thought was a funny photo. Like someone said, a photo is worth a thousand words and this one brought out that much and more. Staged or not, the photo caused many of us to really consider what it is about working metal that is truly unsafe! Even cultural differences and what's fair and right about buying products from countries that take advantage of a person's need for food that will allow them to skip what seems basic safety . . . all brought up because of a "funny photo".

Beating metal, welding, dealing with fire, grinding, lifting heavy stuff, and using power tools (homemade or store bought) and working in less than ideal conditions with all the resulting outcomes is serious business! Never forget that something as simple as a poorly thought out shortcut can kill you . . . sooner or later.

:mellow:

[Glenn]

This has turned into a political discussion, not a blacksmithing and metalworking discussion. The topic being closed for that reason.