Great Service at Welders Warehouse

November 2015

Sump Award | Auto darkening Welding helmet

In a world of increasingly lousy telephone service, it's nice to bump into someone (so to speak) who can (a) actually pick up the receiver in a timely manner, (b) speak nicely and politely, (c) listen carefully to the question, (d) offer clear advice and support, and (e) suggest a suitable product at a very agreeable price.

We're talking about Tina at Welders Warehouse Ltd in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, the first recipient of the newly created Sump Award for Great Service.

Specifically, our enquiry was regarding the level of protection offered by a generic solar powered auto-darkening welding helmet when said helmet lens fails to perform (such as when it's been left in the shade for a long time and needs a small charge to get kick started). Generally speaking, it seems that if your welding helmet doesn't automatically darken at the first flash of an arc, you're still at least temporarily protected from serious eye damage (note that different suppliers quoted different levels of protection).

In other words, the minimal level of protection offered by these helmets, even with no charge, is generally sufficient to offer adequate screening from UV and infra-red light. But you wouldn't want to push your luck by using a helmet that doesn't rapidly black-out when you strike up.

If you're an experienced welder, all this might be obvious. But being mere amateurs, it wasn't obvious to us a couple of days ago when we were welding a bracket in the shed and, after half a minute or so, realised that the lens hadn't actually darkened.

Sounds dumb, but in the heat of "engineering" battle, it's easily done. The upshot is that no damage was caused (except maybe to the bracket due to our lousy welding). And a lesson was learned.

The helmet we were using is a fairly old SWP 3041 item, and many such helmets have non-replacement lithium batteries. Therefore, when the batteries are dead, the lid is junk (unless you know better). Therefore, they can fail without much warning.

With these auto-darkening helmets, you have to work out your own level of comfort with the limited controls available. But as a rough rule of thumb, you should first set the SENSITIVITY to maximum, and the DELAY to minimum, and then adjust the (outer) DARKENING control to a comfortable level. Then you can start fine-tuning everything. But as ever, check the specific instructions from the manufacturer (which are usually pretty vague and minimal).

We invited Tina to suggest a replacement product, and she picked the (above) Speedshield V Automatic Welding Helmet. It's solar powered, and is on offer at £69.00. And that price includes a pair of welding gauntlets, a welding apron, and a 1.50 dioptre lens for close-up work. Tina can't speak for other welding helmets, but believes that this one at least will protect you with its fail-safe level of ultra-violet screening.

If you're not sure if your current auto helmet matches or exceeds these specifications, or if it's old and tired, you might consider a replacement. Arc-eyes are not much fun. And blindness, we understand, is considerably less enjoyable. And before we forget, these lenses usually recharge not merely from available sunlight, but from the UV light generated by the welding process. Nevertheless, they can become weak and slow-reacting if left in the dark for too long. Just keep that in mind.

We don't know Tina, and we've got no connection with Welders Warehouse. We just think that on this occasion at least, we got very good service, so we're tipping you the wink.

Final comments go to Tina's boss: Give the woman a pay rise, huh? Really good staff are hard to find, and if you don't pay them well, they're apt to roam.

Telephone: 0845 899 4400 or 01908 699802
www.thewelderswarehouse.com

— Del Monte