Latex gloves are skin sensitizers to about 2-3% of the population. A lot of doctors and nurses have had reactions and have had to quit the profession. I suggest vinyl gloves instead.
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…now , WHY do they call you ‘doc’ , again ?
You really wanna know? Okay… remember, you asked…
Back in the day, before we could look up buoy reports online, a buddy of mine was working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. And he brought in a swell frequency chart from one of the offshore buoys from a Really Good Week we had. It looked a lot like this: http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/show_plot.php?station=44008&meas=avpd&uom=E although the numbers were somewhat different.
Now, a couple other friends stopped by and asked 'whats that? "
Always a dangerous question around me.
So I explained it. In detail. How wave size is related to swell period, etc, etc, etc.
They left to drink heavily. Wise move. I do that myself after such things, sometimes during. And I am told that about half way to the watering hole one said to the other ‘that sonofabitch has his doctorate in surf’ . And so they have called me ‘doc’ since.
beats the hell out of somebody calling me ‘baldy’…
doc…
Ok,
I read most of these post. So far I have read warnings of what could happen to you and acecdotal stories and experiences. I have a distrust of anecdotes treated as evidence. Not very scientific. Does anyone have any objective evidence or studies of people working in the surfboard industry getting some type of insidious malady like cancer,emphysema, etc? Mr. Thrakill has been in the business for a long time and has lost several of his friends prematurely. Is there any data to support the hypothesis board builders die young? Studies with a large sample size?Mike
The ones who died young were probably surf crazed party animals anyway.
I don’t know any that died, but I partied in the workshop with quite a few who are still around.
I’ve also heard of health nut vegetarians having heart attacks in their thirties.
Take precautions, but don’t die worrying about it. Go surf.
…well said , Wildy !
be safe yes , but not paranoid .
Have fun …that’s why I make boards and fins , anyway !
ben
I just did a poly swirl in my garage last weekend on the bottom of a fish I just shaped (that’s a whole other story as far as troubles glassing the buttcrack) but I wore all the proper protection and somehow ended getting resin on my hands and fingers, probably from cleaning up. So I cleaned my hands with acetone, things seemed fine until about an hour later one of those " i just wish it would go away " type of trips came over me. Felt naucious, brain cloudy … this was on a sunday … monday morning at work had a bad case of ADD. Couldn’t concentrate, accomplished nothing. Actually I’m accomplishing nothing by reading this forum at work but that too is a whole other story. I was back to normal a couple days later but still scary stuff.
Possible reasons:
-resin fumes, even though i wore a properly fitted respirator
-acetone fumes
-acetone absorbtion by the skin
That’s never happened before and really made me second guess glassing my boards myself all together. Glassers should really charge more for their services than they do. Just be as safe as possible. I’m glassing the deck tomorrow, if the same thing happens I’m going to look into alternatives.
Question for all you poly glassers:
How do you dispose of your chemicals? Left over resin is one thing. I typically catalyze or make sure the leftover in the bucket has fully catalyzed before throwing away but what about your dirty acetone? Will most of it evaporate?
Just a thought (not an attack at poly guys in any way…truce) but why dont you try epoxy next time you glass a board… much less dangerous and longer work time. just if you use epoxy, dont spill any on a garage floor… it never comes up.
I tell you what, after reading all of these stories i am thinking i need to invest in some more protection. I dont use a respirator when i glass and i always get that crap all over my arms and fingers. I normally just dip my hands into some acetone and just scrub all the resin off. It is the only thing that works…I got so much in my arm hair on my last board that i just shaved it off, and it actually worked. I have only done two boards but i will be a lot more attentive to safety on my next one, oh and on my first board i spilled mekp on my shirt and didnt realize it can react with your skin and i got a nice little chemical burn on my stomach in the shape of ireland. I guess i am not invincible like i always thought.
http://msds.ehs.cornell.edu/msdssrch.asp
The above site allows you to access MSDS data sheets for materials. All you would ever want to know, and then some.
I’ve used polyester resin for years, never taking too much care about any protection (most of the time, I didn’t wear a respirator, man, I love that smell…) No gloves either, for a long time. I remember laminating rails with bare fingers then washing my hands thoroughly in the acetone can before washing them again with some heavy wash-powder.
Nowadays, I have those nasty cuts in my fingers that keep re-opening from time to time. Nothing like cancer, but painful, yes.
Also, a few months ago, I was glassing a board for a students video-project about making surfboards. We were working in an underground room and the guys had stuffed every ventilation exhaust with plastic tape, fearing the smell would go upstairs into offices rooms. I had forgotten the respirator and I worked for a good half an hour in a styrene-saturated atmosphere.
Two or three days later, five in the morning, I’m lying in my bed and just roll from the left side to the right and all of a sudden I feel a pain in the back like I’ve never felt before. For the next two hours, I just lay there, unable to move because of pain. My sister who is a doctor eventually comes in and auscultates and she says it looks like a terrible muscle inflammation. She had to inject morphine to try and calm down the pain, but I must say that even that didn’t do much. I spent almost two days unable to walk, and the whole thing lasted three weeks. That’s when I read on the web some medical study about how some guys exposed to solvents (mostly painters) developped weird muscular inflammations. Now, don’t say nobody told you: always wear a respirator, gloves, googles, everything.
Which is why I raised the point. In the US we have gotten so damn hypochondriacal about everythingas we continue to live longer and longer on average. Sun, food, water. Sue everyone and take personal responsibilty for nothing. Take precautions, use common sense, be responsible, and have a bit of fun. Mike
ah the difference !! …"have a bit of fun " [america]
have a LOT of fun [australia, new zealand , elsewhere…
Have HEAPS of fun. (France).
really acetone is a bad thing to use to clean your skin it is a poison that goes straight into your blood stream …dont get resin on you is the best and if you do use soap or white vinegar for epoxy resin
Woops.
Silly,
There are not that many things that go straight through your skin into your blood stream unless you have a cut or scratch. I’m not sure about acetone. What I’m asking about is verification of some of these claims. I can read the warning label on the side of the can. I know it’s not good to get it on your skin. Sure don’t want to drink it or get it in my eyes. But, go straight to your blood stream through skin and the basement membrane?
I suppose you’all can have as much fun here as your bodies can take. Just need to know where to look. Mike
I’ve been told that acetone goes straight into your liver, too. Any docs out there?
Oh yes, Doc, for sure…
balsa billy …
ya really gotta stop drinking the stuff mate !
ben
well you can absorb all sorts of things through your skin into your blood stream.
some things absorb easier than others .
ive read that acetone absorbs readily and as it is a solvent it takes the stuff it has disolved with it…theres also vapour absorbtion through the eyes.and inhalation
anyone else heard of this
i thought it would be obvious
an example is lead poisoning from prolonged handeling of lead .addmittedly it takes a long time but it does eventually get ya
okay after some googling
http://www.westp2net.org/janitorial/tools/haz2.htm
this has the NFPA rating
theres plenty more info out there as well only takes a few minutes to find
i imagine with traces of dissolved hardener and resin in the mix. its gotta be bad for you
i think prolonged exposure could deffinately affect your health
pretty nasty stuff when all you need is to be a bit careful and not get resin on you
its highly flammable as well i believe.so it could affect your insurance policy if there is a fire.
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…this is a rediculous question maybe you have already exposed yourself too much…just make good judgment… stop being american…think for one self and use common sense
Evidence of extreme polyester resin exposure or your mom is your dad’s sister? What a douche bag.