Positive Pressure Respirator?

The common welding rod alloys like 6013 or 7018 contain manganese.

i

He's probably using one of those.

Right now, I'm considering that he should buy a 12V squirrel cage blower and glue a 1/2" PVC pipe to the back of his helmet to receive a CPAP hose.

Probably rig up an activated charcoal filter on the input side somehow.

--Winston

Just use a regular 3M or North half mask with the appropriate filters. Make sure that it fits right and makes a seal on his face. If they are cinched up too tight, they won't fit correctly.

I would vote for this too.

i

OK, Thanks Drew and Iggy.

--Winston

I bought my first powered welding respirator 16 years ago and never regretted it.

3M is the biggest player in powered respirators, since they bought out everybody else.

I still have both of my Racal air hats. One of them I adapted to my Nexgen hood.

2 years ago at school we had to MIG weld a lot of aluminum to build a pair of salvage pontoons. I brought both of my air hats in and we used them for all the interior welding. Makes a huge difference at the end of the day. Blow your nose out and it ISN'T black snot.

If you want to build your own you will need a few pieces from the commercial units.

The air duct unit is this part

The face seal

The air hose

The head cover

A Flow Indicator will show if you have enough air

Those parts shouldn't cost too much and will make it a breeze to be up and running.

You can use air from any source that can be filtered and can be regulated down to about 3 PSI.

You can buy used CPAP (for Sleep Apnea) machines on Craigslist for under $100. A CPAP would be the perfect blower. Just adapt a larger industrial air filter to the intake.

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Wow! Thanks Ernie, I will follow up all those links.

--Winston