This is sort of off topic, but applies to modeling overall and the comforts surrounding it. Has anyone ever paid attention to the myriad of scents from the different solvents? Testors tube glue come sot mind, the orange stuff is pretty bad but not too strong. The blue stuff is supposedly “safer” as it’s non-toxic but has a rotten lemon/orange scent to it. Model Master liquid is ok, and not terribly strong, the tenax and regular testors liquid is pretty strong, but tolerable in small whiffs. I’ve not smell Tamiya or ambroid yet, but I just picked up my first bottle of plastruct, and IMMEDIATELY closed the bottle after I opened it when I was getting ready to use it. It is one of the FOULEST scents that has ever reached my nose. To me it smells like old dirty low quality paint thinner, combined with grease cleaning solvent for tools, combined with old cheap stale gasoline. I didn’t even get the brush out of the bottle and the thing was away from my face, and it made me sick to my stomach. Considering the cost, and the size of the bottle, I hope I can bring myself to use it, as I hear it’s pretty good.
hmmmmmmm…just say, “no”…I know it is New Year’s and all, but stick with the booze…
LOL Not doing anything for new years. Usually don’t. With all the new laws taking effect tonight, almost bringing back the prohibition 'round these parts, we’re just gonna sit at home, watch some tv, maybe a movie and go to bed.
Don’t feel bad; last year I went to bed at 10:00–just skipped the whole thing, sick as a doog.
I hate New Years Eve![XX]
Sometimes solvent manufactorers put foul smellings addives on purpose to discourage inhaling of the product–especially toluene which is often a component of many solvents and adhesives–seriously—tread[8D]
A lot of the liquid cements are so volatile that a strong odor is introduced as a means to remind you to screw the darn lid back on! I once lost half a jar of Tamiya Super Thin that way. [|(]
Hey Doog, don’t you already have a thread about how you hate New Years? [:-,] [:)]
So what’s the story behind that one???
Yeah I smell a story in there too.
I lost a whole jar of testors like that the other week. Had it sitting on my mousepad next to my keyboard as I was working on a kit, I needed to check someting and usually the jar fits under the desk fine when I close the keyboard tray, but with the lid a little off kilter, I hosed my keyboard(only 30 bucks), hosed my mousepad(only one I had), and hosed my mouse(75 friggin bucks thank god testors cement doesn’t effect whatever plastic it is), and lost the jar of cement almost completely. GRUMBLE GRUMBLE
Once you’ve lived for a few weeks inside an AFV with three other guys on a diet of MREs, ranger milk, and pogey bait, and are surrounded with the smell of dirty nomex, unlaundered uniforms, unwashed bodies, feet, azz, farts, CLP, burned propellant, hydraulic fluid, JP8, and the like, downwind of a camel graveyard in the 135-degree desert heat, there ain’t nothing about a little solvent that bothers me…
It’s a breathe of fresh air…
LOL–no story—just the post-Christmas-visiting cold or flu that I picked up!
Jenn worked at the restuarant, hostessing, til late, so she just stayed there and saw the new year in with her co-workers.
The worst thing I’ve smelt so far in the modelling world is Humbrol Maskol liquid mask (The pink/purple stuff). It’s a liquid latex type masking fluid which uses ammonia as a solvent. Quite simply, it smells like you stepped in something a cat left behind.
A close second would be the smell of five-minute epoxy. It reeks… [xx(]
MEK, Methel-Etheyl-Keytone…
smells so bad I forget to breathe…
Always use with window open, & my studio isn’t in the bedroom anymore.
.
Emamel paint, just can’t stand it anymore…
.
Carbon Tetrachloride for commercial paint stripping… just toxic. Don’t work in that industry anymore
Back when I used to do just cars, and I was younger(and dumber), I used to use auto laquer from a can on my auto’s, in my garage to keep the dust off. Sometimes the side door was open but never the main door, because it allowed all kinds of stuff blowing off the trees in and on the paint job. I didn’t wear a resperator or dustmask either. Like I said dumber days.
I still have my British Army gas mask…
Hey, Hans…
I could clear an APC in seconds when I took my boots off and I could also make my socks stick to the walls!
Socks that could clear an Iraqi emplacement more effectivley than a grenade!
James
Sounds like my shoes. Back when Desert Storm was going on I was still just a kid, early teens, but we used to joke that Saddam was trying to capture me to use my shoes and socks as a secret weapon against the U.S.
Automotive laquer, seems to permeate the entire house and never dissipates.
Kinda like the old green wool cushion sole socks after weeks in the jungle, if they hadn’t rotted off yet. With such humidity nothing ever really dries, took years to clear that peculiar musky odor from my mind. Ships under way for extended cruises have their own particular smell. I was on the Trenton and the Raleigh, buncha troops, trucks and gators. Imagine a large automotive repair garage filled with sweaty bodies…
Ahhh…the good old days…it’s the smell of like in the pickel suit.
Anyway without going nuts on memory lane I will get to the post. As a chemical engineer I could go into deep details but…ALMOST EVERYTHING we use has a solvent with it. The easy thing to remember is the quicker it dries, the more volitile the solvent.
Most of your highly volitile solvents, Toluene, Xylene, Methylethyl Keytone, Acetone, the series of Chlorinated solvents used in liquid glues, etc, etc, should be used in ventalated areas. The fumes are NOT good for you. Also since some of these are so volitile, by leaving the top off the jar, you are literally evaporating your money.
For liquid glue I use a sryinge to apply it. So I only uncap the jar to fill the sryinge and then close it.
Paints like Alclad (which I LOVE) use MEK and I open in the spray hood and work with it only in the spray hood with the vent running. Paint like Mr Surfacer also uses strong solvent but has an inner seal cap on the jar. I use that to peek it open and stick the brush in and then close it.
If you read a Material Safety Data Sheet on water (Dihydro Oxygen) it would scare you, but I would not expose myself more than a few minutes to some of our modeling vapors. If you cannot get good ventalation then you should invest in a mask with a general organic compounds filter.
The orange smell of the Testors glue is for a small amount of Citric Acid which they use in the “safe” version.
Lastly, I am not trying to be an alarmist…just pointing out safety for my fellow modelers.
Now back in the APC…safety did not apply…after three days you did not notice smells because everyone smelled bad. (I will not go into the chemistry of BO). But, when you came out of the field and went home, the flowers on the front lawn wilted and Household 6 would not allow you inside except for the garage when you striped and went to the shower.
Rounds Complete!!
Hans and Redleg, stop it.
Too many memories coming back to me. Oh wait I feel a 19K flashback coming on…