Different welding hoods offer a variety of options. You have to consider the one which fulfills all your requirements, such as the following:
Table of Contents
1. Comfortability
The workers dealing with welding work wear hoods most of the time. The uncomfortable hoods can result in several problems, such as low productivity and neck strain. That’s why you should not compromise on the hood’s comfortability while buying it.
You can ensure that the hood will be comfortable for you if you follow these steps:
- Wear the helmet and check whether it covers your eyes, face, and neck properly or not.
- Check the number of contact points in the helmet for your head. The more contact points there are, the more comfortable it will be.
- See whether the helmet tilts or not while wearing it. It should be stable and balanced when you wear it. Otherwise, this tilting will disturb you while working.
In this way, you have to ensure that this hood fits on your head. You can ask the hood sellers to show you the appropriate hood sizes.
2. Viewing Area
The viewing area is another thing to consider when buying the welding hood. There are two main types of hoods in terms of viewing area. One offers a small viewing area that is useful if you want to increase your focus and concentration on a small region. On the other hand, if you want to consider the whole region while welding, you should prefer the hood with a large viewing area.
The next thing to consider in terms of the viewing area is the lens clarity. The clarity of the lens is described in terms of ratings. The clarity that is completely undistorted is given the highest rating of 1/1/1/1. You have to select the one that comes in your budget.
There are several other factors that are related to the viewing area of the hood, such as the visual impairments of the wearer, fogging in the area, light transmission, and color perception of the different lenses of the hood.
3. Safety
There are several potential safety hazards, such as Ultraviolet rays, fire sparkles, and other hot elements during welding. The hood will cover the face, eyes, and neck to block all these things.
However, it is your job to ensure that you are buying a completely safe welding hood by considering the safety regulation tests. These tests will help you to know whether your helmet can protect you from the following things:
- High-velocity items, especially falling objects.
- High-frequency rays, such as ultraviolet and infrared rays.
- Low and high temperatures.
4. Shading Feature
The advancement in the technology of welding hoods is increasing the wearer’s comfort. The older hoods come with fixed shades of the lenses. However, modern hoods, such as the pancake hood, offer a variety of shading options.
There are passive shading, automatic shading, and variable shading features. The shading of the lenses starts from 5 to 13. As the number increases, the shade of the lens becomes darker. However, it darkens only when it is exposed to bright light.