Message-ID: <39BFCA7A.D92F03D1@bellsouth.net> From: John De Armond Newsgroups: rec.crafts.glass Subject: Re: Acid deaths Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 14:42:02 -0400 dennisbrady@my-deja.com wrote: > The big difference is that with skydiving the risks are pretty obvious. > Specifically, the probably of an uncomfortably sudden impact with the > ground. If you want to just reach the ground from an aircraft, there > are other options to pick from. The concern many of us posters have is > that far too many people are experimenting with HFC because the risks > are not so obvious and they don't know that there are "other ways to > reach the ground". I hope the various comments here have at the least > make a few more people aware of the hazards. I watched the last HF fear orgy and now this one with a mixture of sadness and disgust. The HF that I've used for the past 35+ years certainly isn't the demon that people here (who probably have never actually used it) claim. The fact is, in the concentration a glass artist would use (I use 35%), the acid is NOT a virulently corrosive substance like the mineral acids. It will cause burns, it will cause deep necrosis and it will cause intense pain from calcium fluoride crystal formation in the tissue - but only if you leave it in contact with the skin. One can dip the finger in it (I have, just to see what would happen), calmly walk over to the sink and rinse it off and suffer NO EFFECT. Period. Strong mineral acid left in contact with the skin for the same length of time would cause serious burns. It is a specious and spurious straw man argument to cite what concentrated HF will do because there is NO use for such acid for glass work. This is like trying to terrorize someone into not enjoying a camp fire because forest fires involve combustion. If one wants the effects on glass that HF provides, there simply isn't any substitute. The perfluoride etch creams come somewhat close but if one really wants the HF vapor frost, one must use HF. Use gloves and safety glasses or a face shield, good ventilation or outdoors, have some neutralizing cream on hand if you must (I don't) and treat the container as if it contained boiling water. Pretty much the same rules of the road for any hazardous material. Glass people can be amazing. They use very hazardous materials such as acetylene and hydrogen, high pressure oxygen, hundreds of pounds of molten glass, lead, toxic patinas and so on with hardly a second thought. Yet they cower on the ground trembling in fear at the mere mention of HF. Amazing!!! John Message-ID: <39C1CCA5.93AC7845@bellsouth.net> From: John De Armond Newsgroups: rec.crafts.glass Subject: Re: Acid deaths Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2000 03:15:49 -0400 Sam Gaylord wrote: > The real problem with HF, is that in lower concentrations, as posted > by someone who stuck his finger in it, it does not cause immediate > pain. If you contact HF with the skin, it may be an hour later > that you start feeling pain, at which point your only option is a > painful stay in the local ER. If you use sensible safety percautions, > wash off and neutralize any that contacts your skin, follow other > safety rules, it's not bad. But it still poses a very POTENTIAL > hazard. Not quite. I've spattered 35% HF on my skin and not noticed it until it started tingling. Wash it off and the incident is pretty much over. I can recall only once where contact was long enough to start forming calcium fluoride crystals with the resulting pain that lasted for awhile. I certainly did NOT go to the emergency room. Frankly, a bee sting hurts a lot worse. OF COURSE the stuff will cause nasty, lingering burns if one saturates a significant portion of the body with HF and leaves it there. If one were to be working with gallons of the stuff, I might consider that a valid risk. But for the average artist who might buy a liter of the stuff and then dispense out a few CC into a plastic pan to fume a hunk of glass with, get real. This worst case scenario that everyone seems to love to parrot just ain't gonna happen. Weigh the risk of ANYTHING serious happening with this quantity of HF against those of getting burned with fire or hot glass or blowing one's self up with a gas leak or getting shocked in contact with exposed kiln heating elements. *** Editorial mode on What is it with you people? You parrot these Nth-hand myths about HF with all the authority one would get from first-hand experience. I'll lay odds that most of you have never even seen a bottle of the stuff. Worse are the regurgitations of horror stories industrial accidents involving many gallons of highly concentrated HF and implying some relationship to the stuff we glass people use. 'Bout like citing a natural gas pipeline explosion as justification for not using a friggin' bench burner! This is ridiculous, folks! Harbor your private phobias if you must but please, let's stick to the facts when influencing others. *** Editorial mode off John |