With the availability of increasingly cheaper equipment, welding has become far more accessible these days. While this is definitely a plus, it also comes with the elephant-sized asterisk that as with any tool you absolutely must take into account basic safety precautions for yourself and others. This extends to the way you prepare metal for welding, with [Dr. Bernard], AKA [ChubbyEmu] recently joining forces with [styropyro] to highlight the risks of cleaning metal with brake cleaner prior to welding.

Much like with common household chemicals used for cleaning, such as bleach and ammonia, improper use of these can produce e.g. chlorine gas, which while harmful is generally not lethal. Things get much more serious with brake cleaner, containing tetrachloroethylene. As explained in the video, getting brake cleaner on a rusty part to clean it and then exposing it to the intensive energies of the welding process suffices to create phosgene.

Used as a devastating chemical weapon during World War I, phosgene does not dissolve or otherwise noticeably reduce in potency after it enters the lungs. Instead it clings to surfaces where it attacks and destroys proteins and DNA until the affected person typically dies from disruption of the lung’s blood-air barrier and subsequent pulmonary edema. Effectively your lungs fill with liquid, your blood oxygen saturation drops and at some point your body calls it quits.

The video is based on a real case study, where in 1982 a previously healthy 23-year old man accidentally inhaled phosgene, was admitted to the ER before being rushed to the ICU. Over the course of six days he deteriorated, developed a fever and passed away after his heart stopped pumping properly due to ventricular fibrillation.

Basically, if you are off minding your own business and suddenly smell something like musty hay or freshly cut grass when nobody is mowing the lawn, there’s a chance you just inhaled phosgene. Unlike in the video, where the victim keeps welding and waits a long time before going to the ER, immediate treatment can at least give you a shot at recovery if the exposure was mild enough.

As with laser safety, prevention is the best way to stay healthy. In the case of welding it’s essential to fully cover up your skin as there is intense UV radiation from the work area, protect your eyes with a quality welding mask and ideally wear a respirator especially when welding indoors. Show your eyes, lungs and skin how much you love them by taking good care of them — and please don’t use brake cleaner to prep parts for welding.

LAUNCH COMPLEX 14, Cape Canaveral, Fla.—The platform atop the hulking steel tower offered a sweeping view of Florida’s rich, sandy coastline and brilliant blue waves beyond. Yet as captivating as the vista might be for an aspiring rocket magnate like Andy Lapsa, it also had to be a little intimidating.

To his right, at Launch Complex 13 next door, a recently returned Falcon 9 booster stood on a landing pad. SpaceX has landed more than 500 large orbital rockets. And next to SpaceX sprawled the launch site operated by Blue Origin. Its massive New Glenn rocket is also reusable, and founder Jeff Bezos has invested tens of billions of dollars into the venture.

Looking to the left, Lapsa saw a graveyard of sorts for commercial startups. Launch Complex 15 was leased to a promising startup, ABL Space, two years ago. After two failed launches, ABL Space pivoted away from commercial launch. Just beyond lies Launch Complex 16, where Relativity Space aims to launch from. The company has already burned through $1.7 billion in its efforts to reach orbit. Had billionaire Eric Schmidt not stepped in earlier this year, Relativity would have gone bankrupt.

Read full article

Comments