Brain Cells? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Brain Cells!

After a lifetime in the hobby you can become inured to the stink of the chemistry. Enamel paints, liquid glue designed to be a plastic solvent, cyanoacrylate glue, even the supposedly nontoxic acrylics which have a pleasing odour but can be rather not-good-for-you in an enclosed space.

I recently began to experience headaches after airbrushing. As readers of this blog will know, I more or less retired enamels a couple of years ago for reasons of toxicity, and because dragging the whole rig outside to spray was too much trouble. However, even with a window open and some moving air, after sessions spraying acrylics I was starting to get persistent headaches, and that tells me I was suffering mild toxicity effects. I’ve completed half a dozen models in the last two months so there has been more painting packed into a shorter time than any other in the last year, so perhaps a problem was due to show up. A paper dust mask was not stopping much so the only solution was to buy a professional respirator mask.

As it happened, I was on the last gasp of my compressed air cylinder and needed a changeover, so when I took the tank into the depot I asked about masks and was shown an excellent unit made by 3M Corporation. This is the real deal, with chemical scrubber cartridges and dust filters, and a fully sealed fit to the face. When you’re breathing through this you’re on cleaned air only!

I trialled it promptly and the results of are as follows: easy fit and adjustment, comfortable to wear, not too heavy, does not obstruct the fit of glasses. No faintest whiff of chemical odour penetrates the mask, and breathing is easy and regular. The most important point is that after two good sessions of painting no headache had occurred, which seems to demonstrate the point.

The chemical scrubber cartridges come in a sealed package because they are permanently reactive with air and will exhaust. The tip from the retailers is that whenever the mask is not in use the cartridges are removed and sealed in ziplock bags with as much air squeezed out as possible. Hopefully this will extend filter life to a reasonably economical degree.

The whole rig (mask, chemical cartridges, dust filter pads) set me back Aus$80, which is a fair bit of cash, but how do you put a price on your health? I would like to still be building models when I’m 90, and doing so with as many brain cells left alive as possible!