The Best Welding Safety Clothes
High quality welding safety clothes can be selected from flame retardant fabrics including leather, fire resistant cotton, carbon fiber, and manmade fabrics. All clothing worn during welding should be safety welding clothes. Safety welding clothes will help prevent your clothes from catching on fire or any slag burning through to your skin.
|
|
Leather Welding Safety Clothes Leather is an excellent material for welding safety cloths. Leather is inexpensive, flexible, and heat resistant. Many welding safety cloths are made from leather including welding aprons, welding gloves, welding jackets, and welding chaps. Due to leathers insulating values it will protect against heat and slag during welding. Leather does not breathe well and will hold in body heat. In warm welding environments loose fitting leather welding safety clothes should be worn to improve air circulation and cooling. This can be done by getting a larger size than you would usually wear. If you do work around machinery make sure your welding safety clothes will not get caught in any moving parts. Leather should be kept as dry and clean as possible during your welding jobs. Leather does not handle moisture as well as other fabrics and is hard to clean. Most leathers are recommended to be dry cleaned. Leather waterproofing and cleaning treatments can be found but these chemicals are questionable how well they will hold up during the constant heat of welding. Fire Resistant Cotton Safety Welding Clothes Fire resistant cotton is lightweight, inexpensive, breaths well, and can be washed for a predetermined amount of times. After the predetermined amount of washings, usually around 50, your fire resistant cotton will have its fire resistance washed out and should be discarded. A big advantage of fire resistant cotton is its ability to breath. In a hot welding environment fire resistant cotton will allow heat and moisture to dissipate through it by breathing. Fire resistant cotton is used in many welding safety clothes including: jeans, shirts, gloves, coveralls, aprons, hats, sleeves, and more. When welding in a cold environment extra insulation can be found to help retain needed body heat. Insulated pants and shirts are available or a fire resistant cotton jacket can be used. Layering Safety Welding Clothes Utilizing the best properties from each welding safety fabric will increase the welders comfort and safety during a work day. Fire resistant cotton jeans and cotton shirt worn with a leather welding apron, leather gloves, and leather shoes. This will protect the hottest areas of the welder and still allow the welder to naturally cool in the areas away from the direct heat. When working in cold welding environments layering your welding safety clothing will help you to maintain your comfort during the changing temperatures of the day. Start the day with a full layer of safety welding clothing and as the temperature changes add and remove layers of clothing to keep your comfort level as high as possible without sweating. Once your clothing is wet from sweat or other moisture it loses the insulating qualities and will begin to mildew. If your welding safety cloths do get wet on a welding job replace them and find a dry place to hang or store until they can be washed. The less you wash your welding safety clothes the longer the flame retardant treatment will last. |
|