again steve (weldequip) is the man for all your welding needs. cheap too. auto masks range from tacky ebay 5 minute wonders to top of the range 500quid ones. you wont want either of those unless your skint or you are rich lol. your looking at about 50-70 quid for a decent mask. they will help you no end getting better results as you can see the workpiece before striking the arc. its especially good when doing car welding as its not very often you will do a long seam, maybe 1-2 inches depending on lots of factors. buy the best you can afford and pm steve and ask him his opinion on the budget you have
hth scott
I'd strongly recomend the speedglas series of helmet they are very good to use and last well unlike many of the solar powered masks, they're also very good for visability and window sive they're by far the best ones I've ever seen
I'd strongly recomend the speedglas series of helmet they are very good to use and last well unlike many of the solar powered masks, they're also very good for visability and window sive they're by far the best ones I've ever seen
I respectfully disagree. I've got two Speedglas ones at the moment and though I agree that the filter cartridge and the overall design is extremely good they are severely let down by rubbish headgear. The nuts on the sides always loosen so the helmet falls down and I have now had to replace the headgear on both of my helmets due to the plastic cracking on both (in different places). That said the new models had a redesigned headgear but that, if anything, looks even flimsier than the current one....
Heard several negative comments on the Speedglas buckets now, 'value for money' seems to be questionable.
For DIY use the SIFlite from Weldequip or the Parweld from DIYWelding seem excellent, with several users of both on here.
I started a thread about them a while back. I wouldn't condemn them totally as they do have their plus points; the filter is very good, they're nice and light and the Darth Vader-style breathing thing in the front does stop them from fogging up pretty effectively. Plus the base model is only £90, I think. If only they'd sort out a decent headgear.
yes I agree the head gear isn't the best out there, though I don't think it's as bad as you are making it sound I've been using one for a couple of years now, and it isn't cracking at all, it does get lose, I guess you could use abit of nutlock to fix this? if you found it to be a problem personally I haven't found it to bee too bad, i think that the lens and low weigh more than make up for this small problem and the front vent is very good.
I received one of the afforementioned Parweld £40 beauties this morning, a mere 3 days after snaffling it off ebay. Looks pretty good to me, ill try it out in anger soon and let you know.