What shade?

[mirafioriman]

Now I've got my new helmet I was thinking about what shade I should be using. I've always been pretty cautious and probably had them too dark.

Most of the time I weld car bodywork which is probably 1 to 1.6mm steel for panels and say 1.6 to 2mm steel for chassis legs and reinforcements.

I have a Portamig 185 and will probably be using the three lowest settings most of the time.

What shade numbers should I be using? My welding might improve if I could see what I was doing

 

[Engineer1964]

Now I've got my new helmet I was thinking about what shade I should be using. I've always been pretty cautious and probably had them too dark.

Most of the time I weld car bodywork which is probably 1 to 1.6mm steel for panels and say 1.6 to 2mm steel for chassis legs and reinforcements.

I have a Portamig 185 and will probably be using the three lowest settings most of the time.

What shade numbers should I be using? My welding might improve if I could see what I was doing

I don't think that there is a set shade to use, it depends on the enviroment, and whats comfortable for you, you need to have a little play through all the settings and take into account the lighting you have where your welding.

Its no good having your helmet set on Max darkness as you may just not see enough for the fork in hand, likewise having it too light will just flash you and you'll see very little of what your doing.

I normally get a piece of scrap, and turn my setting on the helmet til i get a setting i'm comfortable with, everyones eyes are different so this really is a setting you need to do.



Lincoln Electric have produced a rough guide to helmet shades and recommended settings for a variety of different welding disaplines,

http://content.lincolnelectric.com/pdfs/knowledge/articles/content/weldinglenses.pdf

Also take a peek at this You Tube vid called "How to see Clearly Through your welding Helmet"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JClRxKRWFA

 

[ChrisJohnsSculpture]

A decent mask should provide protection from UV whatever shade it's set to, the UV filter is separate from the visible light filter, so you won;t damage your eyes by having the shade set too low. Just set it to whatever allows you to see best.

As other have said all kinds of factors like lighting conditions and your position and personal preference will have a significant effect.

In general the distinction between helmets designed for TIG and MIG is their sensitivity.

With MIG and stick, when the arc is struck it reaches full intensity more or less instantly and the currents used tend to be quite high. With TIG you may be operating in a much lower current range and even more significantly the current (and arc intensity) is likely to ramp up much more slowly so even if you are welding at 60 amps you might ramp up from zero to full current over several seconds and most lenses work be detecting a sudden increase/decrease in brightness rather than the actual light intensity as such.

 

[wyn]

I weld 2mm'ish steel with my optrel satellite around shade 7.
Just set it to what you're comfortable with.

 

[mirafioriman]

Thanks for all the advice so far. I'll have a go hopefully this weekend.

 

[gordon stephenson]

Been mentioned lots of times before,Apart from setting the shade to suit yourself you might also need some extra light on the job in hand from a hand lamp or angle-poise type light,It can help a lot,