Welding Tips and Tricks

Ok hopefully not a dumb question. I started a mig skills class is only 5 weeks but first day today. Welding mild steel with C10 and the way I weld I am basically laying in the damn weld once I'm awhile I would feel a little wobbly probably from lack of oxygen, being so hot and being tired but are these gases actually really dangerous? Especially with me being like right over the darn weld, I'll try and practice to see if I can stand off more but even with magnifiers is hard to not get up and close, wouldn't be able to fit respirator under my helmet I don't think

Argon displaces oxygen. Saturate your breathing with argon for long enough and you’ll experience issues. After heavy TIG welding days, my throat is often very raspy.

They make helmets suited for respirators and fresh air systems. You might want to invest in one.

the scary answer is people have died from welding in enclosed spaces.

welding fumes are bad. not only from argon replacing the air you breathe, but also all the fumes.
my previous work the main welding station the guys had a fume hood and ventilated helmets.
meanwhile my station just had standard helmet as i wasn't welding all the time. just open the doors enough to get a bit of ventilation through. get the old black snot but not to bad.
it comes down to how much welding your doing.

being close, the helmet tends to shield you the most.
for me i often rig a fan up to blow a little bit of air just to keep the fumes away.

Might see if I can adjust the fan to blow across my face to blow fumes away without affecting shieldingI'm not investing in a fancy hood and clean air respirator for a 5 week class I don't even want to see what a setup costs lok. I am doing class for hobby I don't do this for s living. For s school they should have better ve tilation and hoods for each stall I would think

Would this work or is this not for fumes?

Try to avoid setting a fan to blow “across your welding area” instead have it “pull” the fumes away. Proper welding stations have extraction fans that don’t effect shielding gas and pull SMAW fumes up and away.

It does have ventilation. But I need to basically stick my fave in the weld so that's my issue. Seen a couple decent price papr helmets but idk about those ones

Well just found a really good deal on a very nice used lincold 3250D FGS with the papr ventilation system so yay me lol. Would have preferred the 3350 but at least the 3250 I can flip it up and just keep it on and cannot beat $1000 for it