For all of you welders out there - a public service video

[dennishoddy]

Big no no also seen a guy about get his face burnt off when a helper thought it would be funny to spray the arc of a guy welding with WD-40 luckily he ducked out of the way before it got him

Bet he got fired.

 

[Shadowrider]

I worked at a plant and welded stainless steel for 10 hours a day. The company monitored my breathing zone for exposure to hexavalent chromium and even 10 hours of welding I wasn’t exposed enough to even worry about it they told me.

Now a bunch of welders in the same building, that may be a different story. I was just one welder.

Hex Chrome has a really LOW OSHA PEL, for a reason. However, many OSHA standards and regs haven’t been updated since the early 1970’s, but Hex Chrome and respirable crystalline silica have been, for a reason.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, just remember someone has bled or died for all those OSHA regs. Just wear your bubble wrap suit while working and you’ll be ok. Not productive, but safe.

Hexavalent chromium is quite dangerous but it's not as bad as they make it out to be, otherwise no chrome shops would still be in existence. Thank you Erin Brockovich... What you have to be careful of is that it's soluble at all pH levels. You can screw up with it real easy because of that. It causes liver and kidney cancer among other things.

They do make it sound worse than it is, you just have to use common sense when dealing with it. I processed tons and tons and tonzzzzzzz of waste water removing it from chromate conversion coating and chromic acid anodizing tanks and their associated rinse tanks in an aerospace finishing shop. We dumped 5,000 gallons a batch. It's a cool process converting it to trivalent chromium and then watching it drop out of suspension for disposal. Lab testing and dump permits were required every batch. I ain't dead yet, but I respected the processes and dangers too. The EPA and city requirements weren't overkill then, but I can only assume it's worse now.

 

[Snattlerake]

Wasn't it in the 70's when the car manufacturers figured out a way to chrome plate plastic parts? That still amazes me, how a hunk of plastic can shine like a 1969 chrome bumper.

 

[Profreedomokie]

I think the chrome Erin Brockovich was having an issue with was the chromium used to treat cooling water in refineries and factories. 43 years ago, when I started at the refinery, we used to work on the small Milton Roy diaphragm pumps that metered the chrome into the cooling water. Nobody ever warned us on how dangerous the stuff was. We were only told to wear rubber gloves.

 

[TerryP]

I had no ides Phosgene gas could be created by using Brake Clean.

That’s good information right there.