Karl Platt on mon 6 jan 03
The topic that won't go away.........
"physicochemical characteristics such as molecular weight and
hydrophilic and lipophilic characteristics of the material.
Altough small molecular weight lipophilic compounds can be
extensively absorbed, volatilization from unoccluded skin tends
to reduce their absorption."
>"e plomb inorganique est absorb=E9 par les poumons et le tractus
>gastro-intestinal.
>L'absorption cutan=E9e est g=E9n=E9ralement faible......"
Qua, qua, qua, qua, qua.
What the hell does this have to do with potting in the 21st Century?
Less than nothing.
"Having fooled around with the most commonly used ceramic raw
materials for more than 35 years, I do not think any of them present
a threat of poisoning following skin contact."
Agreed.
"I will send this information to a friend who is an occupational hygienist
and who recently obtained a masters degree in toxicology...."
", organophosphates and chlorinated hydrocarbons
(pesticides), cyanides, amino and aromatic nitro compounds,
mercury, tetraethyl lead... A good starting point would be
if the chemical has an ACGIH Skin notation..."
Say what?! Does this have something to do with why old glaze smells funny?
Why shy from lead silicates (stable enough to amuse the archaeologists of the next civilization, they are), potassium bichromate (lovely brushed over soft white),
antimony (Enamel White), selenium (Pink, Red, Orange, or barium (buttery matte, high chemical durability, fusion). I admit to having used some tons of these materials
and, well, have all my teeth, all my neurons, a very sturdy heart, robust luings, I don't drool uncontrollably nor forget what I just said as a result of having made batch.
On the contrary. It's hard not to look a little bewildered in the face of tortuous polysyllabic medispeak that gets bandied about as though it were meaningful because
the words were spelled correctly in the midst of a lot of pedantic claptrap with footnotes from nowhere relevant to what you or I did this afternoon -- even in the very
abstract.
Any modern studio worker who ever took ill from raw materials in a ceramic or glass studio did so because they were stupid -- and they are *extreeeeemly* rare.. Fact.
Anyone who got sick licked brushes, worked in a pigpen, smoked in the batch room, smoked while glazing stained glass or picked their nose while dipping raw glaze
daily for a decade or something else similarly dumb in the extreme. Most people reading this list are working at an extremely limited scale where the concentration raw
material is exceedingly small. It could seem a lot while standing at a gram balance making-up a recipe copped from Clayart. Although in context it's not like working at
a mine, the frit factory, a color house, a beer bottle mill or a window plant. Places where huindreds of tons of raw materials might pass in a day. Tons of things like
SiLiCa (insert startled *gasp* and terse diminished minor 9th chord here).
Look, I'm not dead or even in slightly poor health because of my work, which has to do with tons of these vile substances of which the blithering idiots speak. On the
contrary, who's ever been more alive.
The point being that there's no point to the endless hysteria into which these topics appear to be doomed. All you need to know is on the MSDS, and to not wallow in
your work, eat your work, smoke (anything) while working and to follow one's natural anti-Darwinian inclinations by avoiding being downwind of anything dusty or
fumey as a matter of course....and, of course, to bathe.
Normal people practicing reasonable hygiene have more to fear from a sneeze.
KPP -- wishing the that the blithering hysterics would go back in their respective holes and leave us to our honorable and healthy work.
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