Swapped from slag hammers to needle guns for cleaning welds and I'm never going back

Used to spend 20 minutes per joint chipping slag on a big tank job in Gary last fall, now I'm done in under 5 with way less fatigue. Has anyone else made the switch and noticed their hands feeling better at the end of the day?

3 comments

3 Comments

vera_campbell13d agoMost Upvoted

My buddy down in Texas switched over last spring and he swore his whole forearm stopped feeling like it was gonna fall off. He was doing some nasty pipe work where the slag was thick as hell and the needle gun just chewed through it. Said his grip strength came back after a few weeks and he actually stopped waking up with those tingling fingers at night. How long did it take you to get used to the noise difference though?

the_jason13d agoMost Upvoted

The noise thing actually took me a solid month honestly. First time I fired up one of those needle guns I thought something was broken because it sounded completely different from the chipping hammers I was used to. My buddy said it reminded him of a giant sewing machine on steroids and that's pretty accurate. What got me was how the pitch changes when you hit different angles or thicknesses of metal. Took my ears a while to stop feeling like they were missing something when the needle gun was running. Funny enough I actually prefer the sound now because it tells you exactly what the tool is doing.

iris_davis9013d ago

Took me about two and a half weeks before I stopped reaching for the chipping hammer out of habit. The first few days I kept thinking the needle gun was broken because it was so quiet compared to the hammer. But once I figured out you can actually feel the difference in the handle when the needles hit thin spots vs heavy scale, that changed everything. Now I can pretty much tell what thickness of metal I'm working on just by the sound and vibration. My left hand definitely thanks me for the switch too, that constant hammer shock was doing a number on my wrist over the years.