Correction
Mike Aurelius, who is, as far as I know, one of the world's leading authorities on eye protection for glassworkers, just commented on my last post, saying that sodium flare is actually not dangerous for your vision. However, a couple of things called HEV and HIV (not the AIDS kind) are. Mike has linked to these two articles, which I strongly recommend you read:
General Recommendations for Filter Eyewear
Visible Light Hazards and the Glassworker
I quote:
The above paragraph is now obsolete in light of additional research done about the visible hazards as described in Visible Light Hazards and the Glassworker. I now recommend that glassworkers under no circumstances wear clear safety glasses while working with any kind of glass torch unless they are using some other secondary filter, such as a table or torch mounted filter shield.
Proper filter eyewear is an absolute requirement for anyone working with hot glass.
Clear lenses do not provide proper filtration of UV, HEV or HIV wavelengths and should not be worn during any hot glass operation.
Didymium and ACE (Amethyst Color Enhancement) filters by themselves provide safe filtration for soft glass workers but should never be used by borosilicate glass workers without additional visible light filters. If you have light colored eyes, you may wish to consider adding additional filtration depending on your personal sensitivity to bright light. Additional filtration may be required by anyone working with glass that contains silver additives or any other material that create bright visible light flares.
Thanks Mike.
Come on, just wear the damn glasses. Purple lenses are cool.
Right on Sarah! It is so responsible of you to drive this point home about wearing protective eyewear. In fact, I would get tired eyes from wearing didys on a hothead, so I upgraded to lenses that had stronger protection (bought them from Mike's company) and never had that problem again.
I can't imagine that it's worth it to anyone to save a little money now (or to think you don't look cool) and run the risk of permanent eye damage in the future.
Plus, there's the issue of flying glass pieces, so having protection over one's eyes is priceless in that manner too. I can't imagine the pain of flying HOT glass in one's eyes. ACK!
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Hi Sarah,
Good for you!
This information is great. It is probably important to understand we are the guinea pigs in a vast study of what these rays do to the eye. What percent of the population does this work. How long is it going to take before the research we now have is actually valid for everyone?
Personally I would rather be safe than sorry. Of course everyone has the choice of playing Russian Roulette with any tool they choose. I prefer it not be my torch
I'm with ya "wear the damn glasses"!
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When people tell Shopmonkeys that they don't wear their didymium or related eye protection cause they can see the bead just fine, we tell them how cool they are that they're not gonna let "The Man" tell them how to live their lives - just like the people who don't wear helmets when riding motorcycles or use the safety belt when in a car or ones who like to use a hairdryer in the shower or poke at wild animals with a stick.
Those people are totally rebels, man. Rock on!
Shopmonkeys, being the cowardly little monkeys that we are, prefer to live vicariously through hearing of their exploits when they get out of the hospital. Or, you know, at their funeral.
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Something else that your aussie friends may not know that you can show them is how much more they can see with the diddys. That yellow flare hides so much. I was totally amazed but how much I can tell about the glass and its temperature. Love the diddys. I have to wear reading glasses so I got some 3x flexible lenses and they stick on the inside of the diddys, wonderful. I can see...wahoo......
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