Epoxy allergies - options?

Safety gear is a well established and easily proven guard against exposure. This isn't a debatable subject, way too many tests and industry statistics to prove other wise. These Draconian methods may be fine in 3 world countries, but you'll just get shut down in places where they have roads, red lights and stop signs, appropriately placed. Any suggestion other wise is simply just not accurate and against everything known. Mistakes and accidents happen, which is a primary reason for safety gear. Stupidity can't be legislated against, but willful harm infliction can be.

Sensitivity is two fold: it gets into the blood stream or the lungs.

If the epoxy is well cured and sanded, the damage is much like black lung, where hard, fine particulates damage and collect in mucus membranes, in the lungs. A good particulate filter can solve this, unfortunately, most sanding epoxy are actually working with still chemically active goo. This is because epoxy can be hard enough to sand, but still needs two weeks for the reaction to complete, so you're taking in epoxy, that's still chemically active. This gets directly transferred to your brain and heart, from the lungs, via the blood stream.

The blood stream gets it, as a quite active chemical, most often accelerated with the use of solvents, which do nothing more than make it much easier, for the body to absorb the goo. Never use solvents to remove epoxy from your skin. This is the fastest way to push it into your body. Use paper towels to blot up the bulk of the goo, then vinegar, which stops the chemical reaction. Follow with a typical hand cleaner, like "Go-Jo". I use the citrus based cleaners, as they work well and you don't smell like a pickle for the rest of the day.

Simple precautions are all that's necessary. You don't need a full body suit and separated air supply. Keep it off your skin, don't eat it and don't breath the dust. Of course if in a particularly confined, enclosed spaces, an air supply isn't a bad idea, but this would be true of many things used in these locations.

 

yes the vacum cleaner sure gets used a lot every where specaly underbenchs twice during the day and if some one happen to have some free time it was spent cleaning ,And tool maintanance and cleaning also , amazing how much dust tool collect even air tools !!
And we were only doing Survey work with vinylester !!

 

If by interior work you mean making cabinets etc there is absolutly no need for epoxy for gluing things together,use something like Titebond 2 or 3 and the bonus is it cleans up with water and the job will go quicker as there is no dicking around with adding powders, just apply the stuff straight from the bottle (like it should be with epoxy) However, depending on how your boat is built you may or may not need to be filet and tabbing items in and sealing things and you dont have a lot of options there, despite what some are proposing, as you have already stated that you built the boat with epoxy you are not going to be tabbing bulkheads, cabinetry partitions etc in with poly or vinylester (neither are you going to be glueing up cabinets and doors etc with poly or vinylester) You might want to contact John Guzzwell as he became sensitize and came up with an alternative which he pretty much used in place of epoxy for just about everything, however,compatability may be an issue since you have started with epoxy.

Steve.

 

TiteBond II will release with sufficient moisture content. TiteBond III will creep under load and softens dramatically if wet. Both of these PVA's do have uses, but structural applications in all but small, lightly loaded craft, isn't one I'd recommend. Secondly, these PVA's require considerable clamping pressure to get full adhesion and this entails tightly fitted faying surfaces, which epoxy doesn't.

John Guzzwell used Borden Wonderbond XB90K5 (a PVA) for the spars and resorcinol below the LWL. Resorcinol is a fine, waterproof adhesive and all there really was, before epoxy. It requires exceptional joint fits, lots of clamping pressure and a fairly tight range of environmental conditions to work well. Wonderbond is similar to TiteBond III.

 

How about and allergy free epoxy based on peanuts

http://www.safeepoxy.com/

 

Peanuts --I love peanuts . Thing is I have no allergies. I thinks its nuts.

There is nothing on this planet I am allergic to and I don't beleive it .. they make it up to get attention or its spycho sematic,--- if not that then its all in yer head.

Probably just don't like to work like the rest of us have to..

 

Par, if my Titebond II glued cabinets are exposed to sufficient moisture to fail i would have much bigger problems on my hands, it will withstand years of unprotected outdoor exposure as proven by a friend of mine on hundreds of custom fence panels he built for customers out of reclaimed wood from wine vats. I believe the OP was talking about interior fittout, cabinets etc and titebonds are great for that. Tight fitting joints are not difficult in building cabinets, they are boxes and the doors require good fits anyway as they are usually bright finished.
I agree that resorcinal is a great adhesive, in fact its a lot less difficult to use than most people are led to believe, in NZ we built hundreds of cold molded boats using thousands of copper staples for the clamping pressure, most builders used resorcinal to laminate frames, floors, stems, keelsons, deck beams etc, but epoxy for things like frames to keelson,stringers to stem,deckbeams to gunwhales etc and the first layer of diagonal planking to stringers,gunwhale, backbone etc just for the clear glueline and then resorcinal for the subsequent layer or two, its a great glue, however,some folk are allergic to it too, i worked with a guy back in the early 70s who couldnt be around it, it started one day as he was stirring in the powder hardener and his eyes swelled shut, the day before he was fine. As for the peanut based epoxy, probably fine unless you have a peanut allergy.

Steve.

 

Epoxy allergies are a curse. Epoxy is simply the best all purpose adhesive.

Anyone working with epoxy should recognize the health hazard it presents and take safety recommendation seriously.

Work clean. Be a fanatic.

When I see workman covered in green epoxy filler dust or working without protection I get sick.

 

here we go again, a nonsensical, contentious, ego gratifying, no info useless contribution from the man who has nothing to say - just a lot of it !!!

 

That is so true of so many things.

 

Do you stay Mr grumpy all day --do you ever have a day off.

I do often --- you should too.

Try and laugh --go on try it, enjoy life a bit --it will soon be over dont worry about that.

 

Frosty , did you ever ...............stop and think that Watson ...just might be having a bad hair day ? Ha Ha Ha

 

Thats a serious allergy.

What if you see epoxy dust on the telly.

 

cascamite can be used for cabinets
and if you all use evostik you will not remember what youve built but it was good fun
its the most entertaining glue for boring fitting out work

 

Ive used Aeolite urea formaldahyde glue for fittout work many years ago, of course im sure that its been found to kill you too.

Steve.