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FORMING & FABRICATION
The story behind the Iron Man welding helmet Texas welding school’s fully functioning, voice-activated Iron Man welding hood goes viral on TikTok. What do TikTok, welding, and Iron Man have in common? The answer is Precision Welding Academy, a Katy, Texas-based welding school in the USA. Why is that? Well, the school’s founder and students are responsible for a couple of viral TikTok posts showing off a helmet identical to the one worn by the Marvel superhero Iron Man that they converted into a welding hood. The original post has more than nine million views so far and has generated more than 75,000 followers to their TikTok account. The whole experience has been a whirlwind, said Scott Raabe, founder of Precision Welding Academy, but it’s also provided learning opportunities and has morphed into conversations about how welding helmets can evolve to be more than just a piece of necessary PPE.
I Am Iron Man Raabe started Precision Welding Academy two years ago, right before the COVID-19 pandemic began. After a brief shutdown, the school was deemed essential and allowed to reopen. Currently 35 students are enrolled at the school, which Raabe started to provide a well-rounded training environment. So, back to the Iron Man helmet … “I saw it online about a year ago, and it was just a random Iron Man mask that closed and opened and was voice-activated. I was like, ‘Man, that would be pretty cool if we could change that into a welding helmet,’” Raabe explained. One student, Connor Shelly, 20, agreed and took it upon himself to find and purchase the mask. After experiencing a few delivery delays, Shelly received the mask in early 2022. From there came the challenge of converting it into a functioning welding hood. The first and most important part was fitting the mask with eye protection strong enough to guard the user against the ill effects of the welding arc. Unlike a standard welding hood with a large viewing glass, the Iron Man mask needed to be fitted with protective glass only around the eyes. The rest of the face was covered by the mask itself. Raabe suggested they use a passive lens made of tempered glass, but the glass cracked every time they drilled into it. “Next we tried a polycarbonate welding lens. Usually, they’re pretty cheap and I actually had one sitting at the house,” Raabe explained. “We cut a bunch of eyes out, did some sample runs, and they worked perfectly. They didn’t shatter and they could be shaped any way we wanted. We sealed everything up to make sure no light could get through.” The mask turned welding hood was ready for action. Unlike standard hoods, the mask is both remote- and voice-activated. The user can either push a button or say the command “Open mask,” and the mask opens fully, revealing the welder’s face. The command “Close mask” encloses the face and the user is ready to weld.
“I said, ‘No, we actually converted this into a welding hood,’” Raabe explained. A follow-up post showed Raabe using voice activation to close the hood before welding, which has generated a modest 1.2 million views. With the posts’ popularity, Raabe is certain it has attracted the attention of a few welding hood manufacturers. “I have no doubt that some hood manufacturer out there will try to mimic it. We’ll see in a year or two if that ends up being true.”
Transforming the Welding Hood Game What started out as a fun social media post has sparked conversations in class about transforming standard welding hoods into wired-in pieces of PPE. One idea, said Raabe, is to make the hood Bluetooth-capable.
Next up? Making the TikTok video.
“We want to see if we can enable it to play music, allow you to answer phone calls, stuff like that.”
“I put the hood on, found a random pipe in the shop that was already halfway rooted, and grabbed some fancy edge welding cups,” Raabe said.
Those ideas have been a springboard into the larger discussions about using Bluetooth to talk to the welding power source, allowing the welder to change amperage with a simple voice command.
With Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” playing in the background, Raabe’s helmet closes over his face and he initiates the TIG arc.
While students are busy tackling that challenge in addition to honing their craft, Raabe said he has no intention of making a habit of the viral social media posts.
The post has blown up, generating 700,000 likes, nearly 3,700 comments, and almost 50,000 shares so far. Most of the commenters wanted to know where they could buy one, while others wanted to know if it was indeed voice-activated. Some insisted it was a fake mask and that the user was simply wearing his safety glasses underneath.
AMT JUN 2022
“If I live my life trying to make every post go viral, I wouldn’t be able to run this school.” By Amanda Carlson. Credit: This feature originally appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of The WELDER, a publication of the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association.
