Welding area in metal space

#1

We’ve been talking about getting a welding area setup since well before i joined.

We have a mig welder in the back of the snug. I have a bottle of gas (this is argon/co2 - not a flammable gas thus allowed by lease) and the experience to teach people. Stick welding is too smokey for indoor use without heavy ventilation.

Tig would be great but we don’t have one yet and there is also more of a learning curve than mig which is very fast to pick up.

Grinding is messy and unsuitable for the area. Instead, lets use wire brushing and metal tools that don’t generate lots of sparks and gritty dust. Smoke can be avoided by ensuring surfaces to be welded are cleaned well before use.

Light can be mitigated by using screens, which are easy to slide/move around. If anyone still has concerns about reflected light, i would welcome anyone to come in with a light sensor and take some readings from the other side of the screen. Reflected light may flicker a bit, but this is minimal.

A small welding table can be constructed cheaply and easily and can be made to fold/ pack down when not in use.

I am happy to contribute the first bottle of gas and do inductions.

I would raise this at monthly meetings but am unable to do evenings.

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#2

Would love to learn how to weld.

Fully support this if it is at all possible.

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#3

Don’t get me wrong - I would love to see welding in the space - but I am seriously concerned with the space and restrictions we have already set up that this would not be easy to do safely.

To the extent actually that I’m not sure I would want to use the space while welding was going on. The fumes and potential for arc eye alone are concerning, and that’s before we get into the fact that anyone wanting to use the woodshop or the laser cutter would have to walk past this area in use.

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#4

I think it would be a really good idea to do a demo to help alay these concerns- have you much experience of welding?

#5

The issue with reflected flashes wasn’t so much about safety as annoyance for others in the space. The safety issues can be managed with proper curtains.

There are potential issues of distracting those in other areas using machine tools, which can be mitigated by advising them before welding.

Also the issue of photosensitive epilepsy but those with serious epilepsy should really be informing directors before working in the space.

Otherwise it’s just about comfort for others. How do we ensure members aren’t getting annoyed by the flashes of light in the corner of their eye or getting headaches.

A solution could be a blackout blind that can be lowered on the kitchen window?

I think a more pressing question though is if we should be trying to get welding up and running when we are struggling to get the metal work area setup, piling more risk assessments and inductions onto an already extensive list seems pointless if people who want to use that area aren’t working through them.

Also important to add the @directors made a call to ban welding so any future case needs them to lift this decision first.

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#6

You make some great points about potential issues and how we can mitigate them.

On the light issue - i feel some have the perspective we are opening a steel mill - when in reality we are just doing light fabrication occasionally.

In my role as welding equip maintainer at lhs we went through about 10h of gas a month - and we had 10x the membership of slms and a lot of welding keen folk - the main reason is mig is fast and the prep work takes significantly longer - easily 10 times as much so more than an hour of welding 'on ’ time a week is unlikely. None the less we could restrict it to off peak hours if folk are really worried by the annoyance of some flickering background light.

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#7

I’d be in favour of setting up a trial/demo of this to test/identify issues.

What costs would be involved?

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#8

If we can arrange a demo without having to fork out a fortune for the necessary kit then that seems like a good intermediate step to look at these concerns.

I have minimal experience with conducting welding (left to guys with a couple of decades experience at my job) but have spent most of my working life working alongside welding, and that includes reviewing the RAs for the welding we do. Not trying to blow smoke up anyone’s ass, just very leery of the particulates getting inhaled (and all over the other kit in that comparatively clean section of the workshop).

#9

There’s also a question of providing safe access to the other sections of the space. Metalwork is unfortunately something of a bottleneck.

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#10

The directors decision was against having any kind of metal working until we could expand the physically available space.

That area was allocated to screen printing and painting and gluing of wood work projects something both these other areas need.

I agree that it’s not in the best place. All it takes is an accident on the lathe and that window will get smashed.

However now it’s there we don’t have a better place for it to go for at least 2.75 years.

Given that we’ve already moved past that conversation it would be a good time to tie together a renewed push to expand phase 2 into the snug and in the process perhaps reorganise things in a more appropriate layout.

This could start with the clear out members have planned and a proper budget for materials and notifying neighbours whilst also getting the space survey sent out so we can make an informed decision about hiw a reorganised snug and phase two might be split up.

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#11

I’m in favour of a trial. I think if if @Calum_Nicoll is willing to do the leg work and set it up and do the RAs and safety stuff we should applaud him, especially as we have been struggling to get metal techs. As long as we can make it safe I dont see any reason not to do this. If it’s just a case of people having to be considerate of each other, that’s not a good enough reason to not give it a go. We’re all here to make stuff and learn and share skills and it’s great we have someone who can weld who’s willing to help us.

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#12

I too am in favour of a trial … but we do have a lathe and a mill that no one has been inducted on.

We need some members with experience to become @metaltechs that will grab the metalwork area by the scruff of the neck and start Inductions soon, or we might as well sell all the metalwork gear and put something there that is going to be used.

At the moment 1/2 the messy rooms floor area is as useful as the snug.

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#13

A bit hard. But probably true

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#14

Would be great to see how a small space could be set uo , I will be happy to run in a bit of power

#15

I don’t see how this prevents progress on other tool inductions, it might even act as a spur to those activities.

We’ve previously asked for suggestions for ‘pop up welding’, but no one came up with a credible solution like this in the past.

I’m happy to support with RA etc. Very very small amount of welding experience, and then stick welding…

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#16

I agree. It’s not a secret that I’m pro both metal work and welding, but we need to embarace the idea of creative solutions to both of these issues. Am in favour of trying some solutions for size :slight_smile:

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#17

I haven’t looked at our mig up close - but from talking with @joeatkin2 i believe it already has wire. If it has a regulator (and i assume it does) then i have gas, and there’s ppe in the snug.

So all we’d need would be welding curtains - if we don’t have them already id be up for just putting sheets of ply/mdf up for the hour or so of welding demo - this would also allow us to play around with where the screens would be placed to best block light and minimise access issues.

#18

I.e the cost should be 0 for a trial. I am available in early January and keen for a demo.

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#19

We do need to be cautious of the laser. My understanding is some types of welding are dirty and make fine dust particles.

Do we know which types these are?

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#20

Fair point but we have a very powerful extract fan so a hood might be required