Are they just erring on the side of caution? I mean they could stick a label on mineral water saying "risk of death if inhaled".

OK, here's what I'm on about: I got some "new to the market" glue delivered today- it's activated by normal (visible light), not UV light which is dead handy for me cos I can use it for lots of things.

But.. on the label is a "Harmful" label. it says it contains the following stuff (bear with me... this is gonna take ages to type).

1 6-Hexanediol diacrylate,
2-Propaenamide N N-dimethyl-,
Bis (2 4 6Trimethylbenzoyl) phosphine oxide.

And it says don't breathe vapor and guff like wear gloves and avoid contact with skin etc etc.

Are they just covering their asses or is it actualy really nasty?

I mean dihydrogen oxide is leathal if inhaled, but we drink it every day.

I'm gonna use the stuff Monday unless I hear anything untoward, so wish me luck!

Dunno about you, but if they say things like "avoid inhalation" it just makes me want to know what it smells like :)

Oh, I'm not joking here btw, I only got 25ml of this stuff, but if it works for what I want it to do then I'll be employing folk to use this stuff every day within the next quarter. If it works. And if it dun kill me!

Are they just erring on the side of caution? I mean they could stick a label on mineral water saying "risk of death if inhaled".

OK, here's what I'm on about: I got some "new to the market" glue delivered today- it's activated by normal (visible light), not UV light which is dead handy for me cos I can use it for lots of things.

But.. on the label is a "Harmful" label. it says it contains the following stuff (bear with me... this is gonna take ages to type).

1 6-Hexanediol diacrylate,
2-Propaenamide N N-dimethyl-,
Bis (2 4 6Trimethylbenzoyl) phosphine oxide.

And it says don't breathe vapor and guff like wear gloves and avoid contact with skin etc etc.

Are they just covering their asses or is it actualy really nasty?

I mean dihydrogen oxide is leathal if inhaled, but we drink it every day.

I'm gonna use the stuff Monday unless I hear anything untoward, so wish me luck!

Dunno about you, but if they say things like "avoid inhalation" it just makes me want to know what it smells like :)

Oh, I'm not joking here btw, I only got 25ml of this stuff, but if it works for what I want it to do then I'll be employing folk to use this stuff every day within the next quarter. If it works. And if it dun kill me!

If you will be having employees use this stuff, you had better get a copy of the msds sheet. If an employee gets hurt and they claim it is from the glue and you did not provide the proper ppe or personal protective equipment, you will be in a world of hurt.

Nip on down to your local library and scrutinize the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics with an intense scrute; also one called (I think) Hazardous Properties of Industrial Materials. Or take my word for it; Acrylates are not good things to inhale or ingest or get on your skin; likewise phosphines.

Don't try sniffing it, Smelling Salts might come a good second.

Actually to some extent they are covering their posterior; brief, occasional exposure is probably not much to worry about, i.e. a few minutes of being exposed to the fumes only once a week or so. Being exposed eight hours a day five days a week would almost certainly cause problems, serious problems for some people. Obviously somewhere between there is a cut-off but you don't know where it is so you try to apply full precautions for any exposure.

Skin contact can be a different thing: Some highly reactive chemicals can cause skin damage that will never correctly heal so it is a good idea to be very careful about this. Getting some on an area of skin that is sort of thick and calloused such as the fingers may be okay because there is a lot of dead skin protecting you; getting it on a normally protected area of skin which is much thinner can be worse.

Gotcha Geof. Thanks, I was hoping you'd post cos you know about chemistry n stuff.

The MDS isn't even printed for this stuff yet it's so new, so I'll contact the supplier over the weekend in writing to get some guidelines.

I'll trial it on Monday wearing disposable overalls, surgical gloves, eyeglasses and stick the whole assembly in a fume cupboard.

I spose having a ciggy will be out of the question :)

Thanks again for your concise info!

ps- there's a guy gonna PM you about machining acrylic- he PM'd me, but I told him you know much more about conventional machining of the stuff than I do. Hope you dun mind mate, I gave him a few pointers, but my expertise in in diamond machining the stuff (apparently he was trying to router it at like 10,000 RPM or something and wondering why he wasn't getting a good finish hehe).

Have a top weekend!

Having the ciggy is out of the question.....but if you have ciggies why in h*** are you worried about a few noxious chemicals.

I spose having a ciggy will be out of the question :)



Dear ImanCarrot,

Absolutely not. Drill a 9mm diameter hole in your respirator at mouth level, insert ciggy, and "Bob's your Uncle". Ensure ciggy maintains a gas-tight seal between the hazardous external environment and yourself .

Best wishes,

Martin

Nip on down to your local library and scrutinize the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics with an intense scrute; also one called (I think) Hazardous Properties of Industrial Materials. Or take my word for it; Acrylates are not good things to inhale or ingest or get on your skin; likewise phosphines.


This. Also, if I read the name aright, there's a benzene ring in there and compounds with those in tend, as a rule, to be bad news when they get up close and personal with you.

Handle with care and safety precautions recommended; new to this site but pleased to see good sense being posted in the safety section.

Oy! Chemistry preached by non-chemists is painful to read...

1,6-hexanediol diacrylate is used as a crosslinker in acrylic plastics.

N,N-dimethylpropionamide is probably added to dissolve the phosphine oxide catalyst.

bis(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl) phosphine oxide is the light activated catalyst. When it absorbs light it splits into free radicals that initiate polymerization of the diacrylate.

If you've used super glues before, this one should be a no brainer other than keeping it in the dark until your ready for it to cure. And yes, all the warnings on the label are there to cover the manufacturers' arse.

Let us know how it works out!!

Oy! Chemistry preached by non-chemists is painful to read...

.... And yes, all the warnings on the label are there to cover the manufacturers' arse.

Let us know how it works out!!

If it gives you pain don't read it.

Also don't be a nit and say all the warnings are there to cover posteriors. As I mentioned brief exposure is probably nothing to worry about; prolonged industrial scale exposure may be a different matter. Your attitude is dangerous; if there are any harmful effects they will be accumulative and non-reversible. It is much better to err on the side of caution without being paranoid.

My attitude is dangerous and you're recommending that the stuff should be applied to thick skin to test out??? That's rich. I only said that the labels are there to protect the manufacturer's arse...I didn't say to not heed them. Believe me, if the stuff was really dangerous the manufacturer would never sell it until they verifed that the end-user is: 1) qualified to use it and 2) has the proper engineering controls in place to use it safely.

Chemical products that you can buy indirectly from a manufacturer are not dangerous if you follow the instructions and warnings on the package. The stuff of this thread is nothing more than a light-curable super glue. Let's discuss that instead.

Mike

Well, it sort of worked- I stuck two sets of two microscope slides together, one set cured under a 500W halogen and the other under a fluorescent lab lamp.

They both cured within 5 mins with a strong bond.

However, I had left some on top of a slide without anything being glued to it and this remained "tacky" to the touch even after 1/2 hour under 500W halogen.

It is therefore no use to me if anything seeping out from the edge remains tacky.

My attitude is dangerous and you're recommending that the stuff should be applied to thick skin to test out??? That's rich.

Don't be an idiot, that is not what I wrote; I said be careful about skin contact, getting it on thickened skin may not be too harmful but elsewhere may be more harmful. Go back and read things and climb down off your high horse.

Iman,

I did a little patent searching and found that the phosphine oxide that is used in your material is not cured at visible wavelengths...it still needs UV to cure. Is there something on the bottle that gave you the impression that it could be cured with visible light? Is the preferred source of light for curing mentioned?

Geof,

You're right. I mis-read your post. My apologies.

Erm.. yes. It's "specificaly designed to cure in the visible wavelengths (above 400nm).

http://www.henkelna.com/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0AC8330A-31C857CC/henkel_us/hs.xsl/7932_USE_HTML.htm?countryCode=us&BU=ut&parentredDotUID=productfinder&redDotUID=0000000N6B

I got the MSDS on it, but it's like reading hyroglyphics in a mirror after a bottle of JD with one eye closed.

The LD50 and LC50 figures don't seem too low, so I guess it's ok.

Anyway, it's still tacky after an hour on unbonded surfaces so no use to me.

The LD50 and LC50 figures don't seem too low, so I guess it's ok.



LD50 and LC50 figures aren't that important for safety purposes. That's just the amount required to kill half of a test batch of rats, the amount required to kill half of a test batch of humans would be pretty enormous by comparison.

Look for stuff like skin transmission and health effects, and check for terms like 'reproductive hazard', 'mutagen', 'teratogen', 'absorbed through skin', 'carcinogen' and if you see any of those err on the side of paranoia. Latex gloves are cheap, non latex examination gloves only a bit more expensive (doesn't stop my sister the doctor with the latex allergy griping about the cost though) and no amount of money can buy your health back if you've wrecked it by neglecting clean techniques.

LOCTITE
® 3556™ cures rapidly when exposed to visible light
of sufficient intensity.

You'll need something like this since the amount of visible light is very poor from halogen bulbs:

http://equipment.loctite.com/productDetail.cfm?productID=971031&productLine=Light%20Curing%20Equipment%20&pl=19&categoryID=238&category=UV%20%26%20visible%20flood%20light%20curing%20systems&subcategoryId=574&subcategory=INDIG0%E2%84%A2%20%20Flood%20Units


Also, the technical information mentions that the material that doesn't cure can be easily cleaned with a solvent like acetone.

Ditto to what Fe56 writes.

It's not possible to clean the remaining residue off using acetone- I'm making lenses here, it would smear all over the critical surfaces and take as long to clean the stuff off as it would to actualy make the lens. By the time you'd smeared all the stuff all over the lens sod's law states that the thinning layer would cure and become very difficult to remove and the more you tried, the more you'd scratch the lens surface. Oh, and beleive me, I do know about cleaning optics, it's been the bane of my life.

Here! if any you guys want to read about proper optics n stuff then get Frank Twyman's book "Prism and Lens Making" the man was an absolute genius, on a par with Einstein in my opinion. The techniques he used are still used today, sadly by a diminishing few as there's no- one to pass the knowledge on to *sadness*

Oh, erm, the reason I can't have any contamination on my lenses is: the optical system will not work :)