[Clayart] Best respiratory mask for glaze mixing?

[The Fuzzy Chef]

Folks,

My old mask has finally bit the dust, and really isn't worth repairing,
especially since I'd like a new mask which is lighter and more
comfortable to wear.

Because of the silica, I assume that such masks still need to be
asbestos-grade. Any recommendations?

I'm looking at this one on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/3M-6391-P100-Reusable-Respirator/dp/B001NDN29O/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1380043207&sr=8-9&keywords=asbestos+mask

--
--Josh "Fuzzy Chef" Berkus
blog: http://www.fuzzychef.org
pics: http://fuzzychef.smugmug.com
ClayArt: http://www.ceramicist.org
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[John Hesselberth]

Josh,

That mask is fine. P100 is what is important for silica dust. The P says it is reusable. The 100 says it filters 99.97% of particles that are 0.3 microns or greater. N100 is the single use equivalent.

Regards,

John

Mastering Cone 6 Glazes is now available as an eBook. Check it out at:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/mastering-cone-6-glazes/id573583135?mt=11

[douglas fur]

Josh
"Any recommendations?"
I'd go "bricks and mortar" I went to our local "Safety and Supply"
specialty store. I explained to the guy at the counter what I wanted and he
got it off the shelf in 5 sec. A web site should be able to do this but
it's a bit like the old computer rubric "garbage in = garbage out". If
I'm supplying the input what's my output going to be? I feel more assured
by having some one, who works with products every day, saying "This is the
one you need".
DRB
Seola Creek

[Edouard Bastarache]

Right on !!!

[Taylor Hendrix]

And nothing beats fitting in the store. Not all masks fit as well as
others. Comfort is a major contributor to consistently wearing one's mask.

I'd love to know where Louis Katz found his full positive pressure mask. Us
bearded folk can't properly fit a mouth and nose mask.

Taylor, in Rockport TX
wirerabbit1 on Skype (-0600 UTC)
http://wirerabbit.blogspot.com
http://wirerabbitpots.blogspot.com
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wirerabbit/
https://youtube.com/thewirerabbit

[Benjamin Kant]

To the bearded folks who need a good gas mask:

Taylor,

I think I heard this on NPR, but in Israel they could not fit the same GP
mask that fit all the folks on the Hasidic Jews. So they devised some other
mask for them. You might want to look it up online.

Ben Kant

-----Original Message-----
From: clayart...@ceramicist.org [mailto:clayart...@ceramicist.org]
On Behalf Of Taylor Hendrix
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 3:59 PM
To: New ClayArt Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Clayart] Best respiratory mask for glaze mixing?

And nothing beats fitting in the store. Not all masks fit as well as others.
Comfort is a major contributor to consistently wearing one's mask.

I'd love to know where Louis Katz found his full positive pressure mask. Us
bearded folk can't properly fit a mouth and nose mask.

Taylor, in Rockport TX
wirerabbit1 on Skype (-0600 UTC)

[The Fuzzy Chef]

On 09/24/2013 12:59 PM, Taylor Hendrix wrote:
> And nothing beats fitting in the store. Not all masks fit as well as
> others. Comfort is a major contributor to consistently wearing one's mask.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any store in San Francisco which has a
good array of masks at reasonable prices. My local hardware store only
carries one model, which happens to be 3M's most expensive.

[douglas fur]

Watch out for the "nuisance" masks. They're not NIOISH rated for anything.
The Nuisance could be that they delude you into thinking they do you any
good and keep you from buying a real mask.
As for "at reasonable prices." what's good health worth?
DRB
Seola Creek

[Gayle Joseph]

The mask that you found on Amazon is the one that I received as part of our
renovators kit during our local lead paint remediation course. It came
highly recommended as a mask that not only meets the strict regulations of
OSHA for lead paint renovation workers, but is one that is comfortable
enough to wear for extended periods. I renovated a house with lead paint
last year and spent hours in bunny suit, gloves, goggles and this mask.
It's pretty comfortable compared to other ones that I have used. I ended up
buying 6 of them to have them in various places - in my studio, toolbox,
garage and in my gardening bin for when I spread diatomaceous earth to
control the slug and snail population. With having a few more I always have
an extra one around in case there is someone helping me and can't ever have
the excuse of not wearing one because I can't find one.

For more information on these respirators and others, I found this website
extremely helpful and ended up placing a couple of orders with them for
various safety items as their prices were quite good and the staff was
extremely helpful. It might help you with your decision and sizing.
http://www.pksafety.com/mas.html

Be well - and Safe,
Gayle Joseph

-----Original Message-----
From: clayart...@ceramicist.org [mailto:clayart...@ceramicist.org]
On Behalf Of The Fuzzy Chef
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2013 4:44 PM
To: New ClayArt Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Clayart] Best respiratory mask for glaze mixing?

[jonathan byler]

The best mask for glaze mixing is no mask at all. In an ideal situation, you will be working with some sort of dust removal system that keeps the dust away from your face and keeps you from breathing it. This is not always possible, but in the end it is the safest and best practice encouraged by the safety people where I work.

I would look on websites like northern safety, grainger, etc, and see what is available. any niosh n99 mask that fits you is the best one. There's a routine for this that the safety people go through, I'm sure a google search, or look on the manufacturer's website for more info. Remember, that aside from a positive pressure forced air breathing system, none of these is going to filter out everything, and they don't work when they are not on your face. much of the really nasty dust, such as from ball clays, can hang in the air for a very long time, and there is no good substitute for ventilation and good cleaning practices.

[jonathan byler]

Just an FYI, if you happen to have a beard that will impede the sealing of the mask against your face, you should either shave the beard, or get a forced air thing that covers your whole head. doesn't matter how good the mask is if it doesn't seal against your face.

[Greg Relaford]

Upgrade to the 7500 series. Way more comfortable. I have a large and a
medium, for my use and for sharing. They are designed to be worn for a full
workday. They don't fog glasses, and you breathe easy. You can get
particulate and chem canisters.... In fact, choosing canisters is the
hardest part of the ordering.

I've worn positive air systems for full workdays. They're nice, but they
can fog up.

Greg Relaford

[John Hesselberth]

On Sep 24, 2013, at 4:43 PM, The Fuzzy Chef <fu...@fuzzychef.org> wrote:

> Unfortunately, I don't know of any store in San Francisco which has a
> good array of masks at reasonable prices. My local hardware store only
> carries one model, which happens to be 3M's most expensive.

Josh,

Google 'industrial safety store San Francisco' and I bet you will find one.

John

John Hesselberth
jhesse...@me.com

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." Albert Einstein

[Vince Pitelka]

Jonathan Byler wrote:
"Just an FYI, if you happen to have a beard that will impede the sealing of
the mask against your face, you should either shave the beard, or get a
forced air thing that covers your whole head. doesn't matter how good the
mask is if it doesn't seal against your face."

Hi Jonathan -
This is not true. It's over-the-top scare tactics from the companies that
make masks to keep people from using this as grounds for a lawsuit, but
there is no proof that that a fairly close-trimmed beard interferes with
mask effectiveness. I have had a close-trimmed beard for the entire
forty-years-plus that I have been professionally involved in ceramics and
have frequently been in dusty environments with a dust mask on. I have very
healthy lungs with no impeded function at all and I have had routine chest
X-rays as part of pre-surgery examinations. OSHA picked up on the warnings
from dust-mask manufacturers and they loudly proclaim that masks are
ineffective if you have a beard, but it simply is not true except in the
case of big bushy beards. How do you define the difference? OSHA and the
mask manufacturers don't want to get into that, so they just say that dust
masks won't work with any kind of beard.
- Vince

Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft
Tennessee Tech University
vpit...@dtccom.net
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/

[Vince Pitelka]

The only kind of mask to use is a high-quality half-mask (versus a full-mask
like firemen use) with a soft, resilient face piece and twin dust-filter
elements with a P-100 rating to handle ultra-fine particulates. It so
happens that 3-M makes an extremely reasonably-priced mask that satisfies
all these requirements, and it is available on Amazon for $13. That's an
amazing deal, and there is no point in buying a far more cumbersome mask
from Lowe's or Home Depot that includes a cartridge for organic fumes from
solvents if you don't need it. Also, if you buy a mask with an organic
cartridge, you need to keep it sealed in a plastic bag at all times when you
are not using it, because it will absorb organic fumes out of the atmosphere
and the cartridges will be rendered ineffective very quickly. The worst
thing is to be wearing a mask that you think is protecting you when it has
lost its effectiveness.

Go to Amazon.com and enter "3M Half Face-piece Reusable Respirator Assembly
6291, Medium, P100" in the search box. This is the mask I recommend to my
students and workshop participants.

This mask has always met our needs, but I should say that someone with a
very small or very large face should go to grainger.com and get one that
actually fits your face. That's a bit dicey, since you cannot try them on.
If you have bought respirators at Home Depot or Lowe's and found them too
small or too large, then that should give you something to go on in buying
one from Grainger. I use to send people to Lab Safety Supply as the best
source for respirators, but they have been bought out by Grainger.

- Vince

Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft
Tennessee Tech University
vpit...@dtccom.net
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/

[The Fuzzy Chef]

> Google 'industrial safety store San Francisco' and I bet you will find one.

Amusingly, what comes up is PKSafety, which has a terrific *online*
store headquartered in SF (and previously mentioned on this list), but
no retail store.

--
--Josh "Fuzzy Chef" Berkus
blog: http://www.fuzzychef.org
pics: http://fuzzychef.smugmug.com
ClayArt: http://www.ceramicist.org

[Taylor Hendrix]

If, while you perform a proper mask fit test, you are able to inhale any
volume of air while the filter inlets are blocked, you may be safe in
assuming that such mask fit allows you to inspire air NOT cleaned by the
filter packs beard or no beard.

Vince, you know what Louis looks like. And I would not call that thing on
your face a beard but the mere suggestion of a beard.

[jonathan byler]

one defines the difference as taylor mentioned, if you have any air coming in when you block the intake port, you have a problem. poor fit up and bushy beards would be a cause. I still stand by my statement that the mask you don't need to use is the best one, and that people should seek as much as possible to create work situations with proper ventilation where the total exposure limits are not exceeded in the first place. That's of course not always possible, but it is something to strive for.

The masks are helpful tools, but one has to use them wisely. I have watched people countless times (and probably done so inadvertently myself) use a mask in a room while doing dusty work or whatever, and then pull the mask off in the same room, when they stop grinding/scooping clay/whatever, as though there is no longer a hazard because they aren't actively producing dust anymore. People get something like this and often get a false sense of security, and I don't think it hurts to be reminded from time to time to think about good safe work practices.

[Vince Pitelka]

Taylor Hendrix wrote:
"Vince, you know what Louis looks like. And I would not call that thing on
your face a beard but the mere suggestion of a beard."

Well, Tay-tay, you know what they say about the power of suggestion.

- Vince

Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft
Tennessee Tech University
vpit...@dtccom.net
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/

[Joseph Herbert]

In industry when the employer is asking you to wear a respirator, they do
two things: Make you get a physical to see that your heart can stand wearing
one, and then actually test the fit of the mask to your face.

So, being able to feel the mask fit well and having a healthy enough body to
wear one are two important things.

Also, Store your new mask in a dust-tight container. If it is stored
filters down out in the studio, the face area will fill with the very stuff
you are trying to avoid breathing. Just wipe your finger over that copy of
CM in the corner, the one that hasn't moved for 5 years.

Stay well.

Joe


Joseph Herbert
Training Developer

[David Woof]

Hi Everyone,
I had a full, but styled, beard for 10 years or so "way back when." I found that the humidity inside the mask from my breath dampened the mashed down beard and what little entrained dust entering the beard was trapped and accumulated in the "natural filter" of the damp hairs.

A face wash after, cleaned away the accumulated dust in my beard.

Because I distrust any masks to fit my rather angular face properly and feel too confined to breathe and work freely and effectively, I've design my studios so that a supply of clean air flows from behind me to a forced air vent operating in front and beyond of where I am weighing the materials. And I don't "whoop and scoop" and raise a dust cloud. I rarely wear a mask unless in a confined dusty space or in a fire box while cleaning out wood ash and salts residue.

Disclaimer: I'm not advising anyone of anything. Vince is right on that some of the commercial warnings are "boiler plating" verbiage to protect manufacturers. We have to inform ourselves with accurate information, and assess the risks for our personal choices. So as each personal face, lungs, and situation is different, take your own counsel folks. None offered here in this regard.

I dry mix the materials in a 5 Gal. shaken lidded container and after the dust settles in that container, I carefully transfer the mixed material into the CMC/water solution in front of the operating spray booth. My Lungs: I can still "dance all night" with the right partner. Yup I got a working pair!!! :0) Come dance.

Love to all,

David Woof

> From: vpit...@dtccom.net
> To: cla...@ceramicist.org
> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 18:20:19 -0500
> Subject: Re: [Clayart] Best respiratory mask for glaze mixing?
>

[The Fuzzy Chef]

On 09/29/2013 09:23 AM, David Woof wrote:
> Because I distrust any masks to fit my rather angular face properly and feel too confined to breathe and work freely and effectively, I've design my studios so that a supply of clean air flows from behind me to a forced air vent operating in front and beyond of where I am weighing the materials. And I don't "whoop and scoop" and raise a dust cloud. I rarely wear a mask unless in a confined dusty space or in a fire box while cleaning out wood ash and salts residue.

Yeah, this would be really nice. However, I work in a shared studio in
the basement of an old building, so installing a clean-air ventilation
system is out of the question. Therefore, masks.

BTW, I went ahead and got the 3M mask off Amazon, since I couldn't find
any store locally which specialized in safety equipment. It certainly
fits nicely, FWIW.

--
--Josh "Fuzzy Chef" Berkus
blog: http://www.fuzzychef.org
pics: http://fuzzychef.smugmug.com
ClayArt: http://www.ceramicist.org

[Robert Harris]

On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 12:23 PM, David Woof <woof...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> what little entrained dust entering the beard was trapped and accumulated
> in the "natural filter" of the damp hairs.
>
> A face wash after, cleaned away the accumulated dust in my beard.
>

You're making a big assumption that your beard filters the dangerous sub 5
micron particles out.
While it certainly filters out the big stuff that makes your lungs itch and
cough, these are not the particles that cause silicosis in the long run.

A poorly fitting filter mask is probably better than none (except for the
psychological problem that you're fooling yourself), but generally good
working habits (which many people have mentioned - work wet when possible
etc), is more important than anything. After all those tiny particles can
hand around in the air for 24 hours after you've finished. So if you're
still working in the same room with no mask, you really haven't done
yourself much good.

On the other hand, while some potters do indeed get silicosis, in general
you have to be chronically exposed to the bad stuff for a really long time.
As long as your pottery isn't permanently dusty, you mop not sweep, do it
regularly; you do dusty stuff outside etc., then you're in much better
shape than if you wear a mask for the couple of hours a month you happen to
weigh out glaze ingredients, but work in an environment where clouds of
clay dust puff up every time you walk (and I've been to potteries like
that).

Robert

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