copper fumes?

[preacher]

I started a new project today. I am making flowers with hammered copper petals TIG welded to carbon steel stems. My question is do I need to worry about copper fumes the same as I would worry about galvanized steel fumes when welding? There is not a lot of welding on each flower but I might start to do a lot of these and I was just wondering if my wife is going to find me dead in the shop one afternoon.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

preacher

[Jeepnford]

Here's a little reading on it. It looks like small amounts of welding in a day may not do much,probably more of a cumulative affect. I'm going to try to start wearing a good mask.

http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/C5170.htm

[TomVeatch]

According to that MSDS for Copper Metal, "Use only with adequate ventilation". So, if any of you are running electrical circuits for your welders, be sure you don't do it with copper wire in an enclosed area!

[Winger Ed.]

They're not as bad as galvanized fumes, but they ain't healthy for ya either.

No more than what you're doing- keep upwind of the smoke & fumes coming off the welding action, have some ventalation, and you'll be fine.

I also think copper accumulates in a person, but our 'system' also casts it out. I've noticed the guys at plumbing supply houses always wear gloves when handleing copper tubing....... Of course they do it for a major portion of their day too, not just on occasion like we do.

Our water commonly runs in copper tubing, but the metal of it probably doesn't leach out much either unless the water/pipe gets REAL! hot.


A big concentration of it like you'd get from snorting up a cloud of welding fumes in which some copper is bound to be vaporized could potentially be hazardous for ya.

Basically copper is like lead, carbon dioxide, arsenic, carbon monoxide, acids, chlorine, whiskey, almost anything you can think of-heck- even water:
There is no such thing as a toxic substance,,,,, only toxic levels of them.

.

[bob_e95482]

I worked for 12 yrs building hi-amperage DC power supplies. Lots of torch soldering cooling tubes, grinding, drilling, etc. Cu dust & sweat= green skin. MSDS says too much exposure to anything is bad. I haven't experienced any health problems.

[fun4now]

just wondering ....why not just grab a torch and braze them togather?? why TIG ???

cool flowers.

[preacher]

Why TIG?

Why TIG?

A few reasons. First I feel I can control the heat better with TIG allowing me to get the discoloration of the copper to where I want it. Next (and this likely has a lot to do with my first reason) I don't have much experience with an OA torch. Lastly I enjoy the the TIG process so it really is a matter of personal preference.

[fun4now]

i fully understand TIg being a favoret, i gotta say i realy like playing with mine. it just seemed like a braze would have been faster and easyer, i never tryed dissimler metals like coper to steel with tig. you just melting the copper to the steel ?? are you using a flux or some thing to aid the process??

[preacher]

Thanks

Thank you to all who replied to my post. I think I'll just keep some good ventilation going and not worry to much.

As far as welding dissimilar metals to together, I don't use any flux. I just keep my base metals clean and go. Its really not much different than welding steel to steel. I hold a the TIG torch in one hand and hold the flower petal with pliers in the other hand this allows me to move from one part to the next pretty quickly.

If strength was more of a concern I would likely use a little filler or learn to braise. But this is art so I am more concerned with keeping the welds small and neat.

Thank you again

preach