Official Luthiers Forum!

Here's a list put out by Texas America Safety Company that everyone might find helpful regarding chemical resistance specifics for glove selections. This is the most complete list that I've seen anywhere. And Barry, I found a good source for the HD Nitrile gloves with 12" length and sizes up to XXL. I was just being lazy when I asked you for a source but I got over it.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

great link Bill...

I had to do some research to verify something though....your list says nitrile gloves are not suited for ketones...as I stated previously I switched from latex to nitrile because of increased resistance to these chemicals...

this link I guess says it a little better: http://www.nitrileglovesbulk.com/inform ... -car-paint

I do have a set of neoprene gloves which I use when I'm getting 'serious' about using thinners, but as noted will use a set of nitriles for cleaning the body of my gun after a spray session....hmmmm....I guess I don't have much of a choice as the neoprenes are way too thick to have any sort of manual dexterity....I guess I should use them over the nitriles for cleaning out my pressure pots though...

Mike,

Keytones all in all are very volatile. Especially MEK (Methyl Ethyl Keytone). Of course, so are most solvents. The link you provided also warns that it (MEK) will go through the Nitrile at a rapid rate. Butyl gloves would be the absolute best for this but those are generally very thick and cumbersome. Typically MEK would be used as an activator for certain types of boat resins and some glues as well as vinyl products. It along with MIBK (Methyl Isobutyl Keytone) are bad news and shouldn't be used as standard cleaning solvents. MEK is actually listed as a controlled substance with the DEA and can only be purchased in small quantities except with special permits for industry. If these are what you are using, at the very least I would suggest you use Latex for these. I personally would avoid all Keytones as cleaning solvents . Di-Isobutyl Keytone is really the only Keytone safe for Nitrile gloves but I don't know much about it's properties as a cleaning solvent and again it's a Keytone, bad stuff. Acetone cleans great and is best used with Latex rather than Nitrile but it has a flashpoint that is quite scary and unsafe as a cleaning solvent. One spark and poof, you can walk away looking like Wil-E-Coyote after another failed booby trap event.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

wow...I just love being educated like this....

this prompted me to look carefully at just what is in what of the products I've been known to use....

I don't use MEK as a cleaner/solvent (well...I used to....back in the days when chemists used it for everything...before it was found out to be cancer causing) but it is in the PPG automotive clearcoat I use for table tops...for some reason I had assumed it was in the thinner also, but its not...acetone of course is, along with some other things, but not MEK....I'm wondering if I was wacked out when I was reading some stuff on products at Hell Depot or if they were just plain wrong!.... and then there are also web pages like this: http://toolmonger.com/2007/07/09/reader ... -shop-use/ that make you think just the opposite of what you just wrote, and that being that latex is NOT a product to use with acetone...reading further into that page one sees a person being more explicit and pointing out that butyl gloves should be used with acetone....makes one's head spin!

I don't use acetone as a cleaner most times....every now and again to remove adhesive residue, but mostly just as a reducer for Fakowood...as previously noted I tend to use a lot of lacquer thinner for cleaning of spray equipment (one actually has to use a fair amount to clean out 25'-35' of 1/4" dia. fluid hose) but mostly get 'close contact' when cleaning the actual gun...I take the nozzle's off and use the appropriate size bristle brushes to clean out orifices and give the outside of the gun a nice wash down too boot...woops, acetone is an ingredient in thinner!....oh well, sometimes you have to do what you gotta do...I guess if I was a professional painter I would have to adopt some safety routines because of repeated exposure, but in general I rarely do the finishing of my wood work...the project I just completed where I applied about 40 gallons total of pre-cat sealer and top coat was a very rare situation...the owner happened to know how good I can spray and wanted to pay me to do it as opposed to some 'real' painters who while they would have charged less would not have done as good of a job...


***Mike continues on and decides to do some more thorough research on this important topic to try and limit future exposure to such hazards!***

I assume this wasn't on a guitar Yes there is and always has been so much confusion and conflict between which one's are and which one's aren't right for this job or that. I think the marketeers put a lot of investment into that confusion to increase sales of their products. Probably the most reliable source of info would be OSHA and they tend to be in overkill mode (with good reason of course). If you're using thinner, and you don't taste the chemicals while you're wearing the Nitrile gloves, I'd say chances are as long as they aren't coming apart or leaking, go for it. That's the way I judge it when all the info is confusing. My lovely Bride summons me, have a great evening Mike, been good talking to a fellow Texan.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I've known for a while that MEK was bad stuff. I've learned alot about epoxy, and CA in this thread. Isn't fingernail polish remover acetone? Besides being a fire hazard I always thought acetone was pretty harmless.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

One more quick response before I leave. Acetone is in the alcohol family and other than it's ability to cause a flash fire, it is relatively harmless if you have good air circulation/evacuation and, if you don't drink it! Gotta go

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Acetone is no so bad on it's own, the problem is that it too gets 'into' your skin very easily and will act as a vehicle take with it what ever your meant to be cleaning from your skin. This is a fast track way to develop sensitivity issues so be careful.

Cheers

Kim

notice the complex lattice bracing!

that's part of a wine display cabinet that in total is over 40 sheets of plywood and if ever completely loaded with the possible 126 cases of wine in display and more in the lowers, will weigh over 8,000lbs! I estimate the amount of lacquer on this part of the project alone to be about 20 gallons...

yeah, I know, it ain't a guitar

Good point Kim and you are indeed correct. That's the purpose of the gloves discussion, keeping chems off your skin. When I was young and dumb I used to use things like Acetone, Naptha, and gasoline to clean my hands. Soon I realized I could taste it in my mouth after cleaning my hands, I learned early on that it was not a good idea. Thus the mention earlier about "the sponge we call skin". Thanks for adding in because I sometimes forget to mention critical bits like that and I know I can rely on my fellow OLFers to bring it to the table.

Mike,
Yo that's like some mondo lattice bracing dude!
That's really nice work! Did you build those as well? I figured either you were talking about quite a large project when you said 40 gals. or that was one mighty heavy totally scratch proof guitar. Thanks for posting the pic.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

of course I built that!...I'm not the type to steal photos of other's work and claim it as my own...

I shudder to think of what a guitar with 40 gallons of lacquer would look like!...for one thing, that's way too thick of a surface film to do anything but monumentally fail, and talk about damping!

sorry folks, when my wacked out brain saw a correlation between lattice bracing and the style of the wine cabinet I just couldn't resist...