Burning My Foot While Welding
It has been really hot in my shop this summer. So far some minor welding jobs, I have chosen not to wear full protective clothing and just take my chances with the sparks. My Australian friend Marcus Ohms has set a bad example for me in this regard.
Things were going pretty well until a glowing hot piece of metal fell into my shoe and wedged against my ankle to cool. It left a nice blister but I never stopped work, I just shook it out and kept on.
I was showing my dad the blister and he laughed and told me a story of him getting into a similar situation.
He said he had stopped by his father’s welding shop one day after his college class. He was wearing his dress slippers.
As he walked into the shop, they were working on a particularly difficult overhead weld that my dad had always done when he was working in the shop. My grandfather told my dad to hop up on the platform and finish the weld since he was quite good at it.
Dad said he was welding away and having to fill in a large gap when a large piece of molten metal fell into his shoe. He felt the burn so he just kicked off his shoe and continued welding.
The shoe however had flown across the shop and caught my grandfather right in the back of the head. My grandfather asked “Why did you kick me in the head?”
I told these stories to a millwright friend of mine who then shared this story:
He was welding structural steel on about the fourth story. He was sitting straddle of a beam welding in a cross brace. He had his legs wrapped around the beam to hold himself in place.
While welding, a hot glob rolled down the beam and then between his legs. The glob burned through his Levis and into the tender skin below. He tried to wiggle away form the burn while maintaining his balance on the beam. He burning piece of metal worked its way around inside his jeans burning his inner thigh and calf before finally falling out hit pants leg.
I guess the moral of the story is to always wear the proper protective clothing when welding. Or to remember that if you weld with fire you may get burned.