Since we’re talking about hazardous fumes, I believe I had chemical pneumonia last year.
Missed six weeks of work. In the lab, two of us were tasked with helping out assemblers.
I was inhaling Loctite Red fumes for well over a month and then became very sick.
Nothing I can prove…
What’s worse is it took three visits to the clinic to be properly diagnosed.
First two, I was told I was suffering from “anxiety,” with the second doc calling in a prescription for an SSRI! Of course, I told the pharmacy to not fill it.
I claimed that acetone did not glue styrene.
This was WRONG.
I have now tested with supermarket acetone (nail polish shelf)
on some scrap styrene and convinced myself that I was
WRONG.
Live and learn …
( Tried to find an emoji for shame but failed so
will have to do instead)
Men, our hobby is hazmat. When I find chemists I pester the wiz out of them asking them questions about the latest data. When I was in art school the first indication of “danger Will Robinson” was painting and etching professors explaining how art school was one of the most hazardous on campus. Cobalt dryer is horrible to think about if you ever ingest it. I learned that when removing the tar from an intaligo plate that I needed to suit up with chemical gloves and a mask, and some sort of a gel that you put over your hands to inhibit the absorption of such chemicals. By that time I’ve been airbrushing mineral spirits and lacquers and dissol for about a decade. “Fumes can be hazardous” or “don’t breathe the fumes” warnings on paints and glue bottles? Those were warnings for druggies, not good upstanding hobbyists like myself. Was I ever wrong.
The company I flew for used a lot of MEK and I would take my airbrush there and clean it out at the end of a session. Man, was it shiny!
Circa 1989-91 Fine Scale Modeler had an article by a modeler who was a chemist. He created a table of all of our glues and paints, putties, etc it listed the ingredients. He listed whether they could cause a cute or chronic effects, and what parts of our body they could attack.
That’s when I became a big fan of acrylic paint. I now use OSHA respirators that are supposed to be rated for solvents in organic nasties anytime that I’m using liquid glues. And I only use them when I’m outside at that. Same for lacquer thinner.
Five houses and a couple of decades ago, I build models out of my garage and the garage directly face the road. If I was airbrushing enamels or lacquers, I was wearing goggles, a respirator, and have these big chemical gloves on, and standing outside the garage door spraying into the open air. Oh yeah, and I also had a spray booth that I had vented with about 20 ft of dryer vent. A couple friends of mine from work drove by and said I look like I was cooking meth!
Building models now, I still use some of the hard stuff but I proceed with an over abundance of caution.
There is also the factor of exposure. Worrying about a whiff of ethyl acetate while happily filling up a car with gas/petrol? Inhaling exhausts in slow moving traffic?
Humans have a tendency to worry about small details while forgetting the big picture.
Some want to live in busy cities, I prefer the suburbs away from all the exhausts.
Phoenix, Cincinnati, El Paso, and several months in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area. I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to avoid living in or near big cities. Have been successful, too. But then came covid and the mass migration out of california, new york, and other places, and way too many people are moving to our quiet little area. And they’re bringing their terrible attitudes with them. Oh well, my actuary table says I’ve only got about 17 more years to worry about it.
