Resin - how to handle correctly - protecting your health?

[Marko@Rockvoice]

Hey folks!

I've worked on a lot of resin kits by now, but there's still one question remaining:

How and at what stages can resin be harmful or cause cancer?

Is it dangerous while the casting process (decanting and mixing components A und B)?

or/and

when sanding resin parts? Is the resin dust rough and sharp in structure and therefore harmful to lungs and skin?

I never before protected my skin while sanding styrene or resin - should I?

Sorry if these questions my sound stupid to some of you - but I think better safe than sorry.

Thanks for replies!

Marko

[Kylwell]

If you spend too much time inhaling casting fumes you could have issues depending on the make of resin. MSDS will tell you what.

The biggest issue that I know of is the dust from sanding but a simple filter mask will fix that and even then unless you're raising great clouds of resin dust it's not much of an issue.

[Joseph Osborn]

Hi Marko,
Inhaling ANY dust is not good for your lungs-- it really doesn't matter what the dust is made from. Even inert matter can lead to pulmonary fibrosis, which is a debilitating condition that eventually causes death. My father-in-law died of this condition and he worked in paper mills. Take the sensible precaution of wearing a dust mask when sanding resin pieces. Wet sanding helps to keep the dust down, too.

Here's a page from Smooth-on that talks about handling their products in their raw form: http://www.smooth-on.com/FAQ/safety.htm
The biggest thing you have to worry about with resin's liquid components is sensitization. Note that the Crystal Clear resins are especially nasty. I know a lot of the people who frequent these boards use that product. Be careful you guys!!

[en'til Zog]

Be extremely careful about catalysts like methyl ethel ketone peroxide - a well known sensitizer. I used to do a lot of casting with polyester resin, using MEK catalyst. I am now dangerously sensitized to MEK and almost died from being exposed to it when a person in the same room as me used it as a styrene cement. My breathing passages started to close up. Happily, when I got out of there into fresh air, the rapidly worsening symptoms reversed and quickly went away.

MEK - a CATALYST, meaning it gets locked into the resin it catalyzed but doesn't necessarily get consumed or neutralized. So breathing the dust could be very bad.

[Antenociti]

wear a graded fume mask when casting plus latex gloves at all other times (deanting, mixing etc), dont let it get on your skin, dont inhale fumes (get a proper activated charcoal mask that will actually filter out the fumes, and keep it in-date), dont inhale dust (use the P3 cat for dust).

dont have food or drinks around you when sanding (fine dust gets into them).

modern masks are not uncomfortable and its worth spending a bit of money to protect your health, I cast about 4-5 hours 5 days a week and regard it as essential... but i still use all the kit even if I'm doing a one-off quicky.

[Marko@Rockvoice]

okay, thanks to you for your posts!

I love my hobby, but not at cost of my health or my family's health.

When casting I always used rubber gloves and a dust mask, working at an open window. But I have to say all-in-all I cast 4-20 hours per year.
But I always thought sanding resin wouldn't be a problem - just like styrene.
So I guess from now on I'll no longer be sanding resin in the living room or without mask.

Is styrene a problem, too?

[kenlilly106]

Regarding the dust from sanding, if you choose to sand dry, rig up some form of dust control. I've ground out areas using a moto tool, and afterwards it looked like it snowed in the immediate area

I clamp the hose from my shop vac to the edge of the workbench, sanding or grinding near it will cause all the dust to get sucked down the hose.

Ken

[Chacal]

Or, if you can, wet sand, preferably under a running stream of water (just enough to keep the resin wet).

You can do it over the kitchen sink, but it's uncomfortable after a while.

Alternatively, you can use a plastic pan (like a cat's sandbox) filled with water and a sponge. You sand a bit, soak the sponge, rinse the model part (just squeeze the sponge over the model, running a thin stream of water), sand a bit more, rinse again, repeat. Every now and then you stop, dump the water and rinse the pan to get rid of the resin slurry on the bottom. Use latex/poly gloves to keep your hands from going pruny (and more absorbent of chemicals).

And, who was it? Joseph Osborn? It is not the even inert materials are bad for your lung, it is that inert materials are the worst for the lungs. The lungs can't remove them, and, as they are inert, they don't degrade nor are neutralized by the body, so they stay in the lung, accumulating more and more every breath. Nasty business. Asbestos, marble dust, resin and plastics... just waiting to get'ya...

[kenlilly106]

Asbestos and rock dusts are in a class by themselves, mainly due to the small size of the particles and their sharpness.

Asbestos fibers can split down to the point they're invisible to the naked eye, when sucked in the fibers travel deep into the lungs and embed themselves in the tissue.

Rock dust is very fine and very sharp, slicing the tissue all the way down.

Ken