Thread: Welding Lenses

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It reaaly depends on what metal you are welding, and the proccess. For safety sake use it as dark as possible, but we all tend to cheat in this area! when doing steel you can usually get away with 9 or 10, definatly when using tig. when doing aluminum, you MUST set it higher! it reflects way more than steel. You might not notice anything at first , but your eyes will hurt at the end of the night if its too low of a setting. Also watch for tack welding, some lenses are not able to adjust to the quick bursts of light when you are doing repeated tacks. The high dollar hoods have settings for this.

The best thing i have found , is like denny said, put a spot light on the area to brighten up the place, then set your lense on at least 10

IMO auto darkening lenses are the worst you could use. If you read the fine print you will see that the auto lenses can in no way operate fast enough to protect your eyes as good as the regular lenses. Your eyes get a very small amount of flash every time you lite up. A professional welder told me that it also a no no to use a very dark lens. Something about you eyes having to stress to much cause of the darkness. But like stated above it would depend on what you are welding and how you are welding it.