Gloves? Jacket?

[veryredbike]

I did my first two bikes wearing gloves and a welding jacket because the space I was using mostly catered to welders and required it for using the torch. Now I'm moving on to my own equipment and am wondering about it.

Looking at pictures of pro's silver-brazing bikes, I don't see any gloves or jackets. Is that just because it looks better on camera or is it unnecessary? Any tips other than "don't grab the red metal"?

[shiggy]

I did my first two bikes wearing gloves and a welding jacket because the space I was using mostly catered to welders and required it for using the torch. Now I'm moving on to my own equipment and am wondering about it.

Looking at pictures of pro's silver-brazing bikes, I don't see any gloves or jackets. Is that just because it looks better on camera or is it unnecessary? Any tips other than "don't grab the red metal"?

Don't grab the grey metal next to the red metal, either.

I like wearing leather gloves, and usually wear cotton coveralls.

[Eric Estlund]

With brazing there is no slag and no arc burn. I always advocate people take full precautions, but the main things leather gloves and jackets protect you from are non-issues with brazing.

That said, metal is getting hot. Knit kevlar gloves, while terrible around power tools (they can catch and cause pull in injury), are really nice with hot metal. Likewise, leather work gloves are not terribly thermally protective.

*I almost never wear gloves while brazing one at a time bikes, but I also don't rush in to grab and re-position things. I ALWAYS wore knit gloves and a kevlar sleeve while doing production work.

[fortyfour]

The only time I wear a glove is when I'm silver brazing small parts just in case I need to reposition the work. What I am more concerned about when brazing is not breathing the fumes so I wear a 3M mask with appropriate filters and safety glasses to match. Occasionally I will look out from beneath the glasses to check the work but keep the flame out of my line of sight.

But an unrelated subject of TIG welding with bare hands? I don't know how some do that. Or why for that matter.

[echelon_john]

There have been a number of safety/precaution related threads over the years, but it's still interesting to me how widely people differ on protecting themselves from various aspects of building. I personally always wear a shade 3 when brass brazing, and generally when silver brazing, unless it's a quick, small job like bottle bosses. I have good ventilation drawing air away from me when I braze, and know enough to keep my head out of the 'plume' released by the flux, but I don't wear a respirator all the time, usually foregoing it for small brazeons. I do know enough to spend enough time cleaning the tubes that oils/preservatives are gone by the time I braze, so I'm not adding those nasties into the mix.

I feel like I'm getting more bad stuff at the belt grinder than anywhere else in my shop; I have a vac that runs when it's on that helps, but I don't put on a respirator every time I walk over to polish a tube or take a bit of metal off one. Same with sanding brass fillets; if I'm going to focus on that for a chunk of time I'll put the mask on, but often do it without.

I don't build full time; perhaps if I were grinding and brazing a frame or two every week I'd feel more inclined to me more anal about this stuff with an eye toward lifetime exposure.

How much do y'all think about this stuff, and what do you do about it?

[jon_norstog]

I used to wear cotton gloves but have changed over to the mechanic's gloves that are now available. You get good feel with them, though they are vulnerable to heat damage. For body protection I like a long sleeve cotton shirt, maybe a sweatshirt in winter.

jn

[veryredbike]

Thanks guys! I've added some kevlar gloves to my wish-list and I'll try to dig a long sleeved shirt out of somewhere.