Spark/Slag Safty?

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I am new to welding and have decided to start off with a small mig welder ("Lincoln Electric MIG-Pak HD" from home depot)•   Welds up to 1/8 In. mild steel•  Amperage output up to 88 amps•  115V input voltage•  Welds both MIG and flux-coredIn the garage I plan on designating a 9'x9' area for welding. My garage isnt huge, and my washer/dryer/water heater is in it, making it even smaller and giving more sparks places to fly/hide.I was thinking of buying material to hang from the ceiling to the floor to partition everything around me off. Ive seen professional "cells" to weld in but thats a bit overboard for my budget. Can anyone suggest some materials they have used before that would work great for this, and wasnt really expensive? Most blankets I find say that slag would burn through them, but how often does that happen with the smaller mig welders? Do they really produce that much slag? Would i have to replace them often?Sorry for so many questions, but I cant seem to find a thread/site that gets into much detail about this.
Reply:Most blankets I find say that slag would burn through them, but how often does that happen with the smaller mig welders? Do they really produce that much slag? Would i have to replace them often?
Reply:I wonder whether you could use a couple of fire blankets? That's what they're called over here. Some people have them in their kitchen (and they may be mandatory for commercial kitchens) for oil fires i.e. they throw the blanket over the fire. They're not too expensive here because that would discourage people from buying them.Scott
Reply:Sparks are like sperm, it only takes one.
Reply:You can get hanging welding curtains that kinda resemble really thick, sorta see-through shower curtains.   We use those over the front of our welding booths at work and I have used the old ones we discard at work in the garage to keep welding sparks off of cardboard and other combustable stuff.   If you want something more permanent, what we use at work for the walls of the booths are 5 foot metal partitions that resemble office cubicle walls.   They have sheetmetal sides instead of the fabric used for offices.   You might be able to get some used at the scrap yard for cheap.  Our booths are about 12x12 and I've yet to have a spark jump over the walls.Moving blankets or anything else made of fabric would be a bad idea, unless that fabric was specifically fire-resistant, like that made for a firemans' coat.  I've had a stack of moving blankets catch fire in the garage before when a spark flew up on them and smoldered for a while.
Reply:Everyone's suggestions and cautions are good however unless you purchase a "blanket" made for this particular purpose you're probably not going to be as  safe as you would like.  Have you thought about a hard material like maybe making a few 3x4 ft. masonite portable panels that can be stood up around your welding area and then put up when you're done.  Having a hard surface will typically cause any sparks to bounce back to the ground or at a minimum reduce the chance of smoldering and catching fire later.  I don't think you will be having that many issues with the welder (unless you use flux core) I think the bigger issue is when you begin grinding.  I know my grinder throws off 1000 times more sparks than my welding equipment.
Reply:I am dealing with a similar problem.The LWS sells these blankets that are I guess ' fire retardent " used to cover things in close proximity to welding to protect them from spars/slag.They are a tad pricey .... I think 6' X 6' was around $60 each.I though of getting at least 3 and haging them in a |_| configuration.As to cost, well 3 would be $180 and that is way below the deductible on my fire insurance.I know a guy who welds inside of a 10' X 12'  wooden storage shed - what he did though was install aluminum siding on the inside ... the floor is still wood but nothing in there other than the welding table and welder.
Reply:Harbor freight has fire retardent welding blankets that are pretty reasonable. I dont like buying chinese junk, but for certain things HF is ok.
Reply:[QUOTE=harcosparky]They are a tad pricey .... I think 6' X 6' was around $60 each.You got a website where that is available??  Thanks
Reply:I like the idea of putting up walled partitions, but it would be a lot of extra work putting them up and taking them down. Overall though it seems the safest  route so far.