Tonight I bought an MSA "SafetyWorks" Faceshield Model 10103487, UPC code
641817021569 at Home Depot. I thought it was a good idea, especially after the thread about DerbyDad's nearly poking his eye out.It was packaged in a plastic bag so I could see that it looked very sturdy, with lots of adjustments, padded head bands and a built in "cap" to seal the area above the eyes. It looked just like what I needed to work on the ceiling in my basement. The unit is very nice. It fit comfortably over my glasses - most goggles do not and the ones that do allow dirt to come in from above.
When I put it on, I thought the shield was tinted light blue. No biggie, I thought, but I would have preferred clear. I put it on, looked through it and discovered it was NOT TRANSPARENT. Then I sheepishly realized it had one of those protective plastic films and I felt a little dumb for not seeing it. But when I peeled the blue skin from the clear plastic shield it was STILL just as blurry!!! It just wasn't tinted blue anymore. )-:
Using the shield the whole world suddenly became too blurry to see clearly. It's like trying to look through a shower curtain. The loss of visual acuity with the shield on, IMHO, wouldn't eliminate danger, it would just change its nature. While nothing can hit your eyes, neither can you see anything clearly. I wouldn't think of operating a saw, a grinder or any other dangerous tools wearing this dumb thing. You just can't see well enough to be safe. I'll have to take some photographs to demonstrate HOW blurry it made things.
If anyone else has a face shield, my question is this: Is your "lens" (as the call it) crystal clear or is there substantial optical degradation? I want to figure out if the plastic was bad to start with or did it change from transparent to translucent just sitting on the floor shelf?
The unit was stored on a floor level shelf in the paint department, so there were lots of solvent bottles sitting around and my hypersensitive wife assures me at least some of them are leaking. (-: I assume solvent fumes could affect the transparency of the lens, but I've got to say, it looks blurry through and through, not just on the surface. There's no date of manufacture anywhere on the unit or the package, so I can't tell if it's age, storage or manufacturing defect that's caused the unit's opacity to increase to the point of uselessness.
I'm reluctant to return this to Home Depot if these units are somehow defective in manufacturer because they'll just resell it to someone who might injure themselves trying to see through the blurry plastic. If I do return it, I will at least bring a big, black Sharpie to write "DEFECTIVE CUSTOMER RETURN" on it to insure they don't resell it. That may not help - tonight I saw a reciprocating saw on the shelf that had the same words scrawled on the outside of the box.
To me, it looks like a serious enough defect to alert the Consumer Product Safety Commission, OSHA and ANSI. The package says it meets ANSI Z87.1 specifications, but I can't see how a shield that obscures vision so severely would meet Federal and industrial standards. What a disappointment and a real setback for the weekend project. Back to my homemade faceshield. It may not stop a chipped grindstone, but it certainly keeps the dust that falls from the basement ceiling when I drill through the joists from getting in my eyes AND I can see through it. I suppose for now I can dismount the shield, trace it/mark the mounting holes onto some thick, optically clear plastic sheeting and use their better constructed shield until I hear from MSA.
I was thinking of ordering extra "lens" because I assume that like plastic goggles, it doesn't take long for them to get scratched and hard-to-see through. MSA has eliminated that step! They're pre-blinded. )-" Now I have to wonder whether buying extra lenses makes any sense if they become opaque over time. The lack of dust on the package seems to indicate it is fairly new, but it could have sat in a warehouse for years.
Also, in the fine print *inside* the package they say: "Some conditions, such as shattering grinding wheels or explosive devices may break the lens. Avoid areas where the chance of severe lens impact exists." So WHY did I buy this POS? (-:
I know what some of you are thinking. That's what you get for buying cheap Chinese crap but it wasn't made in China! First one to guess correctly gets a virtual gold star.
-- Bobby G.