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are there any health issues with using paint?
hi folks,
i was painting a window today ( enamel paints in glass – inside) and hadn´t done it for long cos of appointments. i then had an espresso (its a job for some italians i´m doing – (they have espresso in their blood i think) and lo and behold it felt like a kick in the stomach!
now i feel weezy i think i have a high blood pressure…the fumes and coffee didnt mix well.
i avoid coffee usually! so right now i feel crap.
my point of discussion is because of a meeting i had with an older signpainter here in germany. he told me he had to have an operation taking parts from the back of his mouth and the inside of his throat out. he´d been painting since the fiftys and a year or two ago the doctor told him to just stop working from one day to the next! now he gets sick at the smell of paint fumes.
i dont really want to read horror stories, but i thought i´d ask if anybodys heard of this type of thing before? it is life threatening…
i have a good mask by 3M, but its tuff to work in. what do you guys do to avoid the fumes and what alternatives do you use for paints, considering the fumes???
oh well i was just interested.
all the best,
bernardo -
13 Replies
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hi bernardo
maybe it was the lead which was added to the paints years ago….its been taken out of all paints now….as ed always says the paints he gets now dont work so good as they did before…. 😀
nik
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I thought the one shot was still lead based that’s why you can only buy it if you are a sign person but I’m probably wrong !!!
Lynn
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There has not been lead in 1-Shot for several years.
I’ve painted with it for 21 years now, and had my lead levels checked during pregnancy.
They are fine.
I did wear latex gloves when painting while pregnant tho, upon my doctor’s advice.
I do not wear a mask.
I find beer to be a good counteractant of the fumes.
love….jill -
quote Jill Marie Welsh:I find beer to be a good counteractant of the fumes.
love….jillme too 😉
nik
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On second thought….
I can’t even smell the fumes anymore!
I’ll be painting away in the shop, and a client will pop in.
They’ll say "Whew! How can you stand those fumes?"
And I reply "What fumes?"
love….Jill
:lol1: -
Yes Jill right
There used to be lead in the one shot but it has now been taken outWith the old signwriter’s you have to remember that awareness about the lead in paint and the damage it could do was not known that well.
So a signwriter would quite merrily stop signwriting and take a break and simply dip into his lunch box and start eating his sandwiches.
When you are up a ladder or scaffold it was a bit of a bother coming down and washing your hands.
Arthur (the old boy) still uses white spirits to clean his hands. (Admittingly I used to do the same some years ago)
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years ago when i was a welder on the steel works, we were always given a pint of milk to drink before you started your shift. This was to line your throat against the fumes, i would think it would do the same to a degree for paint fumes. The pint of beer is for after you have finished to take the taste of the milk away 😉
L J
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Milk is good for your bones too!
Since I have shrunk an inch from the age of 35, maybe I’ll switch to milk.…nahhh.
love….Jill -
The only trouble with drinking a pint of milk every day for years is you end up with too much calcium in your system which means you have kidney stones which bl**dy hurt.
L J
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washing hands in white spirits I still do that after the odd bit of painting probable not too good for me. Still better than the nitromers the spilled on me and messed with the fat in my hands and made my hands swell up and go red and generally hurt.
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i painted today and i didnt feel bad. i really think the espresso killed me there!
usually i smell the fumes but after a while i get used to them and think evrythins fine. its even fun to paint with the fumes. i used to like smelling the petrol when my dad used to fill the car up at the station. i dont even mind getting paint on my ands or anything. dont use anything special to clean it off either. soap and brush.
i dont like to drink when i work, i always think the customers looking over my shoulder. and i´m always under time pressure anyway.
the milk is a good idea i´ll try that in the future (i used to not like milk for exactly the reason of that gunky aftertaste in yer mouth and throat -yech!)the interesting thing is that a lot of graffitti artists use masks but thats because of the paint particles in the air. they can really do damage. i dont know how dangerous the fumes are exactly. i think there is an article on this subject on the letterheads website. I´ll have to look again.
i´d have to check about the lead here.
i´m going to place pics of the window i started on the folio thread.
take care and thanx,
bernardo -
quote Jill Marie Welsh:There has not been lead in 1-Shot for several years.
I’ve painted with it for 21 years now, and had my lead levels checked during pregnancy.
They are fine.
I did wear latex gloves when painting while pregnant tho, upon my doctor’s advice.
I do not wear a mask.
I find beer to be a good counteractant of the fumes.
love….jill…thanks jill …any excuse *drink* (drink1) (drink1)
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I don’t drink on the job tho…I always wait till I’ve been paid and the customer leaves.
I’ve noticed at meets where there is a high concentration of fumes, that I can drink a lot of beer and never get drunk.
love….Jill
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