Welding Chuckles AKA- Hot pajamas

[Fro65]

About 25 years ago, I was welding on a boat trailer and I think there must have been an air pocket in the steel. All of a sudden the weld exploded and sent out a large spray of molten steel. One of the "hots", as I've always called them, found it way down the front of my shirt.

As it started burning into my chest, my reflexes made me pull out the front of my shirt. When I did this, the "hot" dropped down to where my belt stopped it. Again, by reflex, I quickly tugged on my belt and waistband. You can probably guess where the "hot' went next.

One of the worst milliseconds of my life.
Ever since, If one gets in my shirt, I just let it burn itself out.

 

[SDMauler]

I was cutting some fenders off an old trailer from underneath with a hot wrench. One of the fender washers fell off when I cut the bolt, and landed on the gravel driveway. I had to pull one of my gloves off for some reason, and I propped myself up on the gravel, and put the tip of my little finger right on that red hot washer. Didn't feel a thing for a couple of seconds, then smelled that faint barbecue smell we all know as burning human. Hopped around the driveway for several minutes, teaching the entire neighborhood a few new terms that would make a sailor blush. Lesson learned-don't take off your gloves.

 

[Old_Paint]

Never set my jimjams on fire, but took welding in VoAg in high school. Any of you that remember the 70's well enough rememember how cool it was to cut the hem out of jeans and let them ravel. Fortunately, I wore saddle boots all the time, and didn't get burn, but had a lot of 'splainin' to do when I got home that afternoon about the missing 3 inches of the right leg of my jeans. Didn't realize it, but was also wearing a short sleeve shirt that day, and got an incredible sunburn from using the old stick welder. Lesson well learned, and now own Kevlar sleeves and a leather apron. Don't weld much, but when I do, that memory of the burning pants leg comes back very vividly.

 

[papajoe]

I also have a fairly large beard. A couple of years back I caught it on fire while working on a motorcycle. (Backfire) Was down in my back for nearly a week from trying to stomp it out.

 

[WFM]

It was cold here in Maine this morning and my helper had worn a fluffy woven shirt to work. He wears layers. Even though he was tig welding his nice fluffy shirt sleeve got against the weld and it started melting the material several inches when he could smell plastic burning. lol. I heard him holler and saw him yanking on his sleeve. All melted and crunchy.
I uasually just put my wrist or arm right on the weld.

 

[RCW]

I had the outside summer welding with sleeveless shirt, shorts, sneakers, and short socks.

Of course, that ember gets WAY down between the sock and the shoe...holy smokes is the only way to describe it. ....

Looking outside, my wife thought it unusual because I had some new dance moves.

Then she remembered I don't dance....

 

[dlsmith]

I was heating the nuts on the u-bolts holding the headache rack to the frame on one of my Peterbilts with a rosebud. Got the last one heated up red hot, spun it off with the impact wrench, and as I was putting it down the lock washer fell down right into the cuff of my right glove. Of course it took a second to register, and a couple more to get the tight fitting glove (darn HF one size fits all) off and the washer dislodged.
Still have a pretty good size scar on my wrist from that.

 

[cthomas]

Had a buddy that I helped with his furnace business when he had a big project. He was a service call for a oil burner furnace. He was opening the flame inspection door and that caused a backfire into his face. goatee and eyebrows gone, had a backwards baseball cap opening burned in his hair. Within an hour started to look like a red raccoon, lucky he was wearing safety glass. He had to get a short haircut to even the burn spot out.

 

[Flintknapper]

Never set my jimjams on fire, but took welding in VoAg in high school. Any of you that remember the 70's well enough rememember how cool it was to cut the hem out of jeans and let them ravel. Fortunately, I wore saddle boots all the time, and didn't get burn, but had a lot of 'splainin' to do when I got home that afternoon about the missing 3 inches of the right leg of my jeans. Didn't realize it, but was also wearing a short sleeve shirt that day, and got an incredible sunburn from using the old stick welder. Lesson well learned, and now own Kevlar sleeves and a leather apron. Don't weld much, but when I do, that memory of the burning pants leg comes back very vividly.

Yeah I've had the 'frayed' end of my work jeans catch fire numerous times while welding. Since I wear boots most of the time....you don't know you are on fire until the heat gets up to your upper calf....or you just happen to smell it.

Pretty easy to catch clothing on fire when welding. I have more instances of molten 'slag' stories than I do 'catch on fire' stories. If you weld very much....you're going to get burned in one fashion or another at some point. Some are no big deal...others leave scars.

 

[Old_Paint]

Yeah I've had the 'frayed' end of my work jeans catch fire numerous times while welding. Since I wear boots most of the time....you don't know you are on fire until the heat gets up to your upper calf....or you just happen to smell it.

Pretty easy to catch clothing on fire when welding. I have more instances of molten 'slag' stories than I do 'catch on fire' stories. If you weld very much....you're going to get burned in one fashion or another at some point. Some are no big deal...others leave scars.

The hot 'cherry' that pops and gets behind the helmet, or goes down between the apron and the shirt is always fun. I'm not much of a welder, but I'm a pretty good grinder/sander/painter. I can stick stuff together well enough, it just ain't very pretty.

 

[lugbolt]

burnt all my hair off when I was 22, welding exhaust system on a car, laying on my back. Had grease and such in my hair, spark got it going and that was it. Scalp got burned a little bit.

In high school machine shop class we had a project brought in from off campus. Guy needed a 2" hex stock turned to .750. The kicker was, the hex stock was about 8 foot long and he needed 34" of it turned to .750". Easy. Shop teacher grabbed me and said I need your help on #1 lathe. Cool. Took 4 of us to load the stock through the spindle but it went in. Problem was, there was about 5 foot or so sticking out of the end of it. So while I was turning, instructor had a classmate grab the end of the hex that was sticking out of the spindle to steady it. Kind of dangerous don't you think? Well....all went well for the first few passes and right when I started taking one of the final cuts, the "helper", started to say something while looking the other way, hand got tied up in the material, wrapped his forearm around the stock and I heard every bone in his hand/wrist/arm crunching before I could get the machine shut down. Won't ever forget that either. Instructor was in tears the next day, we cancelled all class in the shop for the rest of the week and focused on classroom instruction. Kid was fine but his arm is wrecked. Ain't seen him in a number of years now, I assume he's still around with the mangled arm. Ironically enough, he's a machinest by trade. CNC operator.

 

[Lil Foot]

lugbolt's post reminded me of this incident from my production machine shop days:

I saw a guy leave about 12ft of 1 3/4" SS sticking out of a large bore lathe headstock & turn the spindle on at about 3000rpm.
The stock began to wobble, then bent 90 degrees, and proceeded to beat the living snot out of everything within reach.
Towards the end, it was lifting the 2500lb lathe FOUR FEET off the floor.
The noise was unbelievable.
The operator ran, and the only way it stopped was that the power conduit got ripped off the machine.
Scary stuff.

 

[DaTow'd]

not as bad as some of the other posts

My coworker friend Frank was a smoker and always had a butt hanging out of his mouth.
I looked over at him one day while he was grinding some steel,
he had a flip down clear plastic face shield on and still had a cigarette dangling. The cigarette had burnt a hole in the plastic shield and he was still sucking on it. I stopped him and asked if he could taste the burning plastic. He said, " no problem the filter will do it's job"
what a Dumb ass