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Lead; paint, plumbing, poison?

Greenwud

Hot Rolled
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Location
New Zealand
I'd like to start a new thread to discuss all matters relating to lead, its uses, lore and the problem that it poses as a public health issue.
Lead is fascinating stuff and historically commonplace, but becoming less so in modern usage. My initial interest was in terms of lead as an occupational poison and developed as I became aware that lead was known to have potential to be poisonous in ancient times, but continued to be used until the present day simply because it has remarkable properties.
 
To this day there is no comparable lead free solder that comes close to 63 Tin/37 Lead which cools directly from molten to solid without any crystallisation in between. All other alloy combinations to date have been less reliable by comparison. It also doesn't form any tin whiskers to cause short circuits over time which I think some lead free solders do.
 
No problems with lead pipe or lead based solder in alkaline water areas, because it is quickly coated with a layer of lime scale, but in slightly acid water areas, the lead oxide dissolves in the water and problems abound. If you are soldering or doing leadwork every day of your working life, best take as many precautions as you can, lead is a cumulative poison, it builds up in the body, and is hard to remove, although it can be done under medical supervision, using a "chelating agent" Burning off lead paint is another source of problems, best wear a mask, and avoid the older paints, but today lead is used very little in paints. Treat it with caution, but it is usually quite safe, it is constant exposure and absorbsion that causes problems!
 
Having worked as a lead paint removal technician for many years, I have to disagree with lead being 'usually quite safe'. Lead is taken up by the body quite quickly if one does not take precautions. The removal teams were blood tested regularly and it was possible to tell within weeks who had not followed prpcedure for decontamination. More worrying is that lead is readily transferred from parent to child if the parent does not take precautions and children are way more sensitive to the poison than adults.

Lead paint was commonly used to protect public infrastructure such as bridges, tanks etc. It did an excellent job of preventing corrosion for decades but the problems arise when authorities put off maintenance and the structure starts shedding rust flakes with attached lead paint into the environment.

Until lead paint was banned and silica abrasives outlawed, industrial painters average age of death was 57 years. It took many of my colleagues before government and industry acted. There are occupational standards and regulations in most jurisdictions now but not all. Cheers
 
Having worked as a lead paint removal technician for many years, I have to disagree with lead being 'usually quite safe'. Lead is taken up by the body quite quickly if one does not take precautions. The removal teams were blood tested regularly and it was possible to tell within weeks who had not followed prpcedure for decontamination. More worrying is that lead is readily transferred from parent to child if the parent does not take precautions and children are way more sensitive to the poison than adults.

Lead paint was commonly used to protect public infrastructure such as bridges, tanks etc. It did an excellent job of preventing corrosion for decades but the problems arise when authorities put off maintenance and the structure starts shedding rust flakes with attached lead paint into the environment.

Until lead paint was banned and silica abrasives outlawed, industrial painters average age of death was 57 years. It took many of my colleagues before government and industry acted. There are occupational standards and regulations in most jurisdictions now but not all. Cheers

I hear you- I developed elevated levels at one point when working of old houses, simply by holding nails in my mouth and picking them out one by one.
 
Like anything else used properly lead is OK! I know of a few people that were shot during hunting accidents with lead pellets that were never removed, they lived well into their 80s! My Grandfather worked many years for the National Lead Company and lived to be 99 years old. He was involved in making DutchBoy paint. Lead based paint is made with the white powder that came from Hydrochloric acid exposure if my memory is correct. Mixed with oil it was a good lubricant and with linseed Oil a good paint but it was toxic. My youngest brother liked to eat the paint off the house that was painted with lead based paint, my father would spank him when he seen it but I suppose it tasted good so he continued doing it. Came close to killing him! Hospital was able to do what was needed to save him but almost didn't and is still alive at age 62.
 
I am not too worried about lead. My father is 91 and for years in the 1950's he worked in navy ship yards and had asbestos and lead paint all over him on a daily basis. In the boiler shops he said it snowed asbestos. They would also be chipping and sanding off lead paint all the time. We live in a society where we are supposed to be scared of everything. My house is old and has lead paint on the walls and under the carpet the original asbestos tiles. I also have lead crystal glassware and am not worried about that either. Currently it is mold that we are supposed to be afraid of and the mercury in our fillings.
 
For years steel manufacturers have been looking for a viable alternative to lead in free machining steels. I have heard that several countries are trying to ban leaded steels, but with no real alternative, it has not happened.
 
Like all data sets, you get outliers. In this case one or two elderly survivors do not imply that hazards from lead and asbestos are overstated. Average survival ages always account for the fact that some survived until 90 or more but remember, for every one that went 30 years past the average, there are those that did not get anywhere near as far as the average. Its simple mathematics.

I question that we are living in societies where we are supposed to be afraid of these hazards. What is actually the case is that we live in societies that expect to be protected from these hazards. That is why regulations have been introduced in most jurisdictions.

Ask the questions, who benefited in the past from casually exposing the work force to uncontrolled hazards? The workforce, or the profit takers? How many organisations/companies voluntarily gave up using lead in an uncontrolled fashion and how many had to get dragged kicking and screaming to court?

Lead as a paint ingredient was in the form of lead carbonate which is white lead and lead tetroxide which is red lead. Red lead was used extensively to protect steel. It is readily absorbed through the skin, respiratory system and digestive system. Cheers
 
The stuff really IS a problem, as is mercury. Lead poisoning is easy to google. Google Minimata disease for mercury. Of course, that is for severe poisoning, but who wants a "little bit" of mercury poisoning? Precautions are in orderif you work with them. For instance, the videos oof the lead sheet and lead alloy organ pipe metal casting (from the other thread) showed melting pots that appeared to have exhausts over them, and I saw people wearing filter masks, etc.

That all said, there are a lot of things that the news media would have you run screaming from your house because of, not even stopping to slam the door. Most are not nearly as bad as suggested, but the instructions to run may be the best for some folks who are really clueless.

Usually, being sensible is best. A piece of lead on the table will not kill you, although lots of "liberal arts graduates" think it will. It is certainly best not to gnaw on it, but hopefully that is not a likely thing to occur.

.
 
I believe I was told that metallic lead was less of an issue than the white lead used in paint. Harder to absorb. I was talking about this with an old NASA engineer once. He asked me if I used to go fishing. Sure I did. What did you use for sinkers? Split shot of course. How did you fasten the split shot on the line?

The thing that strikes me is the historical use of leaded gas. I worked with a RR museum that wanted to acquire some no longer used property from the RR. It used to be where the car barns were, and part of a yard. Right in town. The city had a haz mat survey done. Just about perfectly even distribution of lead over the entire property. No concentration in the area of the car barn like you'd expect. They blamed the coal used for firing the engines.
(We were right on the other side of the fence in the old roundhouse, owned by the city. We called it the "magic fence" since contamination was not mentioned on our side, but had been found a foot away on the other side. No remediation had been done on our side.)

No. 1, I seriously doubt the "caused by coal smoke" idea. Auto exhaust seems more likely.
No. 2, given the perfectly even distribution over a 5 acre site, do you think the contamination stopped when it got to a fence or road?
Think back to the time of "swept yards". If you have kids, how's the grass in YOUR back yard?
 
Lead is one of the oldest metals in use and still an essential one with hundreds of uses in the industry. We are, of course, all familiar with solders and while in household plumbing lead solder is out (and more and more plastic) it is still just about the only alloy for many soldering application - electrical and electronics, for example. And we all familiar and love (at least to machine) the leaded steel and brass. Military and sports (bullets), nuclear and medical (shielding) are big users but probably the biggest might be car batteries - though this can change in the next decades with lithium type batteries in electric cars and possibly replacing the regular car battery as well. Still, lead production and usage in the world more than doubled in the last 50 years and lead will stay here during our lifetime, our children, grandchildren and beyond. So it is important to be aware of the health hazards and to take the necessary precautions.
There is one more danger of lead that was not discussed here. While assembling a hot-cell for nuclear medicine, a 20 lbs lead brick fell on my foot and I was saved only through the steel toe of the safety shoe. Shows that having the right lead protection is essential....
 
There is one more danger of lead that was not discussed here. While assembling a hot-cell for nuclear medicine, a 20 lbs lead brick fell on my foot and I was saved only through the steel toe of the safety shoe. Shows that having the right lead protection is essential....

I think I might own that lead brick- it's useful in the press because things don't slip about on it but it seems to be attracted to feet.
 
The stuff really IS a problem, as is mercury. Lead poisoning is easy to google. Google Minimata disease for mercury. Of course, that is for severe poisoning, but who wants a "little bit" of mercury poisoning? Precautions are in orderif you work with them. For instance, the videos oof the lead sheet and lead alloy organ pipe metal casting (from the other thread) showed melting pots that appeared to have exhausts over them, and I saw people wearing filter masks, etc.

That all said, there are a lot of things that the news media would have you run screaming from your house because of, not even stopping to slam the door. Most are not nearly as bad as suggested, but the instructions to run may be the best for some folks who are really clueless.

Usually, being sensible is best. A piece of lead on the table will not kill you, although lots of "liberal arts graduates" think it will. It is certainly best not to gnaw on it, but hopefully that is not a likely thing to occur.

.

Awareness of the effect of lead (and other metal) fumes and compounds goes back a fair way; workmen also didn't have much control over their working conditions until relatively recently.
Metallic lead has limited availability to biological processes because it is relatively inert; oxides and carbonates are much more poisonous and organic lead compounds very much so, simply because they are readily taken up by the body.

Lead is a neurological poison and literally makes one stupid. With the human condition being what it is, this is not always noticed and exposure seem to have little effect on older people mainly because little of the real capacity of the brain is used on a daily, routine basis; I noticed headaches and visual disturbances.
Younger people are not so lucky.

Lead compounds apparently have a sweet taste (I'm not confirming this, sorry) and the anecdote about kids eating lead paint is common enough to become part of a "Simpsons" episode. The historical example is the use of Lead Acetate "sugar of lead" for sweetening wine in Roman times. This was known at the time to be harmful to health, but with brain damage and alcohol involved, who was listening?
 
Diminishing sources of lead is virtually always a 'good thing'

worrying about it is another

the average lead blood level in the US closely tracked the elimination of leaded gas

The lack of this huge amount of lead in the environment makes me worry less about the occasional soldering project.

Lead free solder for plumbing[or should we call it something else now] seems not a big deal.

Yeah, whiskers in electronics [combined with tinier components] have lowered reliability of electronics.

Oh well......
 
Lead compounds apparently have a sweet taste ... The historical example is the use of Lead Acetate "sugar of lead" for sweetening wine in Roman times. This was known at the time to be harmful to health, but with brain damage and alcohol involved, who was listening?

It has been used more recently than that - look up 'Devon colic'. I understand that, as well as the use of lead in making cider, lead was deliberately dissolved in cider to make it sweeter and less acidic.

George
 
It has been used more recently than that - look up 'Devon colic'. I understand that, as well as the use of lead in making cider, lead was deliberately dissolved in cider to make it sweeter and less acidic.

George
There were studies that showed the Romans used cooking tools with high lead contents. They also ate a lot of tomatoes. The acid in the tomatoes leached the lead into their marinara. Resulting wide spread neurological damage could have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire.
 
Still use Dutch Boy white lead as a lubricant for the dead center of my lathe.. I shoot pistols with cast lead bullets I cast from pure linotype.. I ate wild game that had lead shotgun pellets in it and probably swallowed as many as I spit out...I carried lead pellets in my mouth when I was a young boy when I was shooting my air rifle...I drank water from copper lines soldered with lead solder..I used lead solder to solder battery terminals on, repair radiators in cars, solder wires, duct work, etc..I siphoned gasoline with lead in it and sometimes got it in my mouth..They took the lead out of gasoline as it was said that it was screwing up the kids.. Hell they are more screwed up now than never.. I don't remember young people doing things that they do now when I was a child... As for paint, my parents taught me not to eat paint.. . . We ate at the kitchen table three times a day when at home....I am 66 years old, maybe I will die some day but I am still not afraid of lead... Ramsay 1:)
 
Friends father got shot while rabbit hunting when in his teens..at 90 something he still had the hard to reach lead shot in his body.
His last year of hunting at Kellyroadcamp at(my hunting property kellyroadcamp.com) at I think at 91 he shot the biggest buck of Cheboygan County Mi for that year..You can see photo at that site on the Photo Gallery page.

Seems eating lead is dangerous not being in the same room with it.
But a Lead hammer can be used as a weapon..I don'rt know if you can take one across the border to Canada. Pocket knives are now banned.

Traces of heavy metals and other bad things have been found in China produce,,
We should all support place of origin labeling. Likely China cows eat that stuff.



Dirty buggers!
House Votes to Repeal Country-of-Origin Labeling for Meat | Food Safety News

Conaway introduced the bill on May 18 .. likely got some hidden cash for that. Better check his bank account.
Then throw the bum in jail...

Texas Republican Rep. Michael Conaway..

World Trade Organization - Home page - Global trade We need to give away all our jobs......not.
 








 
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