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It can't be that bad can it, not compared to the amount I smoke a day anyway. I can't remember reading any warnings on the products I have bought but I've read on here a few times that it is toxic. I'm only cleaning up the odd mold line and the occasional bit of sawing, is it something people genuinely worry about?

When working on a Reaver, I was sawing without a respirator, and I spent the next day coughing up small particles of resin dust, so my advice is: Always use a respirator. If you don't have one, saw or sand in a well-ventilated area and drip some water over the area you're sawing, as this causes the resin dust to clump together, reducing the chance of it becoming airborne and getting in your lungs.

Valk

Rough hazards:

Isocyanate asthma - an uncurable lung condition caused by inhaling the dust.

Cancer - you know, that deadly thing.

Respiratory shock - the dust can, in some cases cause a loss of breathing to vunerable individuals. (can also cause anathalactic (sp?) shock too).


Theres also another lung condition who's name I forget.




Simple reccomendation: Wear a mask, and hoover up properly when you're done.

Enphusema, basicly your lungs fill up with fluid and you drown to death unless you take water tablets.

Jesus. Thank god i'm not a fw nut.

'Tis bad
don't inhale

If you are sanding water helps keep the dust down but wear a mask.

Also don't forget to be careful afterwards when cleaning up. use a damp cloth or kitchen towel - don't get throwing the dust back into the air.

Its not as bad as Asbestos, but alot worse than saw dust. (although some exotic hardwoods produce toxic sawdust...)

Dang another reason i wish Forge world would go plastic...

Mistress of minis wrote:Its not as bad as Asbestos, but alot worse than saw dust. (although some exotic hardwoods produce toxic sawdust...)

I love asbestos,my whole school is made out of it.

OK thanks sounds nasty, my lungs are starting to hurt just reading about it. Worth grabbing a mask for when I start to work on a big piece for sure. But what sort of exposure levels are we talking about here? It seems a little wired that resin miniatures don't come with any safety advice concerning this (or do they?)

Do people here wear a mask or do most people not bother?

You can look up safety information about casting resins on the Internet.

You need to know what type of resin Forge World uses. I think it's a fairly standard polyurethane with a filler -- does anyone know for sure?

It is the precursor chemicals which are particularly toxic because they are liquid and produce poisonous vapours.

You won't die from sniffing a bit of dust, that's why resin cast products don't come with a safety sheet. However any kind of dust can be bad for the lungs -- teachers used to suffer from chalk board dust, so it's sensible to take basic precautions as described in earlier postings.

Just some medical corrections cos I'm weird like that...

It's anaphalaxis, so anaphalaxis shock.

And it's emphysema. Which is actually where the walls of your alveoli (the ar sacks in your lungs) break down and mean you get really inefficient gas exchange. Chronic Bronchitis is the one where you lungs fill with fluid. Both can be caused by inhaling dust or foreign paticles which are not meant to be there.

Always good to know these things

Meta

Is a simple face mask (like the ones people wear when panicking about various flus) enough? Or do you need to go for something more serious? If so, what?

It depends on how sensitive your respiratory system is, from what I understand.

If you've got a history of problems, such as asthma? Play it safe--wear a respirator rather than just a mask.

Also, I highly suggest using safety goggles of some kind if you're going to be using a Dremel or something similar to sand bits down(the dust kicked up can really feth your eyes hard and it's a pain in the ass to get the stuff out if you get it in there).

I use a Home Depot respirator with changeable filters. However if you have a bandanna you can soak it in water and tie it around your face, cheap mans resp. I also modified a dremel to vacuum up plastic and resin dust as I use it. I think I found the plans on instructables.

However being a cigar smoker, and someone that uses a dremel and grinder on cars, models, plastics etc.. I am sure that the cigar smoke is a whole lot worse than the few times I have forgot my mask..

Kanluwen wrote:Also, I highly suggest using safety goggles of some kind if you're going to be using a Dremel or something similar to sand bits down(the dust kicked up can really feth your eyes hard and it's a pain in the ass to get the stuff out if you get it in there).

Speaking from experience... was dremeling a metal model just drilling holes for pinning, without goggles. some metal shavings flew off the drill and smacked me right between the eyes. A half inch to the left or right and I'da been in for some real pain.

always wear goggles!

I usually don't do much resin work, but when I do I wear a mask just in case. I just get the cheapy kind at home depot. But I usually don't do much sanding, just a little filing here and there.

The chief hazard chemically from your common two part poly resin mixes is the liquid form. Don't drink the resin mix, m'kay?

Once cured most resin is chemically inert.

The chief hazard from sanding and cutting cured resin is particulate matter in your lungs. It's a bit like inhaling silica. The particles are very fine and will go way down in your lungs and cause damage just from rubbing against the tissues. Bad stuff.

A respirator will work but a dust mask is also sufficient for most work IMHO. Most of the work I do with resin is wet sanding and you can do this without a mask since the stuff will never get airborne. Just make sure you clean up promptly. I rinse the sand paper right into the sink and wash away particulate.

Cutting is harder to do without generating dust so I wear a dust mask when doing anything other than fast swipe through tiny pieces. Like most airborne particulates that are very fine this stuff can be flammable (or is that infalmmable?) so don't generate a lot of dust near open flames.

Eye protection is a must for any cutting or drilling activity. You only have two eyes and need both for proper depth perception. Safety glasses or plastic face shields are a must!

Resin dust will make you so sterile your kids can't have kids! No wait...

Nothing like resin dust induced smoker's cough and cancer to ruin your day.

It's not that toxic as such but that's no reason not to take precautions. You could have a reaction to the dust but it's more likely that the dust being abrasive will damage your lungs over time. Most things like this take time to build up which is why coal miners and those working with asbestos can suffer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis and other respiratory problems.

It's not worth worrying if you've not handled the stuff properly once or twice in the past - you're not going to get anything serious from the odd bit of resin dust. But there's no point in making a habit of unnecessary exposure that's easily avoided, you could be working with resin for decades.

I've never worn a dust mask but I avoid creating dust as much as possible as I'll describe below. Resin dust is very light and tends to fly up into the atmosphere, dust is made by files, saws and sandpaper. Now aside from it going in your eyes and into your lungs, it's going to end up on the carpet and furniture.

So a few techniques. Firstly, use the knife to cut the resin about as much as possible when removing tags and mould lines. A heap of resin lumps will hurt no one, only use sanding to remove the last bit of material. Secondly, have a bowl of water handy and keep the model in water and sandpaper wet, this keeps most of the dust out of the air. And sit next to an open window or door.

Let me give you a sold "rule of thumb" to go by with FW resin products. If you are using any sort of power tool, then use a mask and glasses. If you are using hand tools such as a pin vice or needle file, you don't need either.

Working with small hand tools as you would on plastic will not cause "dust". Power tools always will. It's the microparticularite nature of the resin dust that'll mess you up.

Morgrim wrote:Is a simple face mask (like the ones people wear when panicking about various flus) enough? Or do you need to go for something more serious? If so, what?

Probably not.
Bought some recently thinking it would be enough but shoulda read the small print before handing over the dosh.

It went along the lines of, this mask will stop ordinary dust. But the dust you really need to stop getting in your lungs, the stuff that will kill you?
Nah!



If you are going to do a lot of resin work then it may well be worth investing in something that will give protection.

Not to go all engineering on this, but here goes a few things if you feel like reading.

It's tricky to research resins because the word has two meanings. Technically speaking resins are naturally occurring chemicals that have the potential to harden (If I recall certain saps or natural resins, but don't quote). Forgeworld doesn't use these, they use synthetic resins.

There are two parts to any synthetic resin (any nuthead with the internet can know this), the epoxy and the resin. Resin is just a term for an extremely viscous liquid that has the potential to harden. From here on out when I say resin just think of really viscous liquid. The epoxy is a hardener that makes the resin harden. The hardener works by causing a phenomena known as crosslinking to occur in the backbone of the resin. I can't remember what common resins are used, but I assure you that they are ethers and if I recall right they are a specific type of ether that is highly reactive (Don't care enough to look it up). The hardeners are typically something like bisphenol a. They form long chains due to their symmetry and functional groups. So how does the hardener work? The 2 functional groups form a chain and when in the presence of the hardener, some reactive sites will react with the hardener instead due to its reactivity and these long backbones will eventually be held in to place with enough time.

The bubbles you see in resins occur because the resins harden and become too viscous too fast for air to escape the resin. This is usually due to the mold being injected and cooled too quickly (There are other reasons). There is a good chance that bubbles are located all throughout the models, but you usually can't see them.

The reason why your "normal" plastic models don't suffer from a lot of casting issues is that they are made from a less viscous resin which in turn makes them easier to cast...though not quite as strong. Take your land raider and throw it on the ground and compare that to a FW Resin model (thunderhawk ) odds are they'll both break (because I said to do this), but theoretically the resin cast would be much stronger (note I didn't say tougher for those that know the difference).

It is tricky to know what exactly FW uses, I looked on their site and didn't see anything about the specific chemicals used in the reaction. It could be polyurethane, but as far as I know there isn't any way to tell other than to ask and the odds are that there are only a few FW employess that know. Anyone have a Mass or IR Spec?...lol


Now to answer your question...it is the hardener I think that is usually so brutal to the body. As I said earlier I think Bisphenol A is a common hardener...if I'm wrong I know that it is compounds similar to BPA. Here is the wiki: Click Here and here is an MSDS for BPA. As you can see the engineering standard for working with it (what we hobbyists do) is to have sufficient ventilation and a respirator. Is it probably over done? Maybe, depends on how much you value health (that blue box on the msds isn't completely meaningless). I might suggest at least working outside with it or in front of a fan/window...especially if infants are around. Hey that's just me though.

Here is a an msds for some type of resin that I just found by googling: Click Here

Sorry for the wall of text. I'm a Chemical Engineer and enjoy this type of stuff...though I don't get to work with it as much as I'd like. Also feel free to correct me, I didn't use any sources until I got to the links...turns out I was right about BPA though haha. I'm probably forgetting something but oh well...it's a start.

Good Luck With it.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:If you are going to do a lot of resin work then it may well be worth investing in something that will give protection.

Morgrim wrote:
Is a simple face mask (like the ones people wear when panicking about various flus) enough? Or do you need to go for something more serious? If so, what?


Probably not.
Bought some recently thinking it would be enough but shoulda read the small print before handing over the dosh.

It went along the lines of, this mask will stop ordinary dust. But the dust you really need to stop getting in your lungs, the stuff that will kill you?
Nah!

I think the lungs cili catch anything greater than like 12 microns...might want to double check. (I have a concentration in Bio-Chemical Engineering). That being said I think I'd start by finding at filter that catches dust at least 1 or 2 to 12 microns in diameter. Eventually dust particles get so small they don't matter, they just move in and out of the lungs...your body doesn't notice them...Can't remember where that is. I know at our plant we have 15 micron filters.

That might just about do it Howard
but I reckon a decontamination shower unit to go with the suit might be in order


just to be on the safe side