Yeah, definitely have to be careful with welding. Really you should try not to breath any welding fumes but short of wearing a respirator all the time, it happens. Most of my welding is done outside and I try not to blast myself with fumes. I’m also alert to the things like galvanized, zinc, and Phosgene gas. I’ll use brake cleaner to spray off parts sometimes but I let it dry really good and always use the non-chlorinated stuff. Lately I’ve been experimenting with using denatured alcohol for wiping stuff down.
Grease and oil presence will contribute to the splatter problem when welding. Any contaminants will cause excessive popping. Flux core wire splatters more than gas shielded to begin with. The cleaner you get where you’re welding, the better. They say arc welding with 6011 rod will weld through a cow pie… but that doesn’t mean that you should weld like that.
The beauty of metal is that if you burn through or screw something up, you just grind and weld to fix it. Cut a piece too short? Just weld some more back onto it. Way easier than working with wood.
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