What are the best welding helmets out there today? Well, there are quite a few good ones. I am a welder and over the years I have tried several different hoods. My first was a traditional style hood made be Jackson. This is a very reliable hood and I still have it today, however it is somewhat heavy compared to the newer ones out there and the looking glass was approximately 2''x4''. I also had some other Jackson hoods. These were made of a lightweight plastic with a larger viewing screen. This is still one of my favorites and you can get them with auto darkening lenses. I used this one, day in and day out welding 10 hour shifts. Very good helmet. I also purchased a Swiss made helmet called Optrel. This was a blue hood that looks like a space helmet. It was around 300 dollars when it first came out. It had a lot of bells and whistles. And different ranges as this was an auto-darkening hood. What I didn't like about it was that the replacement plastic lenses were a bit pricey. Also the hood itself didn't really want to flick down. Which in some cases that is good because it stayed up even in the oddest position but I guess that is a matter of preference really. After about a year of use the auto-darkening screen went defective. Half of it was changing while the other half didn't. I am sure these things happen but I didn't get any support from the manufacturer and the screen was almost the same price as the hood itself. So I said to myself if I am going to buy a replacement for it I might as well get a new hood. A few years back Jesse James made the hoodlum hoods popular. If you don't know what these hoods are, they are the ones shaped like dogs, skeletons, androids. I decided to buy one. They were around 50 dollars and my first day wearing it the head band snapped. I emailed the company and told them what happened and they made me buy another head strap. After installing the new head strap the same thing happened and it broke in the same place as the first one. The company didn't really seem to care that they had an inferior product so I sent them a nasty email and sent the hood back and asked for my money back. This by far was one of the worst helmets I have ever owned. Very, very unreliable. I then started doing more research and came across a hood that 3m made. Its called Hornell. This helmet is by far the best I have ever used and I am still using it today. Very lightweight durable. Excellent head band and the helmet breaths. What I mean by that is that it doesn't fog up. It has slits where your mouth goes that doesn't draw air in but rather expels it. I got the one with the bigger viewing screen and it has shade 5 lenses on the side for peripheral view. I would recommend this hood to anybody who welds as a profession. I have dropped this hood from 30ft and it still works. It has a variety of options and shade ranges. So there you have it.Click Here!
