Regarding the dark glasses: I’ve asked a lot of questions and
gotten a lot of conflicting on the subject. Textbook
answer seems to say if you’re using any fuel gas/O2 combination,
you need to wear UV protection for your eyes. Many practicing
jewelers I’ve seen don’t bother. A practical person I spoke with
said that the size flame jewelers use wouldn’t generate enough UV
to be worried about.
Nevertheless, a blind jeweler does nobody any good. I was
worried. I really had a hard time seeing those little snippets
of solder with the dark UV glasses I got at the welder’s supply
shop where I get my tanks filled. Forget annealing based on the
color of the metal being dull red!
Then I was speaking with an optometrist who said the UV
protection is merely a coating on the lens, and can be applied to
any lens, shaded or otherwise! For my birthday (or Father’s Day)
last year my sweetheart bought me a pair of Gargoyles™
untinted glasses with UV protection. I think they’re actually for
some sort of sport (maybe shooting?), and they’ve been great!
Much broader field of vision than conventional safety glasses and
undistorted due to the manufacturing technique.
Just thought I’d toss that out! I’d be interested if anyone on
Orchid has anything related to add!
Textbook answer seems to say if you’re using any fuel gas/O2 combination,
you need to wear UV protection for your eyes. Many practicing jewelers I’ve
seen don’t bother.
Hi Dave,
I think the danger is not the flame, but the glowing metal when
white hot. So you’d need dark glasses when welding platinum or
similar: The metal is heated up to white heat, then you will not
be able to see anything, even some time after you tried welding!
It’s like looking into the bright sun directly. Take care, Markus
I have used several different gases for years and finally
settled down with acetylene only. I normally do not wear any eye
protection other than normal eyeglasses and have had no problem.
It is essential to wear some kind of eye protection. I
ocassionally notice small amounts of metal stuck to the lens. For
this reason I would not recommend the plastic glasses. The metal
waas most likely hot when it hit and probably would melt into a
plastic lens, ruining the lens. Of course it is still better than
digging little bits of metal out of your eyeballs! If you do any
platinum work the need for dark glasses will soon be obvious. The
temperatures that you work the metal at make it about as bright
as lookinf directly into the sun.
Dave: I don’t know if this will be of any help to you but I have
bought a few pairs from Gesswein Canada with differrent UV
ratings. I think that the pair that you bought from the welders
supply might be rated too high the pair that I bought works o.k.
for me. You can buy them with different ratings from gesswein.
The metal was most likely hot when it hit and probably would melt into a
plastic lens, ruining the lens. Of course it is still better than
digging little bits of metal out of your eyeballs!
Hi Bill,
For safety reasons, I’d prefer the plastic glasses, though.
Glass will shatter, as a colleague of mine had to find out the
bad way when he was sanding a ring on the inside and the mandrel
of the sanding roll suddenly bent and threw the ring into his
face. The glass shattered and a splinter got stuck in his
eyeball. He didn’t loose eyesight, but could have done so. From
my own experience, glasses scratch anyway (have to replace them
once a year), there is a lot of sanding particles, dust from
separating discs and so on, so I go for plastic, which is
softer, but wouldn’t shatter. Take care, Markus