Welding Curtain: A Reasonable Investment in Safety for Hazardous Welding Environments

Whether it’s the emission of harmful ultraviolet radiation, or the spraying of 1650°C spatter, welding environments are hazardous. That’s why solutions that protect welders, bystanders and even the areas immediately surrounding welding activities are among the highest priorities for businesses that perform any type of heated metal fabrication.

The problem with most workplace solutions, however, is their cost. Welding booths, complete with multi-stage fume extraction and downdraft dust capture systems are capital investments that only the best positioned companies are likely to be able to afford. There’s a simple alternative for small- and medium-sized businesses to contain a large measure of their hazardous welding by-products, though. And unlike fixed-site booths, they provide an essential barrier that’s effective, affordable and also portable.

Welding Curtains Help Ensure Safety Stays At the Forefront

Let’s be honest: while Australian Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) guidelines are very specific about occupational safety for welders, the fact is not every company has the capacity to potentially commit tens of thousands of dollars to an enterprise-level shielding solution. This, however, is where a certified-safe, industrial quality welding curtain can be trusted to provide businesses with the vital protection they need to control the hazards and secondary risks associated with welding by-products.

Unlike fully-enclosed, fixed-site welding structures, portable welding curtains and screens offer a bevy of readily customizable benefits that include:

• Fully scalable protection against an array of welding hazards that could result in extensive personal injury or property damage;
• A choice of either folding welding screen or retractable screen arrangements;
• Unlimited configuration possibilities, capable of supporting an unlimited number of welding stations;
• A wide range of welding shield curtain colours and sizes, based on an activity’s safety objectives; and,
• Fast and easy setup and storage that doesn’t take up excessive workshop or warehouse space.

With their light weight and ability to be combined to produce unique barriers anywhere, industrial welding curtains are a natural choice for fabricators and manufacturers who need to safely and effectively separate their welding activities from other business functions. 

Premium portable welding screens can even be used to provide safe separation for other metal fabrication activities like soldering, brazing and grinding. That helps make welding safety curtains the perfect solution for any size business to ensure that the safety of their welding and welding-related tasks remains at the forefront.

Industrial Barrier Qualities That Make Welding Environments Safer

AS/NZS 3957 prescribes the precise standards for ultraviolet light and flame resistance for all industrial welding screens and curtains sold in Australia. They leave very little room for variations or exceptions, which is why everything from their colour translucence to their physical properties is rigorously tested and independently verified for their ability to:

• Allow welding processes to be safely monitored and observed from outside the welding environment;
• Protect welders and bystanders from harmful UV and IR radiation that could cause permanent eye and skin damage;
• Prevent sparks and spatter created by the welding process from being ejected out of the working area;
• Provide a physical barrier that can halt the spread of fire outside the welding environment; and,
• Limit the spread of pulverised airborne coatings, metal particles, and even fumes that are released during the welding process.

When properly deployed and correctly overlapped, portable welding blinds, screens and curtains are capable of creating a fully WHS-compliant welding environment that won’t overwhelm a business’s finances. And business owners and safety officers only have to look at how welding screens and curtains are constructed to recognise how valuable they can be for partitioning welding areas and work spaces.

Simple Attributes That Go Into the Best Welding Curtains

Make no mistake: when it comes to industrial welding curtains, design and construction are as much the keys to their effectiveness as they are to their safety. Even minor flaws in welding screen curtain materials or mounting hardware stitching can dramatically increase the risk of exposure to blinding UV rays and burns, respiratory problems and possibility of workplace fires or explosions. 

That’s why businesses have to be sure that when they purchase welding protection screens and curtains, that they’re sufficiently rated and sized for the job at hand. The primary industrial welding screen qualities and attributes that buyers need to be on the lookout for would include:

• Fire retardant, 0.5mm polyvinyl chloride (PVC) welding curtain material in the correct transparent colour;
• Tough, flame retardant Kevlar-stitched edging with pressed studs for easy connecting; and,
• A heavy duty, rust resistant tube frame on casters, or portable retractable base with mounting pole.

At a height of 1.8m, the frame dimensions for most portable welding screens for sale can vary from 1.8m – 5.5m in length for tube frames, and up to 6m in length for retractables. That guarantees a virtually unlimited area of protection which, when paired with the appropriately coloured welding screen material, offers a level of welding environment separation that’s comparable to any welding booth or fixed-site enclosure.

Welding Curtain Colours and Transparencies Make a Difference

While the PVC colour choices used with mobile welding screens may only seem like a matter of preference, nothing could be further from the truth. Different types of welding, marked by differences in the currents, voltages and shielding gases used with them all have an impact on the intensity, spectrum and ultimately the amount of UV and IR radiation that’s emitted during the welding process. 

That’s why screen welding manufacturers produce both a variety of colours and transparencies, allowing businesses to tailor their configurations to match the types of welding they perform. Most suppliers, however, offer a standard selection of coloured welding curtains for sale that are suited to match the widest range of welding activities, which includes:

• Green. Green curtains offer the highest level of UV protection, and are preferred for the highest risk, highest amperage welding activities such as laser welding and plasma cutting.
• Blue. While blue hanging welding curtains don’t the provide the same level of protection that green curtains do, they still offer exceptional protection for medium to high amperage welding with very good UV protection.
• Red. Red curtains are best suited for medium amperage welding activities and provide reasonable protection against UV exposure for the widest range of standard welding jobs.

It’s important to remember that the transparency of a welding curtain is its main protective property. Darker curtains provide less transparency, but greater UV protection than lighter ones. Ideally, as every business will have its own limits on allowable UV and IR exposure, their safety and production staffs will ultimately need to verify just how transparent their curtains should be.

The Final Word

At the end of the day, even though welding environments are rife with an array of hazards, eye injuries and burns don’t have to be among them. Bystanders and on-site welding inspectors in particular need to be protected from the dangers of UV emissions and molten metal; and a proper solution should be capable of combining safety with versatility.

A certified, industrial quality curtain has all the qualities a business needs to reduce the risks of personal injuries and property damages as a result of welding by-products. They have the scalable capacity to make any welding environment, along with its associated working area, safer than it’s ever been.