A 30-year vet told me my grinder guard was a crutch - he was right

Talked to a guy named Pete at the union hall Tuesday who said he's never used a guard in 35 years, just keeps his head and hands out of the plane. Made me realize I've been relying on safety gear instead of actually learning proper body positioning on overhead welds, and that's a bad habit I need to break before it gets me hurt.

2 comments

2 Comments

julia9224d ago

right, I had the same wake up call a few years back with a surface grinder. @eva_garcia56 hit it exactly, the training wheels thing is spot on. I ditched the guard for a week straight to focus on keeping my offhand clear and my face to the side, and what do you know, my cuts got cleaner because I was actually watching the wheel and the work instead of staring at the guard. Now i keep the guard on for the first pass of heavy grinding, then take it off for the finish work so i can actually see what i'm doing.

eva_garcia5624d ago

...and honestly I used to think guys like Pete were just old school and taking unnecessary risks, but the more I think about it the more I see his point. Like yeah I get that guards exist for a reason, but if you're always leaning on them instead of learning to actually read the weld puddle and keep your body out of the line of fire, you're just setting yourself up for a bad habit that could bite you when the guard isn't there. It's kind of like training wheels I guess, they help at first but eventually you gotta learn to ride without them or you're never gonna be as good as you could be. I mean I'm not saying throw your guard in the trash tomorrow, but maybe use it as a safety net instead of a crutch, you know?