For you beginners, PLEASE take time before you buy a product to look at its usage. Many of the items on the market can still kill you if used improperly, and because you can buy it at Lowe's is no guarantee of it being safe for table fare. They can't protect you from yourself.
When I started taxidermy, hides were routinely tanned using sulphuric acid and arsenic was used as a bug proofer. We'd reach in a vat and pull a tanned hide out and wonder why our arms burned. It went away when we washed them, but we didn't consider it was the same stuff they used in batteries and horror movies. We knew the arsenic was rat poison, but we didn't use rubber gloves when we used it. I'm surprised I've lived this long. Natural selection should have surely taken me before now.
Today I see posting routinely telling folks to use acetone, methyl ethyl ketone, tricholorethane, and lacquer thinner. These are hazardous chemicals, none more than acetone and MEK. They are highly volitile, explosively flammable, and can cause liver damage through absorbing them through the skin. Trich is the same way. Lacqer thinner was a plaque that took many of the old taxidermist who inhaled its vapors until it melted their lungs away. You should never use any of these chemicals without serious respiratory protection and protective clothing along with superior ventilation equipment.
I had a friend who almost died when he decided to use Chlorox to clean his floor. When one spot didn't come up, he decided to sprinkle a little Drano on it. The green vapors that were created by thoughtlessly mixing these two commercial products was the same chlorine gas that was used during World War I.
Even dry preservative and Cabosil are dangerous. Breathing airborne particles of these two will cause irreversible damage to your lungs. (Guess what the DP does to that soft fleshy tissue in your lungs.) Cabosil is silicone powder. Some juries thought the liquified version was enough to cause women permanent health problems in breast implants.
White gas seems innocuous enough, but why store such a flammable liquid in your shop or in your home? There are plenty of commercial, bio-degradable, safe and non-flammable products on the market that will do the same job as their hazardous counterparts. So what if it takes 20 minutes longer? Will that be of any importance when your shop blows up or burns, or you're walking around with that little green bottle connected to a tube up your nose? If you'd like to be around to enjoy spoiling your grandkids, you'd better start asking some questions before you buy something because you saw it on the "Taxidermy Net". As that hokey Dan Reeves commercial says, "It's your life. Be there!"
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Yep, we ALL started in one. Why would you "degrease" a bird with those solvents downstairs while the baby is upstairs sleeping? The hot water tan fires up and KABOOM! Taxidermy manuals cant teach common sense. I dont want to scare you all out of your shops, but just the residuals from painting with lacquers, foam dust, dry pres (if you still use it). All that stuff will make you sick eventually. Does anyone doubt me? Do you have a TV in the shop? Take a clean rag and wipe the screen. See that black dust? Take a guess where else you can find it...and you cant clean it from there, your lungs. Very efficient as filters, them lungs. Even with ventilation and respirators, we should be careful. Hey, if you have to work close to others, at least use products that wont blow up. Water based degreasers, for starters. Just a thought, provoked by George's good tips...
thats good advise iv been doing this for 29 years should have explained safety hazzards with my advise it was something quik for his degreaser is on back order thanks boys for being concernd if everybody was like this the world would be a place thanks again robin
Well said and how true.
While most of us do know the hazards, alot of us STILL take unnecessary chances. Like today, I just needed a little lacquer paint for something I was going to be "real quick" about. I finally turned my outtake vent on because no matter how "quick" I'm working the lacquer still has the same effect. Maybe next time I'll even put my mask on WITH the vent. Nothing like driving fast and taking chances. You both made me slow down a little bit for next time.
Thanks.
Thats great advice, you guys are the greatest!
I love you guys!