Thread: Melting Lead - fumes

Still think it's over the top.

Suggest you get 6 monthly blood tests. It tells you if your system is working.

Your setting up as if it's a full time job. It isn't.

Been to several house and shed fires caused during lead pouring operations with less than ideal circumstances or setup - or just plain dumbarse Darwin award nominee level ignorance.

God bless someone having the foresight to plan ahead and try and prevent problems... Might be overthinking it in some people's opinion, but relying on your insurance doesn't strike me as a good plan.

Originally Posted by johnd

To be fair maca lead poisoning puts you on the track to insanity.....oh look irritability is another symptom

Well I’m ok, and another mate, who has done 10 times more lead casting than me, is ok as well. He was tested for lead poisoning on a regular basis for years, he’s just turned 82 and has no symptoms.
His system was the same as mine, common sense and fresh air. Even you no @johnd, not to piss into the wind?

definitely know about not peeing into the wind @Maca49, just took me a while not to.

Had a guy get very high blood lead levels returned from what was finally identified as stripping and repainting an XY Falcon GT of all things, this was an issue as the guy was working on a bulk fuel site and pre- and post-work health monitoring only picked him up as picking up lead off the site. And he was one of the most fastidious for hygiene too which is what created the issues...

What they decided in the end was that skin exposure and residual dust after doing the strip back was what got his lead levels to spike. If I recall, the levels eventually taper down to a 'normal' background level but I'm not too sure on that guy's final outcome as I never had any contact after that job. Point of that, is that sometimes only the most minor exposure can cause a quite high spike in tested levels - and with things like heavy metals there really isn't a safe exposure level.

We use calcium among other trace metal elements laid down in our bones - and that's the main issue with long term exposure to lead the body binds it into the matrix in your skeleton and it's there for good. Short term exposure is probably unlikely to create issues as noted, but if you are planning on doing it regularly it does pay to set up to do it properly as that minimises the other risks like lead metal dropping onto a timber deck because the aluminium saucepan used to melt the metal in can't handle the 20Kg weight and folds up on you or it starts raining and the resulting splatter from the steam exploding sprays droplets of lead everywhere and that sets the plastic wind screen on fire... Another was hot embers from burning crap off the melt starting the plastic roofing sheets smoking - as I said seen a lot of whoopsies not related to health concerns from this game!

Pretty much, fibre cement sheet product doesn't burn so if you can set something up to contain the area you're working in, don't have anything unusually flammable around and a fan to pull the smoke and any embers away and direct things away from you it's going to make the entire package safer. The other more modern risk is getting zinc wheel weights or other zinc 'lead substitute; products mixed in with your melt - zinc fumes off at a much lower temp and also zinc is much worse for your health than lead if you ingest it. People have died from inhaling excessive amounts of zinc fume...

I do it outside exclusively, use a fan to blow away any fumes. I also got a full face mask that takes the 3m high end filters.
I use one dedicated set of clothes as well (old hemp trousers). Nothing that can shrivel and stick to your skin if lead somehow splashes (precision guided birdshit)
I'm not bothering to get blood tested as im only doing the casting every 6 months or so.

Originally Posted by johnd

definitely know about not peeing into the wind @Maca49, just took me a while not to.

@johnd beer tonight for practice later?

Might come and watch @Maca49, me got worky thing later.

Originally Posted by T.FOYE

I do it outside exclusively, use a fan to blow away any fumes. I also got a full face mask that takes the 3m high end filters.
I use one dedicated set of clothes as well (old hemp trousers). Nothing that can shrivel and stick to your skin if lead somehow splashes (precision guided birdshit)
I'm not bothering to get blood tested as im only doing the casting every 6 months or so.

Where do you source your filters? What code are they?

Mate owns a radiator shop, gets tested a couple times a year as he's soldering for hours a day with just a fan behind him. It's up and own but he's been doing it 35 years and he still isn't too heavy

Any industrial or safety shop has the 3M type - you can go a couple of ways with the basic 2091 or the 2097 which don't require a prefilter, or the belt and suspenders version which are the organic vapour cartridges which protect against all of the nuisance smokes and vapours that come off the melt pool but these require the prefilters to take out the fume and mist if it is present.

https://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/...l-bulletin.pdf
https://irs-api.nzsafetyblackwoods.c...data-sheet.pdf

There are other brands that do the same job, different mask products and gear that offers different levels of performance. P2 protection is the half face mask, P3 is the full face mask incorporating the visor that you look through.

Originally Posted by Tommy

Mate owns a radiator shop, gets tested a couple times a year as he's soldering for hours a day with just a fan behind him. It's up and own but he's been doing it 35 years and he still isn't too heavy

Yep, the extraction fan does a huge amount of work for you in the soldering and casting/fume exposure situations. I don't know why it is, but even if you hold your breath the smoke just wafts straight up for your head like it's trying to kill you... In engineering, fume extraction is the first point of control (engineered controls) followed by PPE and then the admin/health screening.