The thing nobody tells you about welding galvanized steel
Been meaning to say this for a while. If you're welding galvanized steel in your studio without proper ventilation, stop. The zinc oxide fumes will give you something called metal fume fever. Feels like the worst flu of your life for about 24 hours. I got it once in my twenties working on a stair railing in a garage with the door half open. Thought I was dying. Called my father thinking it was a heart attack. He told me to drink milk and go to sleep. Actually worked, but I wouldn't recommend the experience.
Wear a respirator. Not a dust mask. A proper respirator with the right cartridges. Or grind the galvanization off the weld area first. Takes an extra ten minutes and saves you a day of shaking on the bathroom floor.
That's all. Just something nobody warned me about and I keep seeing people skip.
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Ah, the milk trick. Old welders' wisdom. Works for the fever but doesn't do much for the part where you're convinced your heart is quitting on you.
I had a similar experience years ago, not welding, but burning off old lead paint with a heat gun in a closed space. Stupid. Felt like I'd been poisoned for two days because I had been. The respirator felt like an inconvenience until it didn't.
Thing that stayed with me: we treat safety gear like it's optional until we've had the bad day. Then we're the ones telling younger people not to be idiots. Good on you for saying it plainly.
That line about safety gear feeling optional until it isn't, that's the whole thing, isn't it. I've seen the same pattern in the studio. Students who won't bother with proper ventilation or a respirator when working with cadmium pigments or turpentine because nothing's gone wrong yet. And you can say something, but it doesn't really land until they've had a headache that won't quit or a dizzy spell that scared them.
I'm glad you were all right. Two days of feeling poisoned is a long time.
You're right about the heat gun. Did a renovation job in the 90s where we stripped a whole window frame with one. No mask. Nobody said a word about it back then. That stuff stays in you in a way galvanized fever doesn't. Different kind of stupid.
That lead paint story is rough. Heat gun makes it worse too, you're just aerosolizing the stuff. At least with welding you see the smoke and know you're in trouble. Heat gun feels harmless right up until it isn't.
You're right about the bad day changing you. I've got a rule now: if I'm reaching for the respirator and thinking "do I really need this," the answer is yes. Took me getting sick to learn it though.