Two part putties are NOT harmless!

[Dan Morton]

Yes - this is a boring topic and yes I'd rather read about sculpting or new figures, but hey - take a minute, OK?

Probably some of you have read the manufacturers warnings on the various two part putties - MagicSculpt, A+B, Duro or Kneadatite, etc. If you haven't then, please do. Newbies should definitely read them. These great products CAN be used safely, but you need to respect the chemistry. Contrary to some of the info you'll read on the internet they are NOT harmless!

The manufacturers produce Material Safety Data Sheets that tell you what's in the putties and the health and safety precautions you should follow.

All of them use variations of a similar chemistry. One part of the putty is the base that is usually mostly a china or kaolinite clay and some kind of pigment. The other is the curing agent and it normally contains bisphenol A, epichlorohydrin, etc.

You should never handle any of the putties with bare hands. 2 reasons.

(1) They can cause acute irritation to the skin and eyes - reddened, chaffed-looking and possibly swollen skin with cracking and dryness later. The range of response can be anything from none to severe. Normally this is dose dependent - the more exposure the more response from the body. If you're working without gloves and accidentally rub your eyes, getting putty in them, the reaction can be very severe with swelling of eyelids so bad you need immediate medical treatment.

(2) All of them can cause a skin reaction called "sensitization". This starts off being mild and, with repeated similar unprotected exposures, can become severe. Normally this is also dose dependent, but the body reaction can become more and more severe to progressively smaller and smaller exposures.

If you are a sculptor, sensitization could make it impossible for you to use any of these products!

You can also have other kinds of symptoms, but I've mentioned the more common ones.

Use rubber gloves when handling or working with the putties. Use sculpting tools to contact the putties, not your hands. Toothpicks and old paint brush ends cut off and sharpened work best. Wear glasses or goggles to prevent yourself accidentally getting putty in your eyes.

After the putties are fully cured, they still aren't exactly harmless, but they're much less of a problem. Most people can sand or cut them without gloves, etc. You should still keep putty dust out of your eyes.

If you enjoy this hobby and sculpting, take the initiative to protect yourself and respect the putty chemistry!

All the best!

 

[quang]

Originally posted by Dan Morton@Nov 7 2004, 10:06 AM
If you enjoy this hobby and sculpting, take the initiative to protect yourself and respect the putty chemistry!

Indeed!

Q.

 

[Johan]

... Help ! Q the Puttyslayer !

 

[Le Lancier]

Hahaha! some of you guys are serious comedians, I tell you :lol:

Thx Dan for this info.

I'd already heard that some of these putties can be carcinogenic. But there are numerous contradictory statements on the net. I figure that it's better safe than sorry.

Cheers

 

[Robin]

"Quang use the force Quang"

 

[garyjd]

Dan, Thanks for posting this. I have read the guideline for other products, and I'm probably guilty of not handling them as they should be handled. About the only thing I do is wash my hands a lot. I think I'll add rebber gloves to my arsenal of tools along with something to cover my face when I sand the stuff, shame on me for not using anything, thedust does get everywhere.~Gary

 

[quang]

Originally posted by Robin@Nov 7 2004, 01:43 PM
"Quang use the force Quang"

I hear you, Obi-Wan. :lol:

Let's be serious for two seconds. It's no coincidence that I have all my 'props' at hand for the photo.

About a year ago, I suffered a severe fit of allergy during which my eyes were swollen at a point that I coundn't open them. The allergy didn't return after I use my Chuck Yeager outfit (although never in a so extreme way as you see on a pic). I use latex gloves when I knead the putty, put on the mask when I sand/saw/drill the hardened resin and use the mask + goggles when I pour resin.

So don't take chances. Be careful, use some safety measure and you can sculpt for many, many years. Before some other disease gets you.

Cheers,
Q.

 

[Einion]

Thanks for posting this Dan, it's a good habit for us hobbyists to be careful.

I long ago stopped myself from putting my tools into my mouth because of the risk of sensitisation; we should all accept that the "it's never happened to me" doesn't mean it won't ever. I've just taken to mixing my MS with poly gloves on because it saves the tedium of scrubbing my hands clean immediately afterwards to remove the residue. I discovered to my delight that it has two secondary benefits - I tended to over-mix, which reduced the working time and now I have more leeway, plus it helps to keep fluff out of the mixed putty which is great.

I'd read the more cautious advice about handling Kneadatite/Duro in particular and even though I long ago got out of the habit of putting my sculpting tools in my mouth I've noticed some slight redness on the back of my left thumb if I roll the cocktail stick on it. Wearing gloves all the time is not an option I want to use at present so I'm just going to be careful to avoid touching putties as much as physically possible.

Sorry to hear about your adverse reactions Geoff and Quang. Geoff, is just being in the vicinity enough to set off a reaction? There are people for whom oil painting (particularly turpentine) can have the same effect unfortunately.

Einion

 

[Dan Morton]

Quang - You promised me you'd stop sniffing the super glue! LOL
____________________

I thought I'd write that topic up after reading elsewhere on another site about a sculptor who said he'd "...read about the reported hazards"... of 2 part putties, but "...since I never have skin trouble, I never use gloves and just wash up afterwards...". He might go along like that for years not protecting himself adequately and then become so sensitized in a matter of months that he can't stand to be in the same room as an open can or tube of activator. OK - I'm exaggerating a bit, but really not that much.

To the best of my knowledge, the evidence for any of the putties being a human carcinogen is shaky. They certainly can cause both acute skin, eye and tissue damage and have the ability to cause some respiratory hazards over a long period of higher exposure.

Anyway, I'm very glad that some of you "old pros" chimed-in to give this some "weight". Many thanks! I'm a novice sculptor, but I've been working around hazardous chemicals of all kinds since (ahem - giving away my age here) the 70s and been one of the 7800 board-certified industrial hygienists in the world since 1981.

All the best!

Daniel R. Morton, MS, CIH
Major, USAF, BSC (Retired)

 

[Manfred]

Thanks for opening my eyes Dan.

Just a few weeks ago I read on another board that Kneadtite or Magic Sculp is not harmful wether fresh nor dry.
While I don't stick it in my mouth I have kneaded it barehanded. That will stop .

 

[quang]

Originally posted by Einion@Nov 7 2004, 02:57 PM
I long ago stopped myself from putting my tools into my mouth

Einion,

Your story reminds me of something I read years ago.

It happened in the post-WWII years when 'atom' was the craze and everything modern had to be 'atomic'. Remember the fashionable alarm clocks with the glow-in-the-dark needles? They used RADIUM-based paint on these things and the workers who did it used to LICK their brushes to keep the point in shape.

OK. Halloween is well behind us. Let's get back to rolling putty ... with gloves.

Q.

 

[fsdesimone]

Am I the only person who has trouble mixing putty with gloves on? I've tried to do it in the past, but I end up not mixing it thoroughly and the stuff doesn't cure. Maybe I'm not using the right kind of gloves (I had been using latex).

Also I've heard that Aves putty is the only one that's completely non-toxic - is that true?

 

[Dan Morton]

I think you can get used to mixing the 2 part putty with gloves on. After putting the 2 parts together, [with gloves on] I rub them back and forth into a long very thin snake. The combination of the "snake" shape and the rubbing provide large contact surfaces and gives the 2 putties lots of opportunities to mix. Not original - a much more successful sculptor than I told me about it.

I don't know if Ave putty is "non-toxic", Francesca. Why don't you try to find the manufacturers web site, if any, and see if they can give you a Material Safety Data Sheet. Let me know if I can help.

 

[Johan]

Personally, I'm mixing milliput still with my bare hands, perhaps I should start using some sort of gloves too ... although I certainly can see a point in what Francesca says, I wonder if you don't lose much of the "feel" when you handle putty with gloves - sort of what you once told me, Quang, about Cowboys who prefer not to wear gloves when they rope a bronco...

Anyway, I do recall that I DID have trouble about a year ago when rolling a rather large batch of milliput - half an hour later the palms of my hands and my fingers where fiery red and swollen and there was that unbearable itch, it damn near drove me crazy. So what had gone wrong?
Well, untill last year I had been suffering from chronical urticaria aka "nettle rash", an allergy for which there exists no cure except (temporarily) cortisones, you just have to wait a few years untill it goes... I was diagnosed with this in 1999 and had a last serious outbreak beginning of 2004 . The contact with a large blob of putty probably triggered off a reaction .
It seems that I'm now healed (this "disease" dissapears as mysteriously as it comes after a few years, and I keep my fingers crossed now), and I have been working with milliput recently without any nasty allergic reactions. But it is clear to me anyway that IF you're sensitive to some sort of allergy (and we all are, due to modern ways of life and due to, more than anything else, stress !), then putty can surely cause some unpleasant reactions. The putty can't cause the nettle rash, but it may trigger a vicious outbreak if you already have it in you ...

I hope this was of some help.

Johan

 

[quang]

Originally posted by fsdesimone@Nov 7 2004, 04:39 PM
Also I've heard that Aves putty is the only one that's completely non-toxic - is that true?

That's what they're claiming.

But my personal belief is that ANYTHING external to your own body has some adverse effect on you if you're exposed to it too often too long. Be it putty, turpentine or sun rays.

After all, we all have to die of something, don't we?

Cheers (all the same),

Q.

 

[LCoote]

Oh well, I still lick my sculpting brushes, but as Quang says, we all have to die of something, but what a way to go :lol:

 

[Anders Heintz]

Interesting topic, kind of depressing but interesting.

I never use any gloves and lick my tools, although not as much anymore, as I seam to get a bit of a thick throat when eating to much Magic Sculpt, although I use AVES now, it still does the same thing but it just takes a lot more. I have experienced a slight itch in the palms after mixing a lot of putty, but I thought it wa smore the sticky of the putty and the 'teasing' when the putty sticks slightly to your pal, that makes it itch (smae effect as a feather on pald does).

I usually put left over putty on the tools on my thumb, and have had putty cure and never had a problem as of yet, just pick it off and start again!

Maybe I should be more careful...!

 

[RobH]

Interesting!

Johan, I too suffer from inexplicable bouts of Urticaria; some of you guys on here have seen me (Quang has some photos of my very swollen head);
Still there's no obvious cause, (just 'coming down' from a bout now, btw) - except perhaps my slightly crazy immune system when exhausted
Caution should be used when handling these things; still not had a reaction I can directly attribute to the putties I use but sometimes a number of things can combine to create a nasty adverse effect.

We all make decisions on how we live our lives........

 

[amherbert]

Man, I can't believe anyone puts their hobby tools in their mouth!
I guess I heard about the radium story far enough back (and how Marie Curie died) to keep any of that stuff far away from my face!

I have been working on my first project with conversions/modifications. And I had red flakey skin on my thumbs a few days after handling milliput to do the work. I guess I'll wear gloves from now on!


Andy

 

[Johan]

Originally posted by RobH@Nov 8 2004, 05:48 AM
Still there's no obvious cause, (just 'coming down' from a bout now, btw) - except perhaps my slightly crazy immune system when exhausted

Yep, Rob, that's what urticaria is all about - in the end the most plausible theory for this mysterious allergy is that it is caused by stress and sheer exhaustion (which in itself can also be a consequence of severe stress ...), which in turn affect your immune system...
And as you know, stress can be handled by devoting some of your time to something you really enjoy, fe. like this wonderful hobby of ours ! So let's enjoy what we do, let's not take it too seriously, and let's have a good laugh now and then !!!