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I never heeded much caution when soldering using lead solder growing up. When I got to university, the department employed a long-time soldering professional, w

I never heeded much caution when soldering using lead solder growing up. When I got to university, the department employed a long-time soldering professional, with NASA certifications, etc. She was very knowledgeable, but visibly suffered from what I assumed was chronic heavy metal poisoning - hair loss and visible skin problems. It was a pretty big wake up call for me that I needed to treat solder with more caution. Especially for people introducing children to electronics, make sure you're using lead-free materials. If for whatever reason lead is unavoidable in a project, make sure you're using good ventilation and wash thoroughly before going around your kids after you've handled lead.

tmh88j 7y ago
>If for whatever reason lead is unavoidable in a project, make sure you're using good ventilation and wash thoroughly before going around your kids after you've handled lead. I worked for a welding company and a significant portion of the engineering training involved attending welding school, which also included classes about the chemistry and physics of welding. They drilled into our heads the dangers from long term exposure to elements and chemicals in the fumes such as manganese and cadmium, and I even recall them mentioning lawsuits brought upon them that the company won, which I guess somehow disproves the danger. Anyway, if there's one thing I learned it's that I'd never allow my family members to become professional welders if I have a say. That stuff is nasty and a dirty "secret". Not to mention, a huge number of welders develop cataracts, but that could be due to incorrect shade usage and one one's fault to blame but the weldor....which I guess you could point back and say that's a result of improper training. Either way, I think welding is fun and a great skill to have, but I'd never do it for a living regardless of the pay. edit - I should add this mostly applies to flux based welding such as stick and FCAW
- adreamingsoul 7y ago
  I was a welder for two years and after the first year I already started to notice a mental and physical decline in my health. Unfortunately, I was not a union welder and the company that I worked for did not educate or enforce proper use of safety gear. It was an eye opening experience for me and I’m glad to have experienced it, but knowing that my health was being put at risk is frustrating.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - rumanator 7y ago
    > Unfortunately, I was not a union welder and the company that I worked for did not educate or enforce proper use of safety gear. That's just infuriating. How bad of a human being do you need to be to knowingly expose people to health hazards and still only offer basic safety training if an union gets involved?
  - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
    > Unfortunately, I was not a union welder This looks like a quote from a Victor Hugo book, about working in the XIX century.
- Cthulhu_ 7y ago
  My dad is a welder, and he's always been a stickler for his own health; at his previous company (which went under, unfortunately, he had worked there for 40 years) he had a strong extractor (on a hose so it could be moved close to his work) and a positive pressure / filtered hood - always on. He's had 'welding eyes' (basically sunburn?) and he's had metal splinters in his eyes, but besides that he seems to be in good health still. He did have to insist on better ventilation and a positive pressure welding mask at his current job though; he's been complaining about fatigue, which cleared up right when he started using that one. If I had known he was made to work like that I would probably have bought him one myself, but OTOH it's a matter of workplace safety / worker health so he could've kicked off about it himself.
  - eyegor 7y ago
    > 'welding eyes' (basically sunburn?) Like a more concentrated sunburn. A welding torch will create much higher intensity UV than you're typically exposed to, and you're staring right at it. So instead of your skin, it burns the cornea directly. I've always heard it called "flash burn" after the flash caused by welding.
    - xwdv 7y ago
      Why don't they just make a welding mask that uses goggles with a video feed so you don't have to be exposed to any UV?
      - ivanbakel 7y ago
        I don't claim to be a welding expert, but the immediate and obvious answer to "why don't they simply do X", where X is more expensive and more complex than the current solution, is that for those reasons X isn't going to catch on.
        paulgerhardt 7y ago
        True. Also if I was 3M or Bosch and going to invest in a project like this I would want exclusive IP. There is already an incredible tech demo of this that may inhibit corporate investment: https://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augmented-reality-welding-mask/ https://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augmented-reality-welding-ma... Using computer vision, it looks at the flow rate and arc of the weld and turns any mediocre welder into a good welder. Having been in a power plant factory in China (which is to say a factory that makes power plants) - bad welds are still very much a problem and a system like this could go miles to improve the craftsmanship of medium skill work there. In the US or Germany a headset like this may cost a few grand (going by Dräger Xplore 8000 prices) but even if China finds a way to get them down to $200 (as with the Shanzhai AR headsets) it's still nearly a months salary for a worker - questionable if an operation would spring for it if they're cutting costs so many other places.
- Someone 7y ago
  ”I even recall them mentioning lawsuits brought upon them that the company won, which I guess somehow disproves the danger.” I would guess they won the lawsuits by showing that they had good safety rules and made all reasonable efforts to have their personnel obey them, not by convincing the court/jury that these jobs are risk-free.
- yuubi 7y ago
  > mentioning lawsuits brought upon them that the company won Perhaps something like "Please follow the safety rules. If you don't follow them and you hurt yourself, you won't get a huge payday, just bad injuries that your brought on yourself"?
econcon 7y ago
I am much into hobbyist work, like 3d printing/welding (mig/tig/stick welding/grinding), laser/CNC cutting. I use a fume hood, I made it myself using Centrifugal fan and filters. I thought about using scuba gear for welding, but I was worried about explosion from oxygen in case of leak? Then I wear a respirator. Is there anyway to respirate using a pipe placed elsewhere? Thinking about having a respirator attached to 20meter long pipe and put other end of the pipe outside to get fresh air instead of breathing the welding fumes.
- mclightning 7y ago
  is this for real?
  - econcon 7y ago
    Once I welded Galvanized pipe and I was sick for a week, I drank a lot of milk to counter that which I learned from my welding instructor
    - Loughla 7y ago
      The sickest I've ever been was cutting/torching galvanized pipe and fencing in our poorly ventilated machine shed. I opened the doors to let most of the smoke out, but geez is that stuff aggressive. We hammered milk afterwards to try to get rid of some of the symptoms, but that sticks with you. It's hard to describe, because it's an illness that isn't really like anything else. It sucks.
    - refurb 7y ago
      That's probably metal fume fever?[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever
  - AnthonBerg 7y ago
    Do you find the dangers and precautions biologically or medically implausible, or do you find it implausible that the social danger of appearing to be weird is worth the risk of sharing?
Angostura 7y ago
I have to ask - was she aware?
- docandrew 7y ago
  I'd have to assume so - it was plain to see.
eismcc 7y ago
Agree. I’ve taught kids to use needle nose pliers to handle solder.
m0xte 7y ago
She might have been a "lead licker" who was an earlier generation soldering expert who used to literally lick the solder. This was forcibly stopped in approx 1980 here but I noticed people doing it when I was working on a line as late as 1995. They were older folk and yes they had the skin problems. I myself have done a lot of work with leaded solder and have 20 rolls of it in the cupboard and it's most likely zero risk if you take the relevant precautions which are keep it away from eating surfaces, clean your hands afterwards properly, keep things out of your mouth and use a fume extractor. I noticed analogue "legend" Jim Williams also used to lick the solder and had serious neurological problems when he got older and wondered if there were any links.
- leshow 7y ago
  Why did they lick the solder?
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    For the taste.
    - RandomGuyDTB 7y ago
      Ah, Hacker News, where you get downvoted for making a joke. (to be truthful this comment didn't really add anything, which makes it fair game to downvote, but I still got a bit of surprise seeing a decent joke grayed out)
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        It was a joke, yes. I knew it'd get downvoted when I made it, but I thought it was worth the price.
        m0xte 7y ago
        Well I enjoyed it. I’m sure I’ll be downvoted by the resident Vulcans for encouraging deviant behaviour immediately.
userbinator 7y ago
I think she might've been exposed to a lot worse than lead.

tmh88j 7y ago

>If for whatever reason lead is unavoidable in a project, make sure you're using good ventilation and wash thoroughly before going around your kids after you've handled lead. I worked for a welding company and a significant portion of the engineering training involved attending welding school, which also included classes about the chemistry and physics of welding. They drilled into our heads the dangers from long term exposure to elements and chemicals in the fumes such as manganese and cadmium, and I even recall them mentioning lawsuits brought upon them that the company won, which I guess somehow disproves the danger. Anyway, if there's one thing I learned it's that I'd never allow my family members to become professional welders if I have a say. That stuff is nasty and a dirty "secret". Not to mention, a huge number of welders develop cataracts, but that could be due to incorrect shade usage and one one's fault to blame but the weldor....which I guess you could point back and say that's a result of improper training. Either way, I think welding is fun and a great skill to have, but I'd never do it for a living regardless of the pay. edit - I should add this mostly applies to flux based welding such as stick and FCAW

adreamingsoul 7y ago
I was a welder for two years and after the first year I already started to notice a mental and physical decline in my health. Unfortunately, I was not a union welder and the company that I worked for did not educate or enforce proper use of safety gear. It was an eye opening experience for me and I’m glad to have experienced it, but knowing that my health was being put at risk is frustrating.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- rumanator 7y ago
  > Unfortunately, I was not a union welder and the company that I worked for did not educate or enforce proper use of safety gear. That's just infuriating. How bad of a human being do you need to be to knowingly expose people to health hazards and still only offer basic safety training if an union gets involved?
- BrandoElFollito 7y ago
  > Unfortunately, I was not a union welder This looks like a quote from a Victor Hugo book, about working in the XIX century.
Cthulhu_ 7y ago
My dad is a welder, and he's always been a stickler for his own health; at his previous company (which went under, unfortunately, he had worked there for 40 years) he had a strong extractor (on a hose so it could be moved close to his work) and a positive pressure / filtered hood - always on. He's had 'welding eyes' (basically sunburn?) and he's had metal splinters in his eyes, but besides that he seems to be in good health still. He did have to insist on better ventilation and a positive pressure welding mask at his current job though; he's been complaining about fatigue, which cleared up right when he started using that one. If I had known he was made to work like that I would probably have bought him one myself, but OTOH it's a matter of workplace safety / worker health so he could've kicked off about it himself.
- eyegor 7y ago
  > 'welding eyes' (basically sunburn?) Like a more concentrated sunburn. A welding torch will create much higher intensity UV than you're typically exposed to, and you're staring right at it. So instead of your skin, it burns the cornea directly. I've always heard it called "flash burn" after the flash caused by welding.
  - xwdv 7y ago
    Why don't they just make a welding mask that uses goggles with a video feed so you don't have to be exposed to any UV?
    - ivanbakel 7y ago
      I don't claim to be a welding expert, but the immediate and obvious answer to "why don't they simply do X", where X is more expensive and more complex than the current solution, is that for those reasons X isn't going to catch on.
      - paulgerhardt 7y ago
        True. Also if I was 3M or Bosch and going to invest in a project like this I would want exclusive IP. There is already an incredible tech demo of this that may inhibit corporate investment: https://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augmented-reality-welding-mask/ https://hackaday.com/2012/09/11/augmented-reality-welding-ma... Using computer vision, it looks at the flow rate and arc of the weld and turns any mediocre welder into a good welder. Having been in a power plant factory in China (which is to say a factory that makes power plants) - bad welds are still very much a problem and a system like this could go miles to improve the craftsmanship of medium skill work there. In the US or Germany a headset like this may cost a few grand (going by Dräger Xplore 8000 prices) but even if China finds a way to get them down to $200 (as with the Shanzhai AR headsets) it's still nearly a months salary for a worker - questionable if an operation would spring for it if they're cutting costs so many other places.
Someone 7y ago
”I even recall them mentioning lawsuits brought upon them that the company won, which I guess somehow disproves the danger.” I would guess they won the lawsuits by showing that they had good safety rules and made all reasonable efforts to have their personnel obey them, not by convincing the court/jury that these jobs are risk-free.
yuubi 7y ago
> mentioning lawsuits brought upon them that the company won Perhaps something like "Please follow the safety rules. If you don't follow them and you hurt yourself, you won't get a huge payday, just bad injuries that your brought on yourself"?

econcon 7y ago

I am much into hobbyist work, like 3d printing/welding (mig/tig/stick welding/grinding), laser/CNC cutting. I use a fume hood, I made it myself using Centrifugal fan and filters. I thought about using scuba gear for welding, but I was worried about explosion from oxygen in case of leak? Then I wear a respirator. Is there anyway to respirate using a pipe placed elsewhere? Thinking about having a respirator attached to 20meter long pipe and put other end of the pipe outside to get fresh air instead of breathing the welding fumes.

mclightning 7y ago
is this for real?
- econcon 7y ago
  Once I welded Galvanized pipe and I was sick for a week, I drank a lot of milk to counter that which I learned from my welding instructor
  - Loughla 7y ago
    The sickest I've ever been was cutting/torching galvanized pipe and fencing in our poorly ventilated machine shed. I opened the doors to let most of the smoke out, but geez is that stuff aggressive. We hammered milk afterwards to try to get rid of some of the symptoms, but that sticks with you. It's hard to describe, because it's an illness that isn't really like anything else. It sucks.
  - refurb 7y ago
    That's probably metal fume fever?[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_fume_fever
- AnthonBerg 7y ago
  Do you find the dangers and precautions biologically or medically implausible, or do you find it implausible that the social danger of appearing to be weird is worth the risk of sharing?

Angostura 7y ago

I have to ask - was she aware?

docandrew 7y ago
I'd have to assume so - it was plain to see.

eismcc 7y ago

Agree. I’ve taught kids to use needle nose pliers to handle solder.

m0xte 7y ago

She might have been a "lead licker" who was an earlier generation soldering expert who used to literally lick the solder. This was forcibly stopped in approx 1980 here but I noticed people doing it when I was working on a line as late as 1995. They were older folk and yes they had the skin problems. I myself have done a lot of work with leaded solder and have 20 rolls of it in the cupboard and it's most likely zero risk if you take the relevant precautions which are keep it away from eating surfaces, clean your hands afterwards properly, keep things out of your mouth and use a fume extractor. I noticed analogue "legend" Jim Williams also used to lick the solder and had serious neurological problems when he got older and wondered if there were any links.

leshow 7y ago
Why did they lick the solder?
- StavrosK 7y ago
  For the taste.
  - RandomGuyDTB 7y ago
    Ah, Hacker News, where you get downvoted for making a joke. (to be truthful this comment didn't really add anything, which makes it fair game to downvote, but I still got a bit of surprise seeing a decent joke grayed out)
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      It was a joke, yes. I knew it'd get downvoted when I made it, but I thought it was worth the price.
      - m0xte 7y ago
        Well I enjoyed it. I’m sure I’ll be downvoted by the resident Vulcans for encouraging deviant behaviour immediately.

userbinator 7y ago

I think she might've been exposed to a lot worse than lead.