I know this has been covered before. I searched a few days ago to see some reviews of welding helmets, and came up with the HF welding helmet. I didn't want to spend a ton because i have way too much other stuff going on to be able to afford a Miller helmet. I recently changed jobs I am a certified structural steel welder and do ALOT of welding. My dilema came in when the new job didn't offer to supply me with a helmet as my old one did, so i never had a need to upgrade from my chep flip down one. So i start this new job and been using the flip down one for 2 weeks now and just couldn't stand it anymore its very hard to go froma auto shade to a flipdown. I looked on here and heard good stuff about it so i picked one up. Today being my first day with it I give it a for sure. the shade works well its lightweight and is fairly comfortable. The bad stuff about it I noticed is the top of the helmet isn't near as long as the Miller so your hair is more exposed. The band isn't the best on comfort and the back where the **** is will tend to press into your head, i fixed that by adding a Miller comfort pad. The window is a bit small, but all the bad things are pretty petty compared to the price and how well it actually works. I did a comparison with a Miller helmet today and it compares very well to it. The reason for this is for when people search they get a straight forward easy lookup. If you have any questions let me know. I have not used it for TIG.

to the HF ( Harbor Freight ) $54.00 welding helmet.

I also opted for the 1 year no questions asked warrenty for $5.99 they said if I threw it at a wall i could walk in and get it replaced the same day.

 

I have it and use it for mig, but there is such a difference in my miller and hf one.

 

what differences? i couldn't really tell to much other than the color of the shad while off. oh yeah 1 more thing about the HF helmet its very sensative to light. bu tyou never have to turn it on so it eliminats oppses

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by turbofunvtec &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">what differences? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Well I only use my miller for tig, big difference is I can see so much better with the miller.

 

i used the HF helmet for ver a year with no problems,then one day it took a crap.
i'm now using a Miller Elite.
the difference is night and day.visibility both shaded and unshaded is better with the Miller.
BUT,if you can only afford the HF,it's great for the money.even if it only lasts a year like mine,it was well worth it IMO.
Chris

 

I agree 100% "for the money its good" if you feel like spending th cash i say do it you willnot regret buying a quality helmet but if your strapped for cash HF is great, I got too monay other projects going on just didn't want to fork it over so i tried it out ans so far so good