Will I Die If....

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Will I get electrocuted and die if I touch the electrode?  Problem is that when I start with a fresh stick (7018) it's always a little awkward 'cause it's so long.  I don't really feel I have the control I have when it's been consummed about half way.  So what I was wondering was; since I have gloves on, can I hold the electrode with my free hand, y'know one hand on the stinger and the other on the rod, just 'til it burns down a little?  I use two hands to hold the MIG and when I'm not melting stick, I use two on TIG, but doing SMAW, I feel out of control until it gets shorter.Thanks"Never mistake education for intelligence."AIRCO Oxy/AccMiller Thunderbolt
Reply:It's fairly common to see guys hold the rod with their off hand, to steady the rod while they manipulate it with their other hand. I think Fexal did a vid where you could clearly see him holding the electrode in his left hand while holding the stinger in his right. I'll have to dig for it.Edit found it...http://weldingweb.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=110761Last edited by DSW; 11-16-2012 at 04:40 PM..No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth! Ronald Reagan
Reply:It's unlikely you will die if the welder shocks you, tho it can happen w/ some people in certain situations. As long as you're running the arc the current is passing from the rod to whatever you're welding. 7018 can give you a buzz or two in wet conditons. If I had a dollar for every buzz I got using 7018 in the rain/snow I could have retired 5 yrs earlier,LOL!! If you're gloves are dry you can hold the rod 'til you get it burned down to suit you. Just remember to not become the current path between stinger/rod and whatver the ground is clamped to.And practice welding w/o holding the rod, some situations will require it.                                            MikeOl' Stonebreaker  "Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes"Hobart G-213 portableMiller 175 migMiller thunderbolt ac/dc stick Victor O/A setupMakita chop saw
Reply:DC welding shocks won't kill you, they'll just wake you up. AC on the other hand, can knock you on your @ss if you're not careful with it. I don't know what machine you use, but typically OCV when not welding is pretty low. I think ocv on my sync 250 is like 25ish volts. Basically the same as 2 car batteries, it won't kill you, but you'll feel it.ESAB MigMaster 275Miller Econotwin HFMiller Syncrowave 250
Reply:I got zapped earlier this week. I had just finished up a bead, dropped the rod stub out onto the floor and tossed the electrode holder onto the grounded table that was covered in junk... much of which was conductive metal.  Two minutes later I reached over to grab the electrode holder again and got a nice zap, I must have brushed up against a clamp or something that had wedged itself into the electrode holder (hitting some of the copper clamp) when i went to grab it.  It felt similar to a 110V shock.. to me at least.ESAB Heliarc 252
Reply:If you don't mind wasting some rod, just place the 7018 in the holder with the amount of rod you want to weld with. Move rod around and the coating will fall off. You now are gripping the rod say 3'' from where the rod would normally go in the holder. Works great for tight spots.
Reply:At the shop i used to work 2 years ago i got electrocuted several times, maybe around 1 time  each day of work, it was always slow and never hurt really bad but it surprise me each time, i was using a old Hobard TH 250 (SMAW&GTAW Machine) with smaw every and my gloves were always wet because of the band saw and the pieces i had to cut and fit on my table.Calculator > Bevel Square
Reply:I know this is serious, but when I first saw the post title, I just had to chuckle... I know  Safety is no laughing matter. Any which way, electricity can kill you, so any comments are a guideline, but never a reason to not give it the respect it demands.If you and your gear, boots, gloves are dry and your body / skin is not in contact with the path to ground, you'll be ok. I get lit up by the edge of the table sometime when sweating wearing a thinner long sleeve shirt when starting the tig arc. I'm wearing heavier stuff when doing stick, so I haven't gotten it then, yet.In tight spots the finer control is nice, but I would focus practice on bracing your stinger hand with your other hand and arm / elbow braced on the table or leaning against somithing solid. Relax too, you may be gripping real hard or tensing in other ways and not realizing it. I had similar experience and the relax thing really helped me.In the long run working the whole rod will make your technique smoother as you strive to maintain your arc length and must move in as the rod is consumed, as well as down your line.So, as the other posters have said, to answer your specific question, you might get some holding the electrode under the right ( or wrong I suppose) conditions. But, the question itself stems from trying to work around a technique issue.As a much younger man, I had a friend who used to jokingly say "do you think I would die if I ......" : sometimes I wasn't sure if he was serious, so that's why this struck (welding pun) me as humorous at first.Last edited by jtcnj; 11-16-2012 at 08:25 PM.Lincoln AC/DC 225/125 and WP17. 75A AC is for pipe thawing!HH 140 - new addtion 9/2012.I didn't agree, but hoped for Hope and Change.I got change for myself and my family: for the worse.This is the reality of: Barackalypse Now. Again.
Reply:As a new welder, I have considered this question in some depth. I can tell you from personal experience that I have picked the slag off the end of a 7018 rod with my gloved hand while the stinger was live without feeling a thing. There are several things working together to keep you safe here.1) Welding gloves are designed to be electrically resistant. I've read that the common heavy leather type gloves are good to 400 volts, as long as they are dry. This alone should allow you to handle the electrode safely. However, I have read that it takes relatively little moisture to significantly reduce the reistance of the leather gloves, so perhaps this shouldn't be relied upon, especially in damp or hot (sweaty) environments.2) The voltage of the elctrode is relatively low. My stick welder operates around 26 volts, and I have heard that number said for other types of welders as well, although I wouldn't assume that all welders were that way. (For example, TIG welders use constant-current and vary voltage.) Although the welder is capable of supplying more than enough amps to (literally) fry a person, the resistance of a person's body is usually high enough to keep actual current flow to a safe, if uncomfortable, level, should said current find a path through the person's body to ground. Again: safety equipment comes into play here. If you are in bare feet on moist earth, you are going to feel that shock a lot more than if you are in heavy boots on an insulating pad. In theory, if you were on a sufficiently resistant insulating pad, you could grab the electrode's tip with your bare hand and not feel anything.As others have pointed out, DC is less likely to be injurious than AC. I have heard various explanations as to why this is so, but the preponderance of different explanations leaves me unsure as to which of them (or all of them) is right.3) Finally, there is the question of getting shocked when welding. Bear in mind that the place the electricity MOST wants to go is back to the transformer. So if you have a solid connection between your ground clamp and the work piece, and are in the process of welding, your chances of getting shocked are very small, since current is moving through the work piece, to the ground clamp, and back to the transformer. That is most likely to be the least-resistance path to ground, although again, I doubt I would push it by grabbing the work piece with a bare hand while standing on wet ground in bare feet or something dumb like that.Probably the worst thing you could do, from a safety perspective, would be to touch your body with the tip of the electrode while being in contact with the work piece to which the ground clamp was connected. At that point, you have inserted yourself directly in the electrical path. Bad juju. With a little imagination, I'm sure you can come up with some scenarios where this might happen: you brush yourself with the electrode while leaning against the welding table, for example. This is why heavy clothes are important--not just to protect you from slag and sparks, but to electrically insulate your body.
Reply:Originally Posted by claymans13typically OCV when not welding is pretty low. I think ocv on my sync 250 is like 25ish volts.
Reply:If you were to search here and on other sites you will find lots of info on these matters, And don't ever be of the mindset that DC voltages cannot harm you, and it is not votage that does the damage, Amperage is what kills, as little as 1 mili amp, That is next to nothing. The thing that keeps us from being hurt is we are not in the circuit, and we don't provide a path to groung through our bodies with things like gloves, boots and insulated conductors and rod holders. It is electricity, you can't see it but you better respect it."Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum"Lincoln Idealarc 250 AC/DCMillermatic 251   Syncrowave 300   30A spoolgunLincoln MP210Hypertherm 45(2) LN 25(2) Lincoln Weldanpower 225 CV(4) SA200   1 short hood    SA250    SAM 400
Reply:Originally Posted by joshuabardwellProbably the worst thing you could do, from a safety perspective, would be to touch your body with the tip of the electrode while being in contact with the work piece to which the ground clamp was connected. At that point, you have inserted yourself directly in the electrical path. Bad juju. With a little imagination, I'm sure you can come up with some scenarios where this might happen: you brush yourself with the electrode while leaning against the welding table, for example. This is why heavy clothes are important--not just to protect you from slag and sparks, but to electrically insulate your body.
Reply:When I was first learning to weld with a stick I had the same unsteady issues. What I did was use the other hand to steady the rod by laying it on top of the glove. I was lucky to have never gotten shocked doing this. If it had happened the benifit of thes method was that the hand would clench away from the rod braking the circuit. just another option...mooseTimmetalcraft by mooseSoutheast Michiganhttps://www.facebook.com/Metalcraftbymoose  Stupid Hurts!!
Reply:We should never forget Topsy the elephant. Topsy decided she had enough of the circus business and squashed a few people. Edison suggested electrocuting the troublesome elephant with AC electricity. Ironically this idea appeased the ASPCA who was opposed to the original idea of hanging the elephant.
Reply:Originally Posted by KelvinOCV on my Sync 250DX is 80V. (Or at least that's what the DRO says.)
Reply:Like everything else, controlling the tip of the electrode comes with practice.  Personally, I never liked the idea of using two hands to control the electrode when stick welding.  When I feel the slightest tingle when I'm welding outside, I know it's time for me to quit until I get some dry boots, or a rubber pad to stand on.  I have always hated to get shocked.Miller Syncrowave 350Millermatic 252/ 30A spoolgunMiller Bobcat 225g w/ 3545 spoolgunLincoln PowerArc4000Lincoln 175 Mig  Lincoln 135 Mig Everlast 250EX TigCentury ac/dc 230 amp stickVictor O/AHypertherm 1000 plasma
Reply:Originally Posted by jtcnjWell said, except for holding the live part of the stinger or electrode and the ground at the same time: essentially the same. Add DRY heavy gear. I think when some of us who have been lit up and are here to discuss it, we are actually creating a parallel circuit splitting the voltage drops, and current, between the body circuit and the to ground clamp circuit relative to the resistance in the two.
Reply:In some respect, I suppose we could consider 7018 a "safety" electrode, since immediately after finishing a bead, a coating of slag forms on the tip. You could probably lick that thing without getting a shock. You go first.
Reply:I have never been zapped while steading a welding rod with one hand and holding the stinger with the other hand in thirty years. 99% outside and 75% ornimetal but I always have an xtra pair of gloves in case the glove start to get soaked from sweat. But I didn't say I haven't been ZAPPED while welding. My parter an I were refabing/restoring an old stair case. It was about 105* and 110* humidity, totally soaked head to toe. The sweat was actually filling my boots. The treads use to have tile. They were replacing the tile when we where done. There was a front lip to the tread about 1/2" high. I had  nealed on that lip and went to strike a arc and the next thing I new I was thrown across the room about 10 feet!All I remember is my Buddy laughing his *** off standing over me. Said he had never seen something that big fly before. I'm 6 3" and 350lbs. Felt like somebody smacked me in the chest with a 25lbs sledge hammer!
Reply:Originally Posted by towelWe should never forget Topsy the elephant. Topsy decided she had enough of the circus business and squashed a few people. Edison suggested electrocuting the troublesome elephant with AC electricity. Ironically this idea appeased the ASPCA who was opposed to the original idea of hanging the elephant.
Reply:Originally Posted by towelWe should never forget Topsy the elephant. Topsy decided she had enough of the circus business and squashed a few people. Edison suggested electrocuting the troublesome elephant with AC electricity.
Reply:Originally Posted by claymans13DC welding shocks won't kill you, they'll just wake you up. AC on the other hand, can knock you on your @ss if you're not careful with it. I don't know what machine you use, but typically OCV when not welding is pretty low. I think ocv on my sync 250 is like 25ish volts. Basically the same as 2 car batteries, it won't kill you, but you'll feel it.
Reply:I've gotten shocked plenty of times putting new rods in up on the iron in wet conditions.. your boots are the only thing you can use to stop that!Miller ab/p 330Hobart champ 16Miller 140Lincoln Power Mig 255Lincoln SA-250
Reply:It's all conjecture and perspective. If your name is OSHA NIOSH and the tolerance level for the potential to be shocked is zero, then put the stinger down and back away. Statistics can be used as a scare tactic too. Is it technically possible, backed up by statistics, to be killed falling off of the bottom step? Is it technically possible, backed up by statistics, to fall while stepping up onto or down off of the bottom step? If the answer to either of those is yes and/or your acceptable tolerance level for the potential to fall is zero, then the conclusion would be to never step up onto nor down off of any step. Just last week I got zapped touching the door knob once and my dogs ear the other time. I could have died. "The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -Theodore Roosevelt
Reply:Current is the killer. In school when we were learning ohm's law (potential=current X resistance) I had trouble in the beginning remembering what each electricity term's one letter equivalent was( for example potential =v, Current =I, watts=P) so for current I always remembered it like this I AMP CURRENTly dead.Originally Posted by emeraldbisonCurrent is the killer. In school when we were learning ohm's law (potential=current X resistance) I had trouble in the beginning remembering what each electricity term's one letter equivalent was( for example potential =v, Current =I, watts=P) so for current I always remembered it like this I AMP CURRENTly dead.
Reply:Originally Posted by MikeGyverYes the flow of current is what does the damage, but saying amps is what's going to kill you isn't really accurate in this context.As an example,a 12,000 volt power source that's capable of delivering only 1 amp is going to be infinitely more dangerous because it actually has enough potential to push that 1 amp through the high resistance of your body. So yes, in the end it's the current flow through your body that does the damage but a higher voltage source makes it much easier for any current to get through you.
Reply:In the context of "Will I die if......" I think saying current kills is completely accurate.
Reply:Originally Posted by emeraldbisonIn the context of "Will I die if......" I think saying current kills is completely accurate.
Reply:This is so far off its insane. How many people in the world have died from shocks loading up a rod or steadying up their rod with the other hand?ESAB MigMaster 275Miller Econotwin HFMiller Syncrowave 250
Reply:Originally Posted by emeraldbisonIn the context of "Will I die if......" I think saying current kills is completely accurate.
Reply:Originally Posted by KelvinAnd here I thought it wasn't amps or volts but kilowatt-hours (V x A x time).
Reply:Originally Posted by SandyThat's the electric chair, or the Thanksgiving turkey. One or the other.
Reply:If its DC or cv i wouldn't worry to much but ac id be concernedSent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
Reply:It's fine. I've welded in the rain and got shocked before, it's not a big deal.Dry gloves nothing to worry about. In the rain, you're safer using DC instead of ac.Miller: 200dx, Bobcat 225, Passport, Powermax 45, Milwaukee: Dry Saw, MagDrill, grinders
Reply:Originally Posted by JohnRIt's fine. I've welded in the rain and got shocked before, it's not a big deal.Dry gloves nothing to worry about. In the rain, you're safer using DC instead of ac.