Should i do anything special when working with white metal to be safe? Other than not eat it and wash my hands?
v/r, bw
Nope, you could go the extreme and wear safety goggles while cleaning it up.
Most white metals today have a greatly reduced level of heavy metals. They don’t use the lead content that they once did. Most are now pewter, tin, antinomy and maybe some zinc in trace levels. Nothing toxic enough or in a level enough that you should worry.
Even modern pewter is only tin, zinc and antinomy.
Obviuosly this is based upon the assumption that you aren’t using lead.
One thing you should do though is a separate set of files or tools for white metals and yellow metals. The cross over isn’t a good one and the trace shavings you may leave on your white metal from the brass PE may cause a chemical reaction that may effect the finish. Albeit minutely but enough that in making jewlery, I keep a separate set of tools for each. It’s up to you dependent on the level of work you’ll be doing and how well you finish your piece before priming and painting and how well you clean your tools between jobs. May have no effect at all, once its painted.
Mike