That might be the most hyperbolic description of hexavalent chromium exposure I’ve ever seen. It’s a powerful carcinogen and repeat exposure is known to increase chance of cancer. I’ve never seen a case of it killing anyone in a few days like you describe. Are you thinking of hydroflouric acid exposure?
I was told that breathing zinc fumes would make someone sick for a few days, but they'd recover. (Zinc flue) I was further told that inhaling chrome fumes would kill me.
I think we've just uncovered a metaphorical truth.
Welding of steels containing chromium (stainless steel and high tensile steels) is done commonly, including in home shops with little PPE. It's not like if you weld steels containing chromium you'll immediately die, it takes a lot of exposure.
Like all other toxic exposures you should do what you can to mitigate it, but you're kind of overstating the danger of welding chromium-containing steels.
Wear a half-face respirator with an “Organic Vapor” cartridge + “P100” filter and you won’t have much to worry about.
It doesn’t solve all problems (like if there’s too much other stuff and not enough oxygen), but it handles almost any airborne harms that you’d expose yourself in a non-insane DIY situation.
well ventilated area and respirator will do you good,as well as common soap and water after.
oxy acetylene gas weldingisnot so bad for radiated energy, but you should protect yours eyes bare minimum.
if you are doing arc welding, mig or tig, cover up as much skin as possible and try to use some sort of barrier to occlude UV and highfrequency EM flux.
Wow I’m glad you said that. I was thinking of doing some hobby welding and I’m the exact kind of fool that would think I can jump in and do this without knowing enough.
I was quite surprised when the ventilation safety video was the first part of the Welding class at Pumping Station One in Chicago a decade ago. I don't mind welding hot rolled steel, but anything else is always suspect, in my book.
1) taking a class or some training is a good idea, since yes you can hurt yourself.
2) it would be exceptionally difficult to hurt or even kill your self this way. More common is something like zinc poisoning (rarely fatal, easily miserable) from welding on galvanized steel, or getting uv or
spatter burns, or shocking yourself (rarely fatal, often amusing!). Some things like tanks need special training. I’ve been welding for decades and have literally never heard of anyone getting chromium poisoning.
3) you’re more likely to accidentally set yourself or something else on fire (I’ve only done it once, keep a spray bottle of water around and you’ll usually be fine)
Personally I figured the article was talking about generated EMF crashing some important computer systems. But it was only talking about tripping fire alarms, which someone stupidly thought didn’t need to be disabled while literally melting metal indoors with a high powered electric arc.
Welding can be dangerous if you have no experience with industrial processes (aka have no idea what dangerous looks like in context), but it’s not a death wish. The only people I’ve heard having real issues were folks doing lots of welding in tight enclosed spaces without proper PPE, or welding on improperly purged fuel tanks.
