Hearing Protection - What do you prefer?

I was thinking the other day about the many switches I make regarding hearing protection. For the most part I wear corded disposable foam earplugs. However, if my CNC's have a long cycle time and I'm secluded in my office, I use the ear muffs when I have to go back out in the shop to change parts. It's just more convenient than putting the foam plugs in for only a short time.

What hearing protection do you use or prefer? Or are you one of those guys that use the excuse that your hearing is "too far gone" for any protection to do any good?

Foam plugs for noisy lathe cuts and muffs for angle-grinding etc.

If your'e not clinically deaf then its gotta be worth using protection.

I wear plastic corded plugs on a regular basis, pretty much doing any work. Micky Mouse ears over the plugs if it get's noisy. Maybe over-kill, but Naval Aviation of the '80's got my high end hearing, so now I'm pretty careful. Any continuous noise is bad, so I wear noise canceling headphones in the server room.

It's like radiation. Large doses are bad. Small doses for long periods of time are bad.

As I'm suceptable to ear infections, which seem to be triggered by dirt on plugs - easily done with removing and replacing ??...... I only use muffs.

I use a mix of 33 db corded foam for grinding or other particularly loud work.


For most work, I go with a product by EarPro called the EP-3. The over all protection isn't quite as good as the foam but they allow a lot of speech to get through unmolested. That and chips don't transfer from finger tips to foam to ear canal. Had that once or twice.

Not deaf yet, but werkin' on it!

My belt sander is increadibly loud tho - and I use foam plugs for that most all the time. (For eny amount of production runs that is.)



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Where were you on this date in '38?
Ox

Mickey Mouse Muffs.

I hate having the foam plugs in my ears. Did that for a bunch of years in the AF and just got allergic to it I guess.

FG

I like these little rockets.


They are easy in and out and your dirty fingers don't touch the foam part.

When it get's real noisy I like both plugs and muffs.

I use to never like wearing this stuff. Now I can't stand to not wear them.

Ear muffs all the way. I find I am lazy... to combat this, I have a set sitting near almost every machine I would want to use one on. I find it's the walking across the room part that makes me lazy, not the putting them on part

The one thing that would make me put them on and keep them there all day would be a built-in wireless headphone feature. I know there are the ones that can connect to an mp3 player or FM/AM radio. But no radio reception where I work and not into connecting things to things which are connected to my body

I've looked but not found one. If you know of one, give me a shout.

When running the metal spray rig, I wear both plugs and Peltor H-10s. The scream of that Metco wire gun is about like standing beside an idling J-79. I'd use more protection if I could figure how to apply it.

I prefer to wear earmuffs, but for really noisy stuff only plugs will do - or even both! Several of our machines expose the operator to 110db+

i use the orange headband earplug type, have them around my neck most all day so they are always available when i need them.

they are adequate for most of the year,

in winter i like the muffs, i work outside so they stay on most all winter, keeps the noise out, ears warm and melting snow from running into my ear if i am under piece of equipment!

ice cold water down the ear canal is always good for wakeup call

bob g

ARB said:

I like these little rockets.

They are easy in and out and your dirty fingers don't touch the foam part.

When it get's real noisy I like both plugs and muffs.

I use to never like wearing this stuff. Now I can't stand to not wear them.

Click to expand...

So how do you not get your dirty fingers on the foam? Is the blue part some type of collapsible feature? Seems that's the only problem I have with the foam plugs, I'm constantly washing my mitts to put the plugs in.

I'm partial to Peltors because I wear glasses and the soft pads form around the bows. On an off site job, someone loaned me a pair of shooting muffs with the microphones on the outside and earphones on the inside so normal sounds came through. but loud ones were clipped. Really liked them and need to get some. My favorite niece is an audiologist, army trained and did two hitches because she found out that if she re-upped she was to be sent to Walter Reid Hospital. She tested all the generals you saw on TV in Desert Storm. Really liked Colin Powell, not so with Norman Schwartzkopf. Her comment on "real men" who don't need ear protection "I test a lot of deaf generals." Everything she has told me confirms what you hear from other sources.

On her first visit back home after basic, the first thing she said to me from across the room when I came in was "Hey, uncle Bill, I can field strip an M60." How can you not love a girl like that.

Bill

I generally use muffs since I don't have to worry about getting any dirt from the plugs in my ears. Plugs used if I need to wear a face shield or something that would interfere with the muffs. Both if I really need the protection. I have found the cylindrical yellow EAR foam plugs are noticeably quieter than the tapered foam ones.

Steve.

I use corded foam. Never liked the plastic "triple ring" type at all. Ear muffs in addition to the foam if I'm grinding or doing sheet metal work involving a hammer and dolly.

On a second note, what dust inhalation protection do you use when grinding?

The earmuffs from my shooting-range bag do double duty in my shop, particularly when I'm frequently switching between workstations and don't need or want continuous hearing protection. Sad to say they've been used way more in the shop than on the range the past year due to busy schedule.

I have an el-cheapo pair of the muffs with the microphones on the outside and a simple amp with clipping circuit coupled to a speaker on the inside. After the first set of batteries wore out I never replaced them due to issues with intermittent crackling and generally poor sound quality. However, if I saw a good deal on a pair of earmuffs of this type from a good manufacturer (e.g. Peltor) I would definitely get a pair -- just don't bother with the cheap versions.

When I'm working in the shop for long periods on noisy stuff, I use in-ear headphones with foam tips. The cords go up-and-over my ears and meet behind my head at a slider which keeps the cords tight, then down the inside back of my workshop coveralls to my iPhone so I can listen to music. (Or not, if I need to hear what I'm working on at attenuated SPLs, since this setup is good for about 25dBA noise reduction.)

Too bad there's no animated smiley for putting on a Nomex suit -- I'm aware that some folks have strong opinions about the heresy of listening to music on headphones while working. I feel my setup is safe, effective, and works well for me. I'm also not a pro working in a large shop with other folks to watch out for, and I generally turn off the music if I have to keep track of a kid or a spouse in my workspace.

-AG

hesstool said:

So how do you not get your dirty fingers on the foam? Is the blue part some type of collapsible feature? Seems that's the only problem I have with the foam plugs, I'm constantly washing my mitts to put the plugs in.

Click to expand...

The blue parts are medium hardness plastic handles. This lets you grab the little handles with your dirty fingers and jamb the foam part in your ear.

The constant hand washing is what drove me to these.

I like the EAR silicone rubber plugs with the triple cones, on a cord. For me, it's very difficult to get the foam style inserted right. I squeeze and twist and they just keep falling out. The rubber plug style go in quickly and stay in. I guess it depends on the shape of your ear canals? The plug style also last a long time, usually a year or so. I wash them off weekly with water. I have several sets around the shop.

I also keep a few sets of muffs hanging right on several noisy machines that typically only get used for a minute or two.

Hearing tests at your workplace- slightly bogus ?

Your discussion of earplugs reminded me of a very surprising piece of information I learned at my employer's medical department . My former employer, a large company with a reputation for safety, conducted hearing tests every year or two . The tests were frequency response tests, which measured my ability to hear soft tones over a range of frequencies. The results of the test were always reported to me as " you have no change in hearing ability since your last test. " One day, however, I took a look at the hearing test results myself, when nobody was looking, and I saw a noticable decrease in my hearing ability at the higher frequencies. I questioned the company doctor about that, and he then admitted that the " no change in hearing " statement only applied to frequencies in the speech range, and even when they saw a decrease in hearing at other frequencies, they never reported those changes to the employee. They wanted you to be able to communicate in the workplace, and to hear fire alarms, but they didn't care if your hearing in other frequencies was being damaged by workplace noise. The ability to enjoy music, for instance , requires hearing in generally much higher frequencies than the narrow speech range frequencies. While it's true that aging does normally bring about a decrease in high frequency hearing ability, I was very disappointed in the definition of " no change" that they had been reporting to me for all those years.