Solder properties? Irons?

Interesting...being that lead doesn't vaporize to fumes till around

2000 degrees. The fumes from soldering are from the flux. Perhaps your elevated levels are coming from something else?

Andy

Reply to
Andy
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According to the guru at CDC......

"Their" theory is that minisicule droplets of molten lead are carried upwards in the "smoke" from the flux, similar, I guess to burning embers being carried up in the smoke of a big fire.

Reply to
Moonraker

So far nobody has been able to validify that "theory". Odd, because proving it would be as simple as collecting the vapour and measuring its lead content.

It's especially odd this "theory" still floats around considering metallurgists insist it's impossible to vapourize lead at the temperatures we work at. Some myths live forever.

Reply to
Dennis Brady

Frankly, I'd much rather put my faith in CDC's lead abatement and occupational health people than anything you have to say on the subject. These are people with a hell of a lot more education, experience, and common sense than you display.

Reply to
Moonraker

y'know, i find myself answering my phone with nasty leaded fingers and leaving it laying about the work table and then find that same phone in my living room, kitchen, etc. I have just begun including the daily cleaning of the phone in my studio to residence cleaning regimen.just a thought. m

Reply to
Michele Blank

Are you walking back and forth from shop to house with the same shoes on? Wearing work clothes and flopping down on the bed for a snooze?

Reply to
Moonraker

no. i take my flip flops off before going into the house (Hawaiian style).i use a leather work apron, but i still change clothes.m

Reply to
Michele Blank

When I solder without a mask on, I can feel those lead fumes getting sucked up into my lungs. It's not exactly an odor, but a heavy choking quality that's hard to explain. I use wimpy fluxes, so I don't think that's the culprit. Like I said, I had elevated lead levels, until I started wearing a mask regularly, and have watched them slowly drop every year. How many of you out there actually do soldering yourselves every day without a fume mask, and have your levels checked regularly?

Reply to
jk

You solder with flip-flops on? That oughta be cute when a big 'ol drop of hot solder lands on your tootsies.

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Reply to
Moonraker

yeah, i'm a great dancer. Conversely( hehe) when it does land, i can get it off quickly, not like when it melts through the shoe and attaches itself to your skin.I actually get more burns (and cuts) in the kitchen than i do in the studio but that's another thread.m

Reply to
Michele Blank

That must be some damned hot solder if it can burn through a shoe. :>)

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Reply to
Moonraker
"

A few years ago I got dog bit. When I went to the ER, the nurse asked me when I had my last tetanus shot. I told her it had been about 4 years earlier. Her response? "Today." "Huh?" "Your last tetanus shot was today."

So, count me in as one who wears a fume mask.. Starting yesterday. 3M makes a mask that is rated for lead dust, and another one that is oily aerosol and lead dust rated. I got them at WW Grainger. Got one of each and I had change from a $20.

Reply to
Moonraker

Perhaps. OTOH, the quickest way to convince someone to try lead free is to give them some personal experience/background with lead poisoning. Just got back from my trip last night and found my lead free solder package waiting on the porch. It is worth it to me to at least try it.

I can wear a respirator to protect myself from the fumes. I can wear a dust mask to protect myself from the glass dust. But, what about the lead dust accumulating in my workspace in my attached garage? How clean can I possibly keep it when people are tracking thru it to get into the house, and there is other stuff stored in there?

Dry sweeping and regular vacuuming only makes the stuff go airborne, which is the worst possible way to "ingest" lead (via the lungs). So, a HEPA vac is a given. But, there is just no way that I will be able to keep lead dust from entering my home to some extent. People with kids and babies visit me here. In one small study, hobbyists' families were only very slightly less contaminated with lead than the hobbyists themselves. It is especially worrisome to some of us who don't work from a detached building.

Reply to
searobin8356

The few studies that I've read report only 5 to 10% of ingested lead makes it into an *adults* bloodstream (significantly more enters a child); while

30 to 50% of inhaled lead finds its way into the bloodstream.

So, pass those up too.

Sure it does. The truth about lead hazards is out there and easy to find. Would you want some old electronics/batteries/radiators buried next to your well pump? The less we use, the less we dump.

What's wrong with economic improvement? Doesn't just about everyone have an economic agenda? I'm pretty sure the lead producers can buy lobbyists and votes just as easily as the alternatives producers can. The public is just a little smarter than they once were. They are becoming well versed in "Let the Buyer Beware"

e.g. I took a stained glass class. We were told it was a good idea to put a small fan on the workbench and not to lick our fingers. We were told the lead risks were extremely minimal. No eye protection required, either.

Conversely, If we were told to wear a respirator equipped with filters that can handle toxic fumes when we solder, a dust mask equipped for hazardous dusts when we are grinding/sanding/etc., to use a HEPA vac rather than sweep, to remove our shoes and keep them out of our living areas, take off our clothes and wash them separately from family wash and to take a shower as soon as possible after working with lead - being sure to shampoo our hair twice, and that stained glass artists, are at moderate risk for lead poisoning---what do you think the economic impact for that shop would be as far as selling stained glass supplies to the class? Everyone has an economic agenda.

I've been eating fish out of the Great Lakes since I was a kid, have a mouth filled with amalgam fillings, and lived within several miles from a nuclear power plant. I plan to go slow and glow.

Reply to
searobin8356

That is only one of the ways. And even that has considerable variables. An adult with good nutrition ingests some and absorbs maybe 6% into their bloodstream. Suppose they haven't eaten all day, though? Maybe 70% get into the bloodstream. Maybe they don't get enough calcium and so the lead tends to gets sucked up into their bloodstream.

Lead travels from the bloodstream to the organs/soft tissues, after awhile the lead gets socked away in the bones and teeth for long term storage. But maybe you broke a bone, or maybe you are getting older and have some bone degeneration....some of that stored lead leaches back into the bloodstream....add that to your current exposure and it may be enough to push you into a toxic blood level. Pregnant and nursing moms can leach lead back into their bloodstreams from their bones. There are studies out there that suggest all of the above is happening.

Inhalation is more quickly toxic for adults than ingestion of the same amount of lead. And it does get inhaled. Put it in your gut and some of it will "pass". Put it in your lungs and depending on the size of the particles and where it gets lodged, you have a direct highway to your bloodstream. Make a logical connection. Lead dust/particles are somehow getting inhaled, whether they ride around on fumes or get stirred up from the shop floor. The lungs' large internal surface area provides alot of surface:bloodstream contact. The lungs exist to provide that contact. Breathing in the flux fumes is no picnic for them either. If that stuff is strong enough to clean metal surfaces....

I would agree that just handling the stuff that is in lead came or lead solder with our hands provides little means of entry to the body if we don't provide a means to ingest or inhale it. At least the stuff we would come into contact with working with leaded glass. If someone has cuts/scrapes on their fingers then direct passage to the bloodstream is once again more available, but wearing gloves would provide protection.

Reply to
searobin8356

The CDC guy suggested that I seal, (varnish) the work table tops and bench tops. Also, seal the concrete floor with gym seal. My tables are raw plywood now. He also said the household dust abatement project was me using a WET MOP.

I had to ask what that was....;>)

Reply to
Moonraker

Ahh, the dreaded Wet Mop. Best done with 3 buckets. Soapy water to wash- 1st rinse water - 2nd rinse water and repeat. I have 3 daggum sets of 2 inch blinds in the garage windows:(

I was debating on fiberboard, plywood, or just a solid core door as a top for a home built table this weekend. Probably won't matter much if I go ahead and varnish it.

I have to ask what "gym seal" consists of. I'm thinking of the acrylic stuff they put on basketball courts as opposed to concrete sealer?

Reply to
searobin8356

Actually, my main work table is 1.5" thick top of MDF glued and screwed together. (Medium Density Fiberboard). I don't like plywood tops because the varying grains make it difficult to drive a horseshoe nail 'zactly where I want it. Also, the MDF seems to "heal" itself when you pull a nail out. I dunno about "varnish" per se, I think any sanding sealer or polyurethane would work. All you are trying to do is fill the pores of the work top so that lead dust can be wiped up with a wet rag.

Different areas call it different things...just a clear seal to put on the concrete to seal the pores so that the lead dust cant get into them.

Reply to
Moonraker

Don't know this as absolute fact of lead ingesting , but if you have a change of state in the lead then you may have vapor being inhaled. When you go from asolid to a liquid there will be some small form of gas that is carried in the air stream. Look at water, there is a vapor that you don't see but water is in the air. Called humidity. Guess just cause we can't see it it's not there. Guess this all goes to the saying " never hold back on a fart. It travels up your spine, enters your head, and that is where sh---y ideas start "

Reply to
O D

Close.

Matter only has three properties, solid, liquid, or gas. Those states for every type of matter are attained at very specific temperatures. Those temps are modified by adding some other matter to a pure substance. Similar to adding salt to ice, which lowers the melting (liquification point) below 32*F. That's why adding tin and (whatever) to lead makes solder work. Solder is an alloy that liquifies at a temperature lower than the melting point of the relatively pure lead came. Going from memory, solder melts at about 425F, and lead melts at 621F. The boiling point (not melting point) of lead is nearly 3200F, and my soldering iron sure doesn't get THAT hot.

Gaseous states start only at the boiling point, by definition. Liquification points are much lower temperatures. I think what is actually happening is that as the lead (or solder) liquifies, small droplets of molten metal are swept airborne by the vapor of the boiling flux. Given that the lead came itself isn't visibly melting away, most of the actual toxcity is likely from the lead in the solder. I believe the spatter caused by the boiling of the flux is carrying solder droplets airborne.

Reply to
Moonraker

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