test your welding environment, compare it to what the sun does to you when you are outside, and decide for yourself what you think is safe.. :)
I strongly suspect the answer is that any of the standard protection systems quickly drops the UV exposure to levels far below what you get when you are outside in the sun.
It's be fun to play with some of those meters to find out just how much UV we are getting from things like florescent lights, as well as to find out how much UV protection glass and other things provide - not to mention get some real numbers on how much UV welding generates. I sometimes get lazy for quick short welds and don't bother to cover my skin (I always wear a helmet). I wonder how much risk I'm talking doing that? It would be fun just to see some real numbers on that.
I just happen to have a full set plus of orange curtains....5 of them, plus the large rectangular frame to hold them upright around a welding area........
Came out of the factory I decomissioned. Along with a shitload of stuff......
'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.' Theodore Ro osevelt 1907
I repeat, the actual, measured transmission of UVB through standard 4mm soda float window glass is a maximum of 3% at 320 nm, and zero at 290 nm.
You need a twin-beam UV transmission spectrophotometer to measure this, a hand-held meter won't do it. That sort of spectrophotometer separates some of the light from usually a xenon discharge lamp into a near-monochromatic beam, then splits that beam in two and compares the amount of UV in each beam - one beam has a sample of glass or whatever in it, the other doesn't.
As a rule of thumb, window glass stops all UVB, and a bit less than half of UVA.
Hand-held meters use a wavelength-related weighting factor, supposedly based on the danger to health of different wavelengths, to sum up the total UV they receive.
However most if not all of the available ones use an out-of-date factor which probably overemphasises the dangers of UVB and underemphasises the dangers of UVA.
This is because historically people related the danger from UV to it's ability to cause sunburn, and it's mostly UVB which causes sunburn - but in many people's opinion the real danger from UV is it's ability to cause lethal malignant melanomas.
We have recently learned that at least 92% of melanomas are not caused by UVB, as previously thought, but by UVA. We're not sure about the remaining 8%, there seems to be a need for UVA in these cases as well and UVB may be incidental, or at most a potentiating factor, though we don't know for sure. But we are sure that most melanomas are caused by UVA.
This is causing a lot of kerfuffle right now in the sunblock and sunbed industries, who had always assumed that UVA was "safe".
Sure, UVB will cause sunburn, some cataracts, and skin aging, and even some cancers, but it's much less *lethal* then UVA - people using old-generation sunblock creams, which stop UVB but which don't stop UVA, get more melanomas than people who use no sunblock at all.
Sunbed users also get more melanomas than people who don't use sunbeds - and sunbeds, or at least "good" ones, don't produce any UVB at all, only UVA. Sunbeds have just been raised to the status of class 1 carcinogens by the IARC, and may even be banned in the next few years.
I studied for the Associated Safety Professional certification when I wanted to be a safety man. I found out that if you were a crusader for safety, no company would hire you because they just wanted someone to advise them on how to tapdance within the lines, avoid liability, cut losses, and blame it eventually on the workers "who were trained and should have obviously known better." If you're an employee and start pulling out stuff that has to do with monitoring, you may as well go to Kinkos and get some resumes printed. And realize that your last employer will probably have some off the record remarks to the next HR person about your being a "loose cannon", "whistleblower", or "agitator." And that you most likely won't be there much longer.
Sad but true. I've seen some good people get quashed down, suggestions ignored. Blacklists exist, especially for those who might slow down production. When it comes down to the wire, the work WILL get done, but maybe not by you. What hurts worse? Loss of job>reposessed vehicle>
mortgage meltdown>foodstamps at age 30? Or a hearing deficit, melanoma, blindness at age 65?
I'm only 35. I tried for a little while to be "ultrasafe," but the practicalities are stacked against it. There are "reasonable precautions," and paranoia. I try not to be complacent, but when you deal with the same hazards day after day, month after month, year after year, it is difficult to change unsafe work habits that haven't hurt you yet.
Now I'm sitting at home, getting paid by OWCP for two cervical fusions, after enduring months on drugs and more pain than I would wish on anyone. Will I raise my voice if I'm stuck in poor situations for extended lengths of time again? I sure as hell don't ever want to go through this again!! Neat x-rays, though....
Welcome to the club. I have several afflictions that are job related, but not provable. Cervical spondylosis, but that's a natural disease. Bone necrosis from diving but not provable. 40% hearing, but not provable. Lots of kinks, pops, grinds, and things, but not provable. TBI, provable, but still in court after five years.
I learned to just live each day as a gift.
I believe in God, and believe that he will punish those who used other people. I just try to do the next right thing, to be a good person, and not wish bad things on bad people.
Some days are better than others. A day without pain is like two weeks on Kauai. God, I love that place.
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