"Lead Minis" Topic

Just found out a couple of the companies I buy minis from (Eureka for one, possibly Kremlin) use lead based alloys in their minis. Now, as I'm a product of the Lead Free Pewter generation I'm not really sure of how to work with lead figures safely.

Any suggestions on how to safely deal with them?

Don't chew on them. Otherwise, as far as I know, you shouldn't be able to create enough lead dust to be harmful.

Any suggestions on how to safely deal with them?

Don't eat them! Wash your hands after contact with the bare metal.

Having said that though, I have been handling metal figures for well over 30 years and I don't think I've ingested enough lead as a result to be anything like life threatening.

Just lets say that there is a lot of hype over lead. Main problems in the past have been due to 2 main causes – tetra ethyl and tetra methyl lead used to be used as anti knocking agents in petrol, so you would breathe it in every time a car passed, plus it was used as an additive in paints and chldren used to pick at the paint on windows, etc, and eat it.

OK, lead is poisonous, but you're not going to get enough in your system by owning lead alloy figures – in fact, Tiranti advertise some of their lead alloys as suitable for use in making jewellry:

link

And yes, we do use a lead alloy in our figures.

One other caution, if you smoke and you're handling lead figures wash your hands before smoking. You do not want lead on your fingers getting on to the cigarette paper.

I prefer lead instead of resin….

Never did me any harm. I think. Been playing with lead minsfor over 30 years.

I prefer lead instead of resin…

Same here. I'll happily buy lead figures.

OK, lead is poisonous

So are potatos…

It's just Health and Safety overdrive: as everyone else said, just don't eat quite a lot of them (and especially don't let small children eat any of them)

John T

Ditto to above remarks. Just take safety precautions…if you want to be just exactly as paranoid as I am for example, just wear a simply dust mask when filing/cutting/etc lead based minis.

Indeed, you'd probably have to pulverize it to powder form and ingest it like cocaine to do any real damage.

That seems like a lot of trouble to go to.

Reaper also has started offering some of it's figures in Lead as the "P-65" range. Takes 20-30% off the cost!

Alot of the vintage figs I buy are probably lead and it doesn't bother me. I'd happily buy lead minis from any company that I normally do business with if there was a savings in cost.

Nothing to add about safety though. Folks above have covered that pretty well.

I've heard or read (possibly here) that one of the older manufacturers that used lead for years would get themselves and their casters tested for lead intake every year, and it was never an issue.

I just take lead content as an incentive to get the minis painted, based and sealed. Another (almost) 30 year lead accumulator.

Lead is a problem when injested (eaten) It especially effects youngsters by slowing, or even stopping growth of the brain. Minor effects on adults handled by kelation treatment. DO NOT EAT. wash hands after handling. Keep tots away from them, as they might eat them.

The US outlawed use of lead years ago because of its harmful effect on tots -- for the children. Typical overreaction. Complete ban. Influded antifouling paints and other uses for which children had no access and for which there was, and is, still no substitute.

My local Environmental Top Honcho (who lied to get her job anyway) almost closed down the County gun range for lead contamination! Was stopped by the combined police forces for whom it was built.

One professed area of concern was lead in high levels in fish. This is true. It is true that this has always been. Even fish cored out of the Greenland glacier have high levels of lead.

I too prefer lead, just not for 'skinny' details. Lead is heavier, easier to convert, and less expensive. Not really a health issue unless you eat it, IMHO. Don't give in to the 'lead scare' used to sell silly pewter. Next it will be 'pewter is dangerous, so you had better only buy fineprice resin'…

Indeed, you'd probably have to pulverize it to powder form and ingest it like cocaine to do any real damage.

Even then – it would be safer than snorting pewter (given the structure of metallic lead versus the structure of metallic tin).

It has already been stated, metallic lead is largely inert. You can touch it, hold it, stroke it and love it all day long. If you were casting at high temperatures (higher than used for centrifugal casting) you would want to take extra precautions due to fuming lead – though that would hold true if you were transforming any metal into a gas.

The evil lead that everyone should overreact about are the lead pigments (if you are going to overreact to anything). Even with those – they are safe as long as you are not an idiot with them (I actually use lots of paints that have lead, mercury, cadmium, cobalt and chromium…all of which have the potential to be toxic). The primary culprit, lead white (lead carbonate) is in a form that the body will attempt to metabolize and it can result in heavy metal poisoning.

If you were to eat regular metallic lead – your poo would sink faster than usual – but that is about it. Even regular lead oxides (the nefarious lead rot we all fear and loathe) will pass through the body on touched. Of course, certain lead oxides (particularly lead dioxide is an oxidizing poison, which will tear you up…but it isn't a naturally occurring compound, so you shouldn't find it on your minis). Still, I wouldn't recommend that you drop an ingot in the pepper grinder to see if it tastes good…that would just be dumb.

pewter is dangerous

It is. As dangerous or more so than lead. Both metallic bismuth and metallic antimony are toxic. Metallic antimony is highly toxic (on par with arsenic and other staples of pulp literature and the Crime channel). Tin is mostly safe (other than as a metallic particle which might be inhaled…which is a bad thing), but if the pewter is one of those zinc based pewters…well, I am sure we have all heard of the old people getting poisoned from the zinc in their denture cream. You also have a couple of kids each year who suffer from zinc toxicity from eating pennies.

Zinc actually was the source of the only actual case of metal poisoning I have ever seen – and that was in a parrot who decided it liked to chew on pennies. It died.

Wear the cheap painter gloves you can get in packs at any hardware store. They are throw away and you also save having to wash any paint / glue off your hands.

Paints and glues that are conjunct with miniatures have far more potential for harm than the material of the figure its self.