Richard mahaffey on wed 4 sep 96
Dear Richard,
Here at Tacoma Community College we use latex examination gloves when we
weigh glaze tests and glaze batches and of course everyone is required to
wear a mask in the glaze mixing room. THese measures may not seem MACHO to
some but it keeps the students from ingesting any glaze materials with
their lunch. I have started using the gloves when loading glaze kilns
and found that at least my hands do not dry out at the end of the quarter.
It seems that the glazes and oxides are less likely to adhear to the
gloves than to my hands.
We also have a fan that runs
24 hours a day in there and a warm air input, but not cold air return, for
cold days so that students will close the door when mixing glazes to avoid
contaminatingthe air in the main studio. We have put the most commonly
used
materials in smaller containers for testing so that large quantities of
materials are not disturbed (or contaminated) in doing small tests.
All materials are kept in covered buckets. We try very hard to keep the
glaze room as clean as possible.
We also put the glaze buckets in the spray
booth and turn it on when we add water to the glaze batch as some dust is
invariably put into the air.
We use sponges to clean up with plenty of water and I have completely
banned all brooms (including shop and foxtails) from the studio.
Rick Mahaffey, TCC
Tacoma, Washington
USA
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