"Lead/Pewter Filings" Topic

How serious do you take them as a health risk?

1) Not at all
2) I wear a mask occasionally
3) I wear a mask everytime
4) ?

I was filing mold lines away yesterday and I still smell it in my nose this morning. I thought it was too heavy to go airborne.

1

I sometimes wear gloves, but never bothered with a mask; is that 1, 1 & a 1/2 or 2?

1. My brain is too old to be damaged a great deal more!

1
most white metal is lead free since the '90s.

1

1.3

I still have quite a few minis from the 80s
before the move to lead free

3

Perhaps I should wear rubber gloves, but don't.

I do scrub my hands very thoroughly after doing any major work like trimming, sanding, and filing lead, or pewter minis.

I do a lot and don't take any precautions beyond thorough hand washing afterwards.

I do make sure that I don't dispose of the filings via normal household waste disposal though. I tend to make use of the filings as heavy fillers in terrain items.

Most of the stuff I use does have some lead content, though not as high as it used to be. I find the alloys high in Tin & Zinc are too hard and brittle.

1

1. A friend of mine asked his Dr. if his working on lead miniatures exposed him to unsafe lead levels. This was back before the switch to pewter. A blood test was carried out. His lead levels were negligent. The Dr. opined that he'd be in more trouble if he lived in a very old home with lead pipe plumbing. But I know, from experience, that such plumbing develops enough mineral deposits that the water and the lead almost never come into contact with one another. If you want to hurt yourself with miniatures. Eat some old lead miniatures. Otherwise. Just wash your hands after working on figures when converting, or preparing to paint.

Blood tests yearly for OG casters -- 25 years, or never a case with elevated levels.
regards
Russ Dunaway

I heard a story – from a friend who worked for GW – that a couple of Citadel casters were caught swallowing figures to get their lead levels up so they'd get some free time off. It may have been apocryphal (or just stupidity in action).

It's a 1

You would have to search high and low to find a lead containing Mini.
Your filing will not make dust you can take in very well.
It is very difficult for any you take in to enter your blood stream.

However, other metals in Minis are somewhat toxic.
And if you have miniatures that have corroded away to a powder (this happens to some old lead minis), that powder could be hazardous if you take a lot in.

"Lead/Pewter Filings" ???

Nah. All my fillings are either amalgam or composite.

1

I wear latex gloves when handling bare figures, no problem breathing. Now resin is a very different matter…

Tom, there are still a significant number of the major UK figure manufacturers that use lead alloys so you'd have no trouble at all finding figures containing lead.

1. The VA predicts that based on the meds I have been taking, my liver will fail and I will die in mid-2008. Not much else worries me…

It's rare that I have a metal mini, let alone one with lead. Don't wear gloves, but I do put the mini inside a plastic baggie (with hands on the outside) for trimming and sanding and dump the residue in the battery bag for hazmat disposal.

1.

I work in a carshop. You should see (smell?) what we, car mechanics breath sometimes. (especialy diesel engines are pure poison)

I do wash my hands after a filing session, but thats it.

After reading many threads on TMP, 1. My collection is mostly lead. I don't see a reason to think my exposure will allow a measurable amount of lead into my body in harmful ways, but anyway a build up could be detected in a medical test. My levels were normal a few years ago, and I plan to seek another lead test in a few years.

I may have a kid soon and am thinking about him/her crawling on the floor. I'll probably be more tidy but I'm not concerned about lead poisoning. I'm more concerned of the chance of him/her swallowing a bit or part.