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So last night I was looking at the fine sheen of plastic and metal dust on my work table and wondered what GW's move to resin would mean.

If you don't know solid resin is harmless but inhaling the dust from drilling, sanding or filing it is a carcinogen. Every resin working site recommends dust masks when you work with it.

Has anyone seen anything from GW either recommending masks or saying their new Finecast stuff is 100% safe?

Prices and other issues aside this is really a deal breaker for me. I can't see myself picking up any Finecast if there's a health risk for me and my family just from working with it.

And I can't see too many other families buying it either.

Supposedly it's not actually pure resin. It's a mixture of plastic and resin which is supposed to be 'safe'.

And really, you don't need a dust mask if you wet down your drill/file/saw or put the model in a tub of water while drilling/filing.

The second part is kind of a hassle, but it's definitely doable.

Probably some sort of Citadel Face Mask, shaped like the grill on Space Marine helmet. Seriously though it doesn't seem like a smart move when their target audience is so young, they might as well have just put lead back into the metals.

I guess they thought that most who didn't know about the potential to cause cancer wouldn't be filing or sanding anyway. Really with the size of the majority of models it will be made with, as long as it's a well ventilated area away from other people it shouldn't be an issue. You'd probably have to do a very heavy amount of sanding/filing at once to build up enough dust for it to start being a real issue.

I haven't heard anything either, but I'm hoping it's a more safer version of resin.

To give an example of how this likely will be:

Forge World's Titan Techpriest.
There's very little filing or sawing required. The only real attach points are on the bottom of the base(the main body of the figure is molded to the base), the axe arm, the mechaendrites, and the little servo skull accompanying him.

At most, you're going to do a little bit of sanding to ensure a tight fit. Wet down your sandpaper/file--and all the dust sticks to the file/paper.

No need for a mask or even ventilation system.

But the difference is rather than working a single model players will be working on units with dozens of models.

Which can lead to a lot of cancer-causing dust.

Without seeing exactly how the 'resinplastic' is setup, I can't rightly say if it is carcinogenic or not.
It's supposed to be the same stuff Mantic and Privateer Press use, not the FW styled resin.

I doubt it is actually cancer-causing. However almost every dust is dangerous even the dust on the streets or from chalk.

Where'd you read that it'd cause cancer? The Daily Mail?



*for reference: http://hellokinsella.posterous.com/the-daily-mail-list-of-things-that-give-you-c

It might not be carcinogenic but most anything inhaled into the lungs is a bad thing... a bad thing. A fine dust can cause micro lacerations of the lung tissue as well as inhibit your lungs ability to screen and clear out fungal, bacterial, and other foriegn bodies from your respiratory system.

My thoughts on the whole thing can be summed up as follows.

If resin dust is the worst thing you breath in during the day then you should consider yourself lucky. You also probably live with one of the lost tribes in the amazon.

If it's a plastic-resin (like Mantic have used) then it should be safe and I doubt GW will have initiated a general product (Forgeworld is more Specialist) that would, or could, cause Cancer - after all I don't think they want their customers to die before they 'squeeze all the money out of them'

Dose your family use Cell phones or MP3 player with ear buds. If so resin the least of you issue, you can atleast control the amount of dust you put in the air.

Think of it this way:

In the UK school system, it is against health and safety regulations to have ANY benzene or benzene derivatives in the chemistry class, due to it's carcinogenic properties.
Considering the number of experiments that actually USE benzene (that are applicable to a standard GCSE/A-Level curriculum) the exposure is negligible (maybe a student will use it once/twice in a given year), yet it is still banned.

If GW were to use a carcinogenic resin in what are essentially toys, the I'm sure that UK Health & Safety would come down on them like a ton of bureaucracy wrapped in red tape!

So I'm guessing that the resin/levels of expected exposure are enough to prevent such restrictions. I'm guessing the expected 'exposure' to the supposedly carcinogenic dust is estimated to be also negligible (unless you start grinding up FW models and snorting them).

Personally, I've seen/heard/read so much BS that EVERYTHING EVER CREATED IN NATURE OR BY MAN WILL GIVE YOU CANCER OMFG WORLD HAZ ENDED that UK newspapers spew out on a weekly basis, which more often than not turn out to be an exercise is correlating a random set of data with cancer figures (i.e. we surveyed 1000 people who work with resin, of these 50 developed cancer at some point in their life, ergo working with resin causes cancer!) , that I've become apathetic towards it now, excepting cases where we have a serious amount of science done on the subject (e.g. smoking/nuclear fallout).

Probably some sort of Citadel Face Mask, shaped like the grill on Space Marine helmet.

Brilliant

Pretty much what Legionzero said though.

If it can be glued with plastic glue - it isn't resin.

Most likely it will be an ABS plastic or similar (it LOOKS like resin, but isn't one. It is harder than both polystyrene and resin). I'll reserve judgement until I have a sample in my hands.

ANY inhaled dust is bad for you. Even talcum is bad if you breathe it in. Hell, Titanium oxide particulates are also bad (and they're in every sunblock) at the nanoscale levels. If you're creating dust, you need to protect yourself. Doesn't matter if it's sawdust, talc, resin dust, or milled flour.

(and milled flour is also dangerous. Google "dust explosion" if you doubt me).

Cured resin isn't carcinogenic.

The precursor chemicals are not very carcinogenic, though being volatile organic compounds they not good to breathe, drink, or rub on your skin. The danger of poisoning or skin irritation is worse than the danger of cancer.

Resin dust shouldn't be breathed for the same reason as most dust that it clogs up your lungs.

These days I wear a builder's mask when sawing or hardboard or resin.

Depends on what type of resin, though, KK.

Acrylic resin (used for some clear 'jewellery' and trinkets) is most definitely on the carcinogens list - the catalyst is MEK. It's dangerous only in the unmixed form though. The polymerisation that happens during curing changes the the nature of the chemicals.
MEK is a big nasty. The fumes will get you "inconvenienced", are a carcinogen, teratogenic, flammable (highly) and also explosive.

Polyester resins may contain the MEK catalyst and Pol

I looked up the safety sheets of the most widely used resins supplied by TOMPS for home use.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I was interested to know since I am using them at home myself.

I think a good rule of thumb might be to make sure you always use a resipirator when grinding with a dremel or doing heavy sanding on any material, and especially with resin. I don't know what "white metal" is made of, but I doubt it's, you know, vitamins and stuff.

Ouze wrote:I think a good rule of thumb might be to make sure you always use a resipirator when grinding with a dremel or doing heavy sanding on any material, and especially with resin. I don't know what "white metal" is made of, but I doubt it's, you know, vitamins and stuff.

White metal is mostly Zinc, alloyed with a bit of tin, iirc...

When playing with a geiger counter at school, we found that the cynderblocks used in many dorms to make bunk beds gave off a surprising amount of radiation.

My nads, not so much.

kronk wrote:When playing with a geiger counter at school, we found that the cynderblocks used in many dorms to make bunk beds gave off a surprising amount of radiation.

My nads, not so much.

Tell your school to stop buying their materials from Marie Curie's Discount Radium and Building Supply...

I have heard that the new material is not hazardous and doesn't need a wash like normal resin (although a wash does no harm).

As a comment I read earlier suggests, the new GW resin actually cures cancer - hence why it costs so much

What is the material in question?


More often then not, you get an MSDS sheet in the transportation documentation when you get abox of the GW stuff shipped to you.

Wiki link to a quick description of the MSDS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_safety_data_sheet


You ask GW, they have to be able to provide the information. As to the Cancer question?

Unless someone starts grinding those models up and snorting them in lines, I'm not seeing much of a risk. That material in question more often then not has to go through the same testing as any other toys and materials to be sold to the general public.

Heres our organizations that deal with isssues of this kind-

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/

http://www.osha.gov/

EU and the UK have similar offices.

EU-

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/

UK-

http://www.bis.gov.uk/

http://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/consumer-issues

Long story short, if you have a question you can get the info on the issue from there.

Leigen_Zero wrote:K Health & Safety would come down on them like a ton of bureaucracy wrapped in red tape!

Legend.

everything gives you cancer nowdays, a recent study surgests that you have a 50% chance of getting cancer if your alive!!

Like a couple of posters have said, we dont know what type of resin they are using yet, as resin as a broad term, as is plastic.
Id hedge my bets on a resin platsic hybrid personally but we shall see.

Dan

I now know how I'll be dying. Thanks guys.

"Mmm, so Lelith tastes like cancer..."

I doubt it'd cause any significant harm, but as with everything, moderation is advised. If you're building or converting a lot of models then open windows etc. etc.

If all the "OMFG WE'RE ALL GUNNA DIE!" stuff is to be believed, then we won't live to be exposed to Finecast for a time period necessary for any part of it to cause damage.