No.309591
Sorry, shitty English where it says suffering is welding.
No.310250
>>309591Watch out for counterfeit protective gear. Better pay extra and buy from a reputable source than risk your eyesight.
No.310252
Welding without eaywear can lead to days of excruciating pain, as the inner linings of your eyes are burned away and begin to peel. If the optical nerve is overloaded and burnt out by the overwhelming brightness, you will suffer impaired vision for the rest of your life. Welding with no eyeware is no different than looking at the sun with a telescope.
Proper eyewhere which limits the amount of ALL LIGHT FREQUENCIES is going to protect you from this. Proper welding goggles will do just that, but cutting goggles for example don't block as much UV as they do visible frequencies so while the image may appear dark, the hot wavelengths can still get through. You can settle with a cheap mask and recycled gloves, but the piece of glass in the mask must be certified for longterm welding. In a mask like in the OP pic the glass can be swapped out, so if you have a mask like that and aren't aware of the light level of the glass it has on it, then you can pick up a welding filter for cheap. Do not buy directly from China. Glass is always getting better to, so what your father says may have been applicable when he was young, welding strictly wouldn't be legal to do by hand today if there was any known long-term damages.
Confident welders are always in need. It's a good career choice and opens up quite a bit of side gigs that could easily land you a comfortable life with an early retirement. If money is a concern, pick up a cheap 120v wire-feed welder and start collecting scrap steel. learn about identifying metals and alloys. Even if you just watch a Youtube video each day and play around with fusing pieces of junk together, a little bit of experience can do a lot of good for keeping you motivated and ready to jump in to formal training when you can.