Personally, after working with some wire wheels, I prefer a face shield. Much better protection imho.
Same here. Wear safety glasses or goggles and a face shield and you are pretty much good to go.
January 2nd, 2010 saw me in the ER with a microscopic fleck of metal 30% of the way through my right cornea. It got there on Dec 31 while I was working on a new front axle for my Cherokee. I was wearing safety-lens prescription glasses, I and all my friends had thought these would be fine... not so. While using the grinder I felt a sudden impact/stabbing pain like someone had punched me hard in the eye. Checked in the mirror and there did not appear to be anything in there because the angle was wrong. After 2 days of worsening symptoms, and periodic checks in the mirror (I kept figuring it would get better on its own, thought I only scratched it), I finally happened to use a mirror with lighting at the right angle and saw it and went to the ER. It cost me a week of work, 3 times daily application of multiple eye ointments and topical steroid eye drops, and approximately 5 thousand dollars in hospital bills. Fortunately, most of that was covered by my insurance company... but not all.
A few months later another fleck got in there, around a full face shield. Fortunately I recognized the feeling the next morning and was able to remove it myself using a sterilized rubber glove wrapped around a smooth-surfaced neodymium magnet out of an old hard drive. Due to that incident I now wear the shield and glasses at the same time.
Look at it this way... you can buy the shield for 3 dollars at horrible freight. I can buy a new one every single day, even days when I don't touch the angle grinder, for the next 4 and a half years before it costs as much as that series of hospital visits did.
man that must really suck.
