Lead Safety

[truckjohn]

There have been a whole lot of questions lately about lead safety.
I will share some information from our lead safety training and our own
studies at work.

Preface: I work in a plant that processes about 1,000,000 lbs of lead a week.
You can work around lead for years with no problems -- if you do your part.

My Main Point will be:
GOOD HYGENE IS YOUR #1 PREVENTIVE MEASURE
So:
DO NOT SMELT OR CAST IN YOUR KITCHEN.
Make sure you have plenty of ventilation.
Don't eat, drink, or use tobacco products when you are playing with lead.
Don't keep your tobacco products in the lead area.
Wash up good -- face and hands -- before you eat, drink, chew gum, or use tobacco products.

Exposure:
1. High Lead exposure causes reproductive problems causing defects and low activity in male sperm, and defects in female eggs. It can cause birth defects including nervous system and brain problems. Kids are most at risk, but you and your spouse are at risk if you are planning to have kids. Lead doses that wouldn't do any more than make you feel icky will permanantly hurt a kid.

2. Symptoms of lead exposure in adults -- Feels like you have a cold or the flu. Runny nose, gravely throat, coughing up crud, no energy, generally feel like crap.

3. If you feel especially crappy the day after casting or smelting -- go check with your doctor. Blood lead levels above 40 are in the danger zone. Levels above 20 means you need to be more careful with hygene, or need to wear a respirator around the lead pot.

4. All is not lost, no need for paranoia. Your body maintains a natural balance of lead in the blood below 15. If it temporarily gets too high, it will work itself back down in a couple months. Drink lots and lots and lots of water. Chelation therapy is not recommended by our safety programs.

Environment
1. The main hazard activities are anything that deals with Dross or Hot Lead -- Smelting, Casting, and Handling Dross. Handling cast bullets and raw lead should not be a problem unless you have really bad hygene. Cheap Rubber gloves will protect you from lead ingots and bullets.

2. DO NOT SMELT OR CAST IN YOUR KITCHEN. Generally, inside the house is a bad idea -- as carpet will suck up the dust. Oxide dust will track all over the house, and you really can't prevent your family/friends from getting exposure. The kitchen is the absolute worst place you can do it -- and it will guarantee you continuing problems with lead exposure.

3. Your Smelting/Casting Area: Lead dust and fumes are the problem.
Lots of ventilation is your friend. This means "Up and Out"....
Blowing the lead oxide dust *Around* (box or desk fan) is just as bad as poor ventilation.

Even with good ventilation, you still have a 100% chance of lead dust getting on everything in your "Lead Area" -- especially the floor. Lead is the heaviest non-radioactive naturally occurring element. Lead oxide is heavier than Iron, but is extremely fine powder -- like baby powder.
It hits the floor *Very* quickly and looks like a fine yellowish/brown dust.

4A: Lead gasses off like crazy above 900F. These gasses almost immediately oxidize in the air and float around your room. Run your pot well under 900F.

5. Handle dross carefully and store it in a closed container. It is very powdery and gets all over everything. You absolutely will lead yourself up good from careless handling of dross. Cheap rubber gloves are a really good idea here.

Prevention
95% of your exposure will be through ingestion (Eating it) rather than inhalation (Breathing it) Lead poisioning from skin contact is very uncommon-- it just does not absorb through the skin. GOOD HYGENE IS YOUR #1 PREVENTIVE MEASURE

1. Don't eat or drink in the "Lead Area" We fire people who do.

2. Wash your hands and face after casting, smelting, and handling dross. DO NOT EAT, DRINK, SMOKE, OR CHEW UNLESS YOU WASH FIRST.

3. Nothing goes in your mouth when working around lead pots. This includes pencils, fingers, Tobacco use or gum. Cigarettes are especially bad -- as lead gets into the tobacco, then straight into your mouth.... Your dirty fingers touching the cigarette paper are enough to get lead oxide on it. One cigarette is not enough -- but sessions of smoking and smelting will lead you up like crazy.

4. Wear a sweat band or "Head Rag" to keep the sweat from rolling into your mouth.

5. Shower off after smelting or casting. Be sure to wash your hair too.

6. Wipe down your work areas after casting.

7. Casting and smelting outside is best. Indoor places with hard floors are good -- they are much easier to clean. Make some floor sweeping compound (sawdust, peat, or dry dirt + a little kerosene, veggie oil, or old motor oil -- just enough to make it clumpy, not wet). Dust it on the floor. It is "sticky" and catches the lead dust -- keeps it from getting back up in the air. Sawdust or peat based sweep can be re-used as flux.

8. In conjunction with the floor sweep stuff, buy a cheap shop-vac, a pack of bags, and get the optional $25.00 HEPA filter. Use this to vacuum up your area and your clothes once you are done smelting and handling dross. Regular vacuums will blow the oxide all over creation. Don't use this vacuum for anything else. DON'T USE THE HOUSE VACUUM UNLESS YOU WANT TO LEAD UP YOUR HOUSE.

9. A decent idea when smelting down lead: Buy yourself one of those cheap face mask respirator filters. (not forced air, more like a high quality dust mask -- Costs $15-20.00)

Thanks

John

[Buckshot]

..............Thanks John. Some good advice there. However I can't sweep the floor of my shop as I don't think it has one. Possibly there was one at one time but it's been so long since I've seen it I just can't say. If there WAS some floor in there I'd probably find somehting to put on it anyway.

This floor thing may be tied in with countertops or just horizontal surfaces altogether. It's the real pits when I have to walk all the way back into the kitchen just to set my coffeecup down. Since I have seen benchtops re-surface from time to time for short periods, this entire floor thing may be tied into the same phenominome, phenomenon, phenomenome ................. same thing.

However if so, it's lasting much longer and doesn't seem to be in any mood to change within my lifetime. It may be geological in it's time frame.

.................Buckshot

[Lloyd Smale]

did they ever tell you why they dont recomend Chelting. My doctor has precribed it two me twice now and it has worked great.

[Bullshop]

truckjohn
Where do you work?
BIC/BS

[tomf52]

3MMM makes the heavy metal disposable dust masks. I think the part number is 8814. They are about $6-$7 at welding supply shops.

[44man]

Truck, any way to run a lead pipeline to my garage?

[MT Gianni]

TruckJohn, I know that alloying lead lowers the meltiing point. Does it also lower the oxidzing point? Thanks, Gianni.

[454PB]

I also went through intensive training on lead exposure, and an incident that caused a potentially bad lead exposure to my whole work crew. Outside of an industry that actually works directly with lead, the worst chances for exposure are paint, both prep work for repainting, and welding on painted surfaces. At my job, an industrial hygenist spent several days reading lead levels on all surfaces using a "gun" that is pressed against the surface for a direct readout. After the audit was complete, we bought a HEPA vacuum cleaner ($1200), and had to refer to the audit results before any repainting, welding, or disturbance of any lead covered surface. A full bio-suit had to be warn, HEPA respirator, exposure level monitor, and a Visqueen tent built around the work area before any lead based paint could be removed, or any welding done on same. Also, strict guidelines on removal of the protective clothing and it's disposal with proper labeling of any related items.

Our generators were supported by Babbitt bearings, and I was involved in the repair and refitting of many of these. Anyone who has ever fitted a Babbitt bearing knows that there is an extremely high level of lead exposure during the process, especially when each bearing half weighs 750 pounds.

I believe in the not too distant future, we casters may be in for a lot of regulatory hassles. Blowing lead contaminated air out of your casting room into the neighbors yard is not a good thing in some peoples mind. Look at the restrictions on second hand smoke, and there have been proposals to outlaw smoking in your own home.

As Lloyd mentioned, our safety managers warned us as supervisors to never even mention "chelation", apparently it is not a medically recognized treatment.

On the bright side, blood lead testing is simple and relatively cheap if you are concerned. Myself and my crew had to have it done after some sloppy "abatement contactors" removed a lot of lead based paint in the power plant I managed. None of us had elevated levels, and mine was lower than some of the men that had never melted lead in their lives. I was involved in the actual cleanup of the dust, mainly because the Tyvek suit and forced air respirator fit tested on me better than some of my crew.

After years of OSHA compliance training, audits, and accident investigations, I was about disgusted with the agency by the time I retired.

[Ricochet]

As Lloyd mentioned, our safety managers warned us as supervisors to never even mention "chelation", apparently it is not a medically recognized treatment.
Yes, it's recognized medical treatment for lead poisoning. It's not for atherosclerosis, arthritis, and whatever else some of the "alternative providers" have been recommending it for. Don't know when EDTA chelation therapy for lead was first introduced, but it was standard stuff when I was learning about it at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in 1976.

Here's one very, very basic overview of treatment of lead poisoning: http://www.webmd.com/hw/trauma_first_aid/aa37358.asp

[truckjohn]

Lloyd -- I don't know why they don't recommend chelation. My guess is that it has something to do with continued working in a leaded environment.... as in the easier it can go out, the easier it can go in.

Gianni -- The rate of reaction is directly proportional to the temperature. Higher temps oxidize faster than lower temps. Liquids definately dissolve more air (gasses) than solids to, so it will react faster than the solid material.

Buckshot -- Are you casting in a cave or something?

Ricochet -- JCI. We make Interstate, Die Hard, Duralast, and a bunch of others.

44 -- You would not be interested in the lead we cast at my plant-- It does *NOT* play nice with boolit alloys...... well, unless you like Arsine or Stibnine gas

TomF52 -- We use the 3M ones with the detachable filters. The filters last about 7-days of 12-hours per day..... which equates to 84 hours of continuous use..... which is a *Whole* lot of smelting sessions.

Have a good one

John

[Pepe Ray]

Truckjohn;
Can you get ,for me, the part/ID. # for the 3M masks that you referred to .
I'm not satisfied with my current protection. I realize that there are many different types available but I must start somewhere. TIA.
Pepe Ray

[Ricochet]

Thanks, truckjohn. I've used batteries from your company, I'm sure.

Many years ago I was company doctor for a large brass foundry in Alabama, and monitored employees' lead levels. I had a protocol to follow for various levels, and did occasionally have to take someone out of the foundry for a time, but never reached the point of having to chelate them. The problem with that is that it does reportedly enhance absorption as well as excretion, so they have to be away from lead exposure for the duration. I'm no expert on diagnosing or treating lead poisoning, by any means.

Lead levels are routinely drawn in well child doctor visits, often only if indicated by going through a questionnaire with parents for indicators of risk. (Shooting, reloading and bullet casting aren't on the questionnaire.) Once in a while one turns up with rather unexpectedly high levels, but I haven't seen a child with clinical lead toxicity since I was in med school.

[truckjohn]

Truckjohn;
Can you get ,for me, the part/ID. # for the 3M masks that you referred to .
I'm not satisfied with my current protection. I realize that there are many different types available but I must start somewhere. TIA.
Pepe Ray

Pepe,

I will check at work for what we use.

Remember, though, that correct fit determines about 80% of the effectiveness of a respirator or good dust mask.

Work rules -- No facial hair or goatees allowed that would impair the fit of the respirator -- which also means you should be recently clean shaven and your moustache has to stay completely inside the respirator seal.

They have to fit snug on the face, no gaps around the outside.

They have to be kept clean -- we use baby wipes to clean the gasket material before putting them on.

A quick test we do for fit:
Stop the filter(s) with your hands.
Try to inhale -- You should not be able to get air.

Best regards

John

[XWrench3]

i have noticed that every time i either cast, or especially smelt, by the end of the session, i have a slightly rough feeling throat (when casting), or up to a gravely voice when smelting. i ALWAYS work outside when working with lead, and have a fan blowing with the wind (what ever way it is blowing) when i am smelting. when casting, it depends on the wind. sometimes i run a fan (if there is not much wind), some times i don't. in any case, i run the fan so it is sucking the fumes away from me, not blowing fresh air at me. hopefully, i am not making a mistake there. i do not have a resperator, but after reading this, i am thinking maybe i should. either way, i guess a trip to the doctor to be tested might be the best thing to do. one of the posts mentioned a welding shop for a heavy metal mask. i guess i will need to check into that as well. i try to keep the temps way below 900 degrees, i think i probably did aproach that once, in the first time or two casting. i was not watching the thermometer carefully enough. i just turned the power off and walked away for a while. but when i am smelting, i do not use a thermometer, but i do try to keep the lead mixed up, and below the melting point of zink. i am pretty sure i have not exceeeded that, as i usually end up with several floaters (except last time, and i sorted by hand first, but i still worked as though i may have missed some). i, in the back of my mind was always a little concerned about lead poisoning, but i figured that most of the nasty smell when smelting is all the other junk in there burning off. i also have read several times, that as long as the lead does not get really hot, there is not much to worry about. so, i really do not know where i am at. i guess i will have to see the doc and find out where i am, and hope i am not way high. as for washing down the area, that gets done every time it rains. i do have a full beard. i am good about washing my hands, but i did not think about my beard. it's always something!

[Gunslinger]

I like these threads on lead safety... they kinda of serve as a wake up call for me to be careful... I alway am though.

I never thought about lead dust when casting, didn't think it was present. But i'll remember to sweep the floor more often.

When the weather is bad (which is pretty often here) I cast in my parents garage. The gate is of course fully open and I sit right in front of the entrance with the door opened in the back of the garage. I think I will acquire a fan to blow air past the pot and the table where i drop the boolits.

All this talk about lead dust has gotten me thinking: What about all the smoke that is generated during firing, doesn't that contain lead dust? I always shoot outside which I feel very good about since I know primers contain some lead and I shoot a lot!
Sometimes the wind blows the smoke in my face when firing... I know the smoke is caused by the lube, but I would still liketo know if it contains lead dust?

[454PB]

Xwrench3, most of the time, the throat/lung irritation you describe is caused by grease and other pollutants in the metal being melted. Wheelweights are usually greasy and oily, and as that burns off, it produces a nasty smoke. If you don't remove the stick-on weights, that foam adhesive smoke is especially caustic.

In my experience, the best filter for removing those kinds of irritating smells and smoke are the VOC respirators (as used by painters or for handling solvents and adhesives).

Again, the proper use of any respirator (not the typical hardware store dust masks) requires fit testing. The last time I was "fit tested", I was hooked up to a lap top computer that measured the volume of air flow and any leakage around the sealing surfaces. Certainly that is not required for a home casting set-up, but I was involved in work inside confined spaces, welding in them, and the use of very nasty solvents and cleaners.

[rtracy2001]

All very good advice, though the safety manual does need an education. Uranium 238 is heavier than lead, non-radioactive and naturally occurring. Lead also has naturally occurring radioactive isotopes (along with a number of other everyday elements).

99.27% of all the uranium on the planet is non-radioactive U238.

1.4% of the lead on earth is Pb204 which is radioactive.

Still the uranium is tougher to come by than the lead, so I will continue to try to cast with lead for now.

(There are a number of other elements heavier than lead with naturally occurring non-radioactive isotopes.)

Oh yeah, a simple fume hood can be made with stovepipe and a small forced air "booster" fan. All of which should be available at your local home store. Keep the hood as low as possible without blocking access to the pot. Keep at least 3-4 feet of pipe between the pot and the fan to ensure that the fumes have a chance to cool before going through the fan. If you ever have to work on it or take it apart, use a respirator as there will be a lot of lead C inside the pipe.