Is carbon fiber fabric, Itchy to skin

Curious. About carbon fiber cloth as welding sleeves.

 

Carbon fiber dust from grinding is more itchy than fiberglass. I wouldn't put bare cloth on your skin!

 

I played around with various forms of carbon fiber raw material 20+ years ago as potential bio-electrical pickups.

The worst (after bulk chopped fiber) was a pressed fiber random directional sheet, lots of fiber ends all over the place and those are what hurt the most - they'll pierce the skin and break off underneath, and since they're black you can even see them after they've done that. Braided bi-axial material was a little better, but still itchy due to the occasional fiber ends in the middle, and the straight tow fibers were the most friendly to the touch but still unacceptable at their exposed ends. Carbon Fiber - Many Styles-all 1st Quality-all in Stock | Fibre Glast https://www.fibreglast.com/category/carbon-fiber-tapes-tow-and-sleeves

All in all, carbon fiber was not a good choice for skin contact medical devices, and I wouldn't recommend it for any direct skin contact due to the tendency of the little fibers to pierce the skin and break off underneath, and even when using the soft to the touch middle of the fiber strands when those strands are exposed they can break in the middle and expose new ends. If you did use it as a cloth, perhaps it would be acceptable if it were encased to prevent skin contact from the fiber ends, but I don't see that as being practical or desirable.

 

All i got is heresay. It is horrible and he called it carbon rash where the fibers break off and get under your skin until they cause festering and rise out via pus. Can I say that here?

 

Can confirm - I didn't "overdo" it with my carbon fiber experiments, but I personally did experience the breaking off under the skin and if you got a lot of those I have no doubt that pustules and susceptibility to infection would follow.

 

I started wearing protective tops when I read a medical study that tracked small glass fibres in the bloodstream of FG workers, that created inflammation points around the body.

 

I grew up near the Wellcraft plant in Bradenton, Florida - they made lots of powerboat hulls in the 30 to 40' range. In the 1980s, at least, most people only worked at that place for a couple of weeks before they quit - the fiber exposure was brutal.