There seems to be a lot of epoxy supporters that log onto this web site. Does any of them have to use this stuff on a regular basis? Supporters say it is non toxic, and envirnmentally safe. Have any of them read the msds safety sheets on the stuff? I have! Safe it is not! I have a PU surfboard manufacturing facility in Encinitas Ca. I’m messing around with Resin Research for my team riders, Myself, and customers. I know of a half dozen pros in this industry who are getting sick from short term exposure to epoxy! If it is so safe and non toxic, why are guys who have been building surfboards with polyester all their lives getting sick and refusing to work with the stuff, including my own employees? There needs to be more research into Resin Research and other epoxy resins. The media also needs to do a little research into their articles before they tell the general public how you can work with this stuff without a mask because it smells like peanut butter and has no oder! I’m open minded, that is why I’m experimenting with it, but lets be truthfull about it, not misleading!
Epoxy’s chemical and it does not occur naturally, it isn’t “safe”. Even xposure to something natural like wood dust will bring lung issues. But lots of people have shown chemical facts that epoxy is safer than poly resin.
In past threads, I’ve read about epoxy sensitivity is increased when used with acetone, something about drawing it into the skin or something like that. I know of epoxy users that never use acetone (they either freeze their glassing tools) or simply wipe or use $1 disposable brushes.
Also there are different types of epoxy, all with different toxicity levels. Maybe hit up Resin Research customer support for the information on why your employees are getting sick, hope they get well soon.
Hi wsg-
I hear what you’re saying; good points. As Hiroprotagonist said, it’s a chemical and has potential to harm one’s health. That’s really the bottom line.
I use the same safety procedures with epoxy that I do with any resin I’m using, whether it’s surfboard-related or otherwise.
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adequate ventilation
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respirator
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vinyl gloves
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goggles
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long sleeves/pants/socks/shoes (ie: full body coverage)
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proper cleanup supplies
Good luck to you and your guys!
Quote:[b]There seems to be a lot of epoxy supporters that log onto this web site. Does any of them have to use this stuff on a regular basis?
Yes
Quote:Supporters say it is non toxic, and envirnmentally safe. Have any of them read the msds safety sheets on the stuff?
Yes MSDS is freely available on resinresearch.net
Quote:I have! Safe it is not! I have a PU surfboard manufacturing facility in Encinitas Ca. I’m messing around with Resin Research for my team riders, Myself, and customers. I know of a half dozen pros in this industry who are getting sick from short term exposure to epoxy!
how did they handle it? Did they follow recomended epoxy handling procedures?
Quote:If it is so safe and non toxic, why are guys who have been building surfboards with polyester all their lives getting sick and refusing to work with the stuff, including my own employees?
Cant say unless we know how you use it. I can say that the use of acetone which is hard to break guys of using is very common
Quote:Quote:There needs to be more research into Resin Research and other epoxy resins. The media also needs to do a little research into their articles before they tell the general public how you can work with this stuff without a mask because it smells like peanut butter and has no oder! I’m open minded, that is why I’m experimenting with it, but lets be truthfull about it, not misleading
[/b]
Yes
I know of a half dozen pros in this industry who are getting sick from short term exposure to epoxy! If it is so safe and non toxic, why are guys who have been building surfboards with polyester all their lives getting sick and refusing to work with the stuff, including my own employees?
Because they are either too stupid to follow simple directions or more motivated to collect workmans compensation than actually work or maybe they just plain old hate the boss.
Been working full on with polyester resin since 1991 and dabbled in epoxy starting in 1997 and full speed now with epoxy for 4 years. You are still living in urban legend land dude. Overall epoxy is way safer just for the fire hazards alone not to mention many others.
Go to ventura someday and check out the epoxy glassing operation for patagonia. Probably going on for over 10 years. Just don’t wear your INS jacket when approaching the shop. Ask those guys. No whinning there.
j.g.
Of all the dust and fumes I’ve had up my nose, poly just plain stinks and gives me a headache, epoxy just smells, foam dust gritty and balsa dust the worst.
They’re all sticky and messy resins, but epoxy washes off with soap and water, which is good in my books.
Having started using poly in the late 70’s, then constantly till the mid 90’s when I started working exclusively with epoxies, up till now I prefer epoxy.
We had a reaction scare through the workshop with plenty of bad hands. What the reaction was from we have no idea, but it went away, and I’ve used epoxy occasionally ever since, with no reaction.
It seem that certain people will react to exposure in many different ways, so everyone takes a chance, like you do with many other chemicals out there.
From what I understand, the older epoxy formulas were quite toxic, and the newest ones are much much safer.
Over my composite career I’ve worn gloves and mask for probably 99.9% of the time. I would suggest everyone wear protection no matter what they are using. Duh.
If you don’t, start today.
The comparison of epoxy with peanut butter isn’t such a bad one. Both are known to cause allergic reactions (sometimes severe) in some people but not all people. And you can become sensitized to either one. Is peanut butter safe and non toxic. Ask the kid down the street from me who almost died from an allergic response after he took a sip from the same drink as his sister who had been eating a candy bar with peanuts in it. Check all the food labels warning that such and such may have some peanut residue. And if the food genetic engineering people haven’t gotten involved, I think we would all say that peanuts are natural products.
So is epoxy (peanut butter) completely safe? No.
Will some people have reactions to it? For sure.
Will everyone? Probably not, part of it will be the luck of the draw, part of it will be some “improper” handling.
So take as many precautions as you can. Unfortunately, it seems that the low molecular weight epoxy resins (the ones that are nice and thin and good for hand laminating) are the worst offenders for causing allergic response.
http://www.intox.org/…/epoxyres/cie771.htm
You do bring up an interesting question though. Are people with long term exposure to polyester more likely to develop a sensitivity to epoxy than people who have only used epoxy? I’ll leave that to some smart statistician to work out.
The latest research is leaning towards encouraging early exposure to allergens starting in early youth as a way prevent sensitivity.
The thinking goes that the immune system is like the brain, fresh when young, and can learn that things are not life threatening. It can learn and has memory.
NO one is saying test with peanut butter. (Skippy or Jiff?)
Or dose with epoxy. But later in life deadly allergic reactions can manifest instantly. And you dont have to be bathing in contaminated solvent. I know a highly qualified medical professional who was struck instantly with anaphlaxis while drinking the same kind of coffee she drank for years. Hazelnut. But that one instant her immune system decided it had had enough! Lucky for her she was at work or she would probably be another X in the dead column. Now she has to carry an Epie pen and wear a bracelet.
In a similar vein Patagonia founder E. Chouinard raised his kids to not wash their hands before eating. We are creating our own super critters by over prescribing antibiotics. Makes me wonder about all the anti-microbial products etc.
Anywho epoxy reduces alot of the hidden costs of polyester. If a person is concerned with costs, then not having to store VOC solvents and keep up with all the record keeping associated with that is one savings. Another is insurance. Not having barrels of flammables on site will lower monthly premiums. Barrels and tanks must have dams, another expense. Anyone see the solvent storage outbuilding Clark Foam had? Not necessary with RR epoxy. I specify RR because all epoxies are not created equal.
Last winter a CFL boat manufacturer across the driveway from a couple surfboard companies burned. The surfboard companies got lucky. But there was a source of ignition in the boat building. That much is obvious. Could very easily have been the other way around. I stuck my head in the door of one of them last January to see if the owner was there and almost died from the fumes. Not my business, so I didn’t say anything to the dude glassing in there. He was masked, but in that concentration that respirator was challenged. These risks are lower with epoxy. The fumes if any are not flammable. The resins are not either. And no solvents. Plus three.
All this talk of peanut butter, so I had a pb&j for lunch. Awesome.
Howzit native customs, I think that OSHA should make all factories post the dangers of chemical usage no matter if it's poly or epoxy. They should also make the factories post how to prevent reactions and make it manditory for employees to follow these precations. OSHA makes restaurants hang signs about washing your hands after using the toilet so they should apply the same to glassing factories about wearing good chemical resistant gloves and repirators. There is also the possibility that some reactions are latex gloves related since the reaction is basically the same as chemical reactions. I bet that the readers here on Swaylocks are more protection concous than a lot of the big factories due to the posts here about these safety precautions which are read by mostly back yard builders. Back in the early 70's I was helping a friend who was starting a land scape business and I was using 245ddt weed killer thatwas close in properties to agent orangs and we never knew just how dangerous it was til later on. The Government used Kauai for some of their tests with A.O. and the workers were mixing the chemicals with their bare hands. Well all those workers here have died from cancer from this hand mixing process and this could very well have beev avoided if they had been more informed about the dangers. Years later they found many 5 gallon cans full of A.O. buried and the cans had rust and holes in them and they were leaching the chemical into the soil. I haven't been in the testing area for quite a few years now but I can remember that 25 years after the testing the areas were still void if any folige or plant growth. All you had to do was drive past the area and see the big brown areas where the testing occrured, it looked like a big bald spot on the landscape. Aloha,Kokua
Here’s a link to the article I saw on that subject. I particularly liked the part that said that intestinal worms might not be such a bad thing either.
Howzit native customs,Read thing like that a while back and I agree that people are using way to many products that are claiming to make for a safer world but are really in the precess of opening Pandoras box. We now vacinate kids to the point that if for some reason or another they should get a virus that they were vacinated for it will be worse that if they just let their own immune system deal with it. The measles, chicken pox, and other things that most of us got never really hurt us that much and it even got us out of school for a while. Ever seen how bad chicken pox is for an older person who gets it where as when you get it at a younger age it’s not nearly as bad. Read an article about small pox and how they don’t immunize kids for it any more since it is supposidlly no longer a threat. But if it ever reappears then there will be a lot of sick people, even those of us who got them as kids are in harms way since our vacinations were so long ago that they may not work. A few years back they did a study on the flesh eating staph and found it was a mutated form of strep throut and over 50% of the kids at Kapaa middle school had the bug but it didn’t affect them but they were in a sense carriers of the bug. Very informative article.Aloha,Kokua
wsg,
Could you list some examples of the health problems the half dozen or so pros are having related to epoxy exposure? Skin reactions, respiratory or ???
Dave_D
maaaate i epoxy for just about everything.
if you accidentaly chop your finger off with a bandsaw. its nothing that a bit of 5 min epoxy and some
masking tape wont fix .
it makes a good fly trap
but only works for three hours.
u can use it as a skin cream to slow down the aging process.
its a good cure for being a moron if you take it orally.(ie most likely kill you)
um what else
you it instead of ky jelly
also for the removal of unsightly body hair
try it on your toast in the morning
by the way peanut butter is very very dangerous
i avoid it at all cost
cuz i eand up in hospital with quarter zone or adrenaline injections
Silly, That’s Classic.
Over 100,000 surfboards have been built in FL using epoxy. RR epoxy at that. There has been only one guy, to my knowlege, who ever had a real problem. He was NOT wearing gloves and was cleaning up in acetone. He was told time and again not to do what he was doing. He stubbornly refused to stop. I have seen a few other mild cases which nearly all came from contaminated acetone.
I have seen reaction to fiberglass dust twice, same guy both times, both happened when he was grinding glass. Both times he neglected to clean up after he was done and the second time he knew exactly what he’d done to create the problem. And he itched like hell. Same guy has probably sanded over 50,000 epoxy boards with no other problems. Sanding hot coats doesn’t seem to effect anyone.
There have been many thousands of boards built in SB, SC and Ventura without complication. Why are folks in SoCal having problems. They are most likely washing up in acetone. In 25 years of doing this, and with tens of thousands of boards built, that is the only way I’ve seen reaction to our material. All the cases I’ve heard of recently have laminators breaking out on their arms and hands. This makes this a virtual slam dunk that washing with acetone is occuring.
Do not wash in acetone. If your going to, you better be using nitrile gloves because acetone can penetrate latex (something for everyone to feel nice about after years of wearing latex gloves with polyester). The older the gloves get, the more saturated (toxic) they become.
There is documentation that states that one in 3000 can not use epoxy, so there will be that rare guy who can’t, even with precautions. But this is VERY rare. More people are probably alergic to peanut butter. Latex gloves, the surgeons gloves can also be an issue. One in 300 people can have reactions to these and that may be a culprit in this case. We use vinyl gloves in our FL factory because this isn’t a problem with those. These gloves are disposible and I am a big fan of disposible gloves. Why? Because their safer simply because you remove all traces of toxicity everytime you peel a set off. They don’t end up saturated with contaminated acetone (toxins).
These are the experiences I’ve had and the rules we’ve set up. In 25 years I’ve never seen what I’m now seeing in SoCal. It upsets me more than you can know. We have been very stringent about how our customers handle our material in the past but unfortunately I can only tell prople the rules. There is no way for me to enforce those rules. The rules are different from what many are used to, in some ways easier, in some ways different. For everyone out there using this stuff, you have to decide to follow those rules and if you don’t you run great risks. It WILL bite you in the ass without much hesitation. It won’t however cause you long term problems like polyester can.
So if your working with the stuff, please heed these warnings. If you do the stuff is as safe as peanut butter.
I hope this is straight enough for everyone.
greg what I really see is a dis information campaign by people who think they can’t get up to production speed using epoxy. Instead of figuring it out they would rather slag yours and every other epoxy out there so that they and the rest of the dinosaurs can ride their beloved poly into the ground. this goes from the top down I.E msr biolass down to most of the guys in the “valley” near where I work.
In my mind if I can build a stronger ,more responsive board and especially one that is more enviomentally more sound, why would I want to just jump right back to poly.
I think the smart guy is taking a hard look at epoxy right now and tring to make it work in his buisness model ( yes some of us do have business plans) Its going to get harder and harder to compete so why keep the blinders on, open your eyes and and try to make a better board!
whats really going to be interesting is next fall when some of the junkie blanks that are being made by even the top guys and have been over shaped and with compromised rocker are in the market place and not working and or falling apart , whats going to happen to the domestic marketshare? take a look at the big three, they are all positioning themselves overseas, they are going to get a paycheck either way. they can sit back and wait for the little guy to figure it out , take all the arrows and then come in and steal the glory and dollars , or just go over seas with boards as well and count their clothing royalties, all except for Al M. who gets no clothing dollars thats probably why he’s scrambling to get his sweatshop ducks all in a row . look at the furniture industry boys thats our future , high end and low end , nothing in the middle, better start positioning yourself or find a new line of work! gfy --s.a.
I agree 100%. IMHO your right on the money with every statement.
You know..I tried getting epoxy resin off my hands with Gojo and other hand cleaners including soap. For the life of me..The stuff wont come off! I usually end up sanding it off. Dosen't make the boyfriend too happy since I end up with pretty rough finger tips. What are you using to get the stuff off? I thought I tried everything and came to the conclusion that it has to wear off. My hands usually look like they belong on a crusty unwashed homeless person. NOT that I'm condeming homeless people by any means. Shoot, I may be one myself one day!
Fatty
You know…I tried getting epoxy resin off my hands with Gojo and other hand cleaners including soap. For the life of me…The stuff wont come off! I usually end up sanding it off. Dosen’t make the boyfriend too happy since I end up with pretty rough finger tips. What are you using to get the stuff off? I thought I tried everything and came to the conclusion that it has to wear off. My hands usually look like they belong on a crusty unwashed homeless person. NOT that I’m condeming homeless people by any means. Shoot, I may be one myself one day!
Fatty
try vinegar
theres a wet pad you can put on something called a “swifter” wet mop thing that has vinegar in it.
We use it to clean our squeegees gloved hands and the drips on the floor after glassing.
works great we get it at Longs…
Afterwards we do use gojo and industrial hand cleaner cream the mechanics use, again all from Longs.
Just an idea but like Jsaon said vinegar seems to break it down real well.