Jon Elson wrote in message servers.com...
Hello, all,

I got an autodarkening welding hood on eBay when I got my TIG welder
(Lincoln Square Wave TIG 300) and am still learning my way around the
process.

This is a cheapie Chinese autodark hood with a very green filter.
I went down to Cee-Kay for more Argon and looked at the hoods
they recommend for TIG. Gasp, $450 is a BIT high for my budget.

But, I noticed the filters were much closer to neutral density, and
I could see the red on a US flag with them. With my hood (I took it
with me) the red in the flag was TOTALLY black.

I took the autodark filter module apart and there is a dichroic filter
that looks very reddish-purple in reflection, and very green in
transmission. (It has a piece of clear glass next to it that I'm
assuming is an IR or UV blocking filter.) SO, the question is, can
I swap out this green filter for something closer to neutral density
in color? The LCD unit seems to be a pretty good ND (colorless)
filter by itself.

My problem is I can't see any of the red or yellow color of the
workpiece as it heats up. All I can see is the liquid-look of the weld
pool, but I have no idea how close I'm getting to melting the whole
piece.

I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that despite the staggering light
output of the arc, you can see some red or yellow to tell you the
general heat level of the area around the weld pool when you are
doing TIG with a high-quality autodark hood.

The booklet with the hood indicates it is a # 4 filter when "clear",
so I'm guessing this is essentially the rating of the green filter
I want to replace.

Anybody ever done this, run into this trouble, comments?

Thanks in advance,

Jon

Don't forget you're also dealing with UV and IR radiation that can't
be seen, so don't monkey around with those filters. One good case of
solar keratitis in your eyes and $450 seems cheap. Good Jackson and
Speedglas helmets can be had for 2-300.00, especially off Ebay. I have
a Miller auto-dark that was $165.00, I'm not overly impressed with it
and will change to the Jackson in the near future.
Ronnie