Berrylium in LiquidMetal

fitzo

fitzo

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Just wanted to post a thanks to Mike Hull for mentioning to us early on about the hazards of berrylium dusts, both in the copper-berrylium bronze alloys for guards and such and for the berrylium content in LiquidMetal.

For those who don't get Blade mag, there is a letter to the editor this month that warns about breathing the dust, and the imminent threat of the very nasty Chronic Berrylium Disease.

All who work this intruiging new material LiquidMetal must pay serious heed to handling the dust generated. Not just the immediate respiratory hazard, but the threat from the dust lingering in the shop and being redistributed when we aren't wearing a respirator.

I'm sure this has been spoken of before, especially when Ron Clark was doing the initial workup/testing of this material, but I thought it might bear repeat in light of this mention in Blade.

Younger makers, pay heed. Your breathing is at serious jeapordy if you do not control all dust in your shop. Wear the RIGHT RESPIRATOR for your work. Clean up frequently. Take pains to minimize exposure to the others in your home and your pets. Take my word for it, you don't want to find yourself utterly out of breath from climbing up the stairs from the shop, and you don't want to be wedded to steroids, nebulizers, and oxygen the better part of the day by the time you're 50. I watched my old man die from lung disease, and now I follow in his footsteps. It is not a fun way to spend your later years, and it absolutely sux to find that your "later years" are your 50's.

Sorry to be a downer, here, but those safety considerations we neglect in our "bulletproof" youth bite us in the ass bigtime later on.
 
Regardless of age workplace health and safety is very important and dust control in the workplace is very high on the list of priorities.

Any dust from any source must be considered unsafe and precautions must be taken both when it is created and when it is swept up and disposed of. A high grade N95 level or better dust mask will protect against most dusts found in the workshop if worn properly, including beryllium dusts.

Beryllium locked up in alloys is safe for even food grade applications, one of the listed applications on the OSHA site are dental appliances (tooth braces) but the finely divided dust can be a problem depending on how fine the metal dust is and what percentage Be it contains.
 
George,

I didn't mean to insinuate us old farts shouldn't wear a good respirator. :) I meant to suggest it's not a habit one should cultivate too late.... I don't like living at the end of this O2 hose at all.

Something I have long wondered about and perhaps you may know is whether there is much volatiztion of these metals as we grind. IE, is the actual microsurface at which we grind producing enough localized heat to gasify any of these alloying elements? Several of us have wondered about this with forging also. Because high vanadium contents are common in popular forging steels today, we were wondering if that could present an inhalation hazard, too? And, if so, will a dust and organic vapor cartridge stop this stuff?

I am faced with either stopping knifemaking or getting better protection. The mildest of dusts send me into fits, and this wooly beard I have cultivated in retirement has rendered a regular cartridge respirator inadequate. To this end, I received the visor portion of a 3M BreatheEasy 6 today, and really look forward to the blower unit arriving. I wore a Racal helmet-style supplied-air respirator for many years at work, and at least for a high-solvent atmosphere they worked great. I went ahead and got the high-priced spread to afford maximum protection from the volatile oils given off by many of the exotic woods we use.

Protect that breathing, folks, it's precious!
 
The Be in LM1 is a non-issue. It is a simple matter of chemical science. LM1, unlike other alloys, is a chemical alloy. This means that the elements are locked together chemically not mechanically.

Think of it this way. Simple table salt is made up of two of the most deadly materials around sodium and clorine. However, since these two killers are chemically bonded to each other they are no longer sodium and clorine but are now sodiumcloride, a perfectly harmless material.

With steels that are mechanically bonded it is possible to separate the elements away from each other. This can not happen with a chemical bond. Well, it can but not in our shops (unless you have a multi million dollar bio lab in your shop). No matter how small the particle you will never be exsposed to Be. It will alway be LM1. It also will not break down inside of the body. That is why it is safe for medical usage (LM1 will be getting used for replacements jionts and sockets.

So as a matter of scientific fact you will never be exposed to Be when using LM1.

THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOU SHOULD NOT USE CAUTION!

LM1 will still be a dust. And just as with every other dust precautions should be taken to protect your lungs. No matter what the dust is, be it LM1 or pine, it is never good to inhale.

If people really want to worry about toxic dust, you should really freak about the loose Vanadium (highly toxic) released when grinding mechanically bonded steels such as S30V.
 
The N95 is a dust and fume rated respirator effective against metal fumes as well as dusts including radionuculides(sp?). Unfortunately for those of us with full beards the only effective method of control is the air supplied Racal type respirators which I use.

Metal fume can be generated in several ways such as melting, and welding but from my extensive experience with lead ( a low melting point metal) it is difficult to create fume while grinding but the finely divided dust can be almost as dangerous. Coarse dust on the other hand is less likely to be a problem as it is heavier and settles out of the air quicker. Once it is settled out it ceases to be a problem unless it is disturbed again.

There is a rumour circulating about 40nanograms of Be causing cancer. The true story is that if an individual inhales 40 nanograms of Be every three minutes or so of their lifetime they will stand a l in l000 chance of developing cancer but it is written as "40 nanograms/cubic meter lifetime exposure" thus causing confusion.

This is a non issue if normal precautions are taken.
 
"if an individual inhales 40 nanograms of Be every three minutes or so of their lifetime they will stand a l in l000 chance of developing cancer"

You have to love the way those things are written up. Just like bacon caused cancer in lab rats. Sure they were feeding the rats the equivalent of 40 pounds of bacon per day.:eek:
 
Ron,

The info I was speaking of came from a Letter to the Editor of Blade from a guy named Mike Crenshaw of Knoxville. He sited the following URL for info on berrylium hazards:

http://osha.gov/dts/hib/hib_data/hib19990902.html

There was an editor's note at the bottom that said LiquidMetal "..puts stickers on its LiquidMetal blade blanks warning of the dangers..".

That was why I posted a "warning" as a heads up. The URL above mentioned berrylium "ceramics" so I had wondered about the LiquidMetal since it's a glass. Their primary concern is from the grinding dusts associated with Be containing materials as a respiratory hazard. I was wondering what LM told you in terms of the MSDS, warnings, etc. It is interesting that this is not a hazard for berrylium contamination because of its bonding nature, but it makes sense in light of what George and Ron said about it being approved for implants. Cobalt is not a friendly metal, either, I think I remember, but yet it is safe in alloy form in these metal hips I've got, so they tell me..:)

I'm certainly not attempting in any way to cast any aspersions on this new material, please understand. All knifemaking creates exposure to substances that could pose problems and I feel it is appropriate as community to discuss these issues to help keep us as safe as possible. I am concerned for a few reasons: knifemakers are not the "safest" of workers and don't have oversight safety-people to hound us; I spent thirty years as a chemist in the pharmaceutical industry, and saw many of the folks in high-exposure areas develop problems that were supposedly not attributable to the chemicals they worked with, though the cancer rate was significantly higher than any average would allow as "normal"; I have my own set of problems from lab exposure and too many years of smoking. I figure if I can keep one person off an oxygen line later on it will be worth being a bit of a gadfly.

Thus, I hope I haven't ruffled any feathers with this, I am just trying to make sure we are aware of any potential hazards. I really do hope someone with a Health and Safety background could address this other issue of vanadium, too, especially in terms of those forging vanadium alloys.
 
I have to laff at the cancer-causing materials issue, too, at times. Many years ago, Abbott Labs made a sweetener called Sucaryl. it was banned from the marketplace by the then head of what was FDA because rat tests indicated it may cause cancer in humans.... provided one ate a bathtubful a day for years... LOL.

Turns out later on that when the lady retired, she immediately went to work for the sachharin (sp?) industry. Many years after that, retired again, she admitted to having banned the Sucaryl in favor of sachharin as an undeserved bias for economic reasons. Current "wisdom" now states that the sachharin is indeed a potential hazard itself.

Go figure.

Regardless of any hazard from any specific material, we all agree and stress that PROPER respiratory protection is a critically important consideration for anyone doing the amount of dust-generation that knifemaking creates.
 
Originally posted by fitzo

I really do hope someone with a Health and Safety background could address this other issue of vanadium, too, especially in terms of those forging vanadium alloys.
Click to expand...


Good luck on that one Mike. Years ago I did an article on shop health hazards, for Bud Lang when he was with Knives Illustrated. Of the five "safety" experts I talked to, none would allow his name to be used at all. In fact, I couldn't get them to commit that ANYTHING was hazardous to the health. Turns out that the whole "safety industry" is fraught with litigation. As soon as a safety person says publicly that brand X can cause harm, he is sued personally by the manufacturer of brand X, and so on and so forth. It's just a PC occupation it seems.
Truth is, many things used routinely by knifemakers are extremely hazardous, but I bet not 30% use any form of protection. I've had makers tell me that they feel like sissies wearing a respirator, and wont do it. OK, whatever. :confused: .
The main thing is, what makes one person permanently sick from exposure, doesn't bother some others the same, AT FIRST, so many think it was just a fluke that one got sick, if they even hear about it.
Another problem is, if you get sick from exposure to hazardous substances, the time lag between cause and effect will be some time, and most will never make the connection. 99&9/10% of medical doctors won't either, they will just treat the symptoms, and the person will continue to be sick. It is not like the TV doctor shows, where the valiant doctor does numerous tests to finally determine his patients illness, and cures them. It just doesn't happen. You will be hard pressed to get a doctor to order a test for heavy metal contamination, when you know you were exposed. They just won't do it, in most cases. Insurance companys will cancel their paid vacation to club whatever if they order expensive tests.
This isn't about any one material here, most of it is nasty, some just worse than others. Look at everything as hazardous, and take the proper precautions. Live a long, happy, healthy life.;) :D
 
Yeah, you are quite right, Mike. You are to be well commended for your concern about these issues, but, alas, you are correct that in the real world safety often takes last place over other issues. I saw that in industry again and again. Like I said, people dropped like flies after retiring from years of exposure to methylene chloride and other solvents at work, but the company would simply point to the government guidelines and say this was not a hazard. Funny how they can just ignore the demographic that the incidence of cancer is much higher in a worker population with specific exposures, but tend to want to ignore it. "Money talks, bs walks" stands mighty powerful in the $$ world, and I am not so naive as to not know that.

And yes, the doctors and health professionals tend to want to ignore this, too, because they might get blacklisted as a whistleblower if they test too much or say something outside PC. Like with me, they don't want to find out exactly what it is, just treat the symptoms...

Ah, well, thought I'd raise a flag about safety, and I've done so. It is, in the final analysis, up to each individual to do and die as they so choose. I guess I'm done with my rant, and it's time to shut up. ;)
 
One thing about Liquidmetal, when I recieved my first piece of the material I also recieved the appropriate MSDS forms for all of the components materials in the alloy so I would be properly informed of the processing hazards, a rarity in this industry.
 
Vanadium hazards available at the NIOSH website. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0653.html

MSDS http://www.espi-metals.com/msds's/vanadium.pdf

As has been noted, H&S professionals are cautious about making conclusive statements about the hazards associated with a given product/material. This is for two reasons. The litigation risks referred to previously is one of the reasons industrial hygienists are very cautious about making statements. An extreme, while at the same time perfect, example of which is the recent Trona lawsuite against the American Conference of Govenmental Industrial Hydienists for having published new exposure limit recommendations. The ACGIH is recognized as one of the finest professional organizations in the industrial hygiene field and is respected world wide. The respect for their recomendations on exposers limits is so great that they are referenced by companies and government agencies world wide. At the same time that near universal respectability led an industry that didn't like the new lower exposure level recommendations to file a lawsuit to suppress that information (odd how this never happened when ACGIH raised exposure limit recommendations for other materials/chemicals). The result was costly and may have the effect of making the ACGIH reluctant to make changes as promptly.www.acgih.org/resources/press/rcfcrelease.htm Just think how risky it is for an individual to make a similar recomendation? The other reason for reluctance in what amounts to giving professional advice is that the information provided in a question may be incomplete. Any professional is reluctant to give advice on partial information and industrial hygienists are no different. (Think how many times someone asks what's the "best" knife, grinder, polish, etc. and we respond by asking for more information before rendering an opinion.) If the question is "how bad is this stuff" it's difficult to give a precise or concise answer. "It depends", is the first answer, but what it "depends" on can be complex. What chemical form, what physical size, is it in solution and what is the solute, are you interested in the material in solution or after it sits around and evaporates, are you interested in what it does to your skin, ingested, or inhaled (don't forget all the other questions beforehand with that one) and on and on. The question is easy, "Is this stuff gonna hurt me?", but the answer depends on so much. An otherwise harmless material, when ingested, in the right form to enter your lungs may not cause a prompt effect, but over time (i.e. while the body absorbs and changes it to other compounds) it may and it may do so differently for different individuals. The answer often comes down to statistics. Out of how many thousand exposed workers, exposed in so many different ways, how many exhibit symptoms that might be linked to that exposure. See the beginning of the complexities here?

I worked in a government facility with a collegue. She was sensitive to all sorts of things while I was relatively "stump like" and never experienced any problems. We did the same job in the same place, but I could have used her for a chemical detector (not a very quantitative one perhaps, but a surprisingly good indicator for Ni, Be, Cr, mold, TCE, MEK, etc.) while I never exhibited any effects. Some day I may, but I won't know till then.

I guess the point I'm reinforcing that the fellas have made already is that you should be as knowledgable as possible about the materials you work with and be as cautious as possible in how you protect yourself and your family from the exposure hazards of some of the marvelous materials out there.

BTW - I see more shop pictures with the same unnerving image in them - a half face respirator stored on a peg board right above the grinder/buffer/forge, etc. For your own sake keep your respirator stored safely away from the area where you would wear it , clean it often, and store it in a sealable container to keep that stuff out of the respirator you're going to strap over your nose and mouth. Better yet, make a cheap exhaust hood to put around the equipment to pull that stuff away from you as well.

Mike Crenshaw
 
Originally posted by hso
Vanadium hazards available at the NIOSH website. http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npg/npgd0653.html

MSDS http://www.espi-metals.com/msds's/vanadium.pdf


I guess the point I'm reinforcing that the fellas have made already is that you should be as knowledgable as possible about the materials you work with and be as cautious as possible in how you protect yourself and your family from the exposure hazards of some of the marvelous materials out there.

BTW - I see more shop pictures with the same unnerving image in them - a half face respirator stored on a peg board right above the grinder/buffer/forge, etc. For your own sake keep your respirator stored safely away from the area where you would wear it , clean it often, and store it in a sealable container to keep that stuff out of the respirator you're going to strap over your nose and mouth. Better yet, make a cheap exhaust hood to put around the equipment to pull that stuff away from you as well.

Mike Crenshaw
Click to expand...


Thanks Mike, and I agree. Problem is, this all makes it REAL hard for the average knifemaker to get accurate information.
I guess the best thing is, figure the worst, and protect against it.

BTW, you second link is not working. Even with this link, and going to Vanadium, the pdf won't load.:confused:
http://www.espi-metals.com/msds.htm

As for storage of the respirator, I again totally agree.
I have found that zip loc bags work great for that, 10-12". It helps the cartridges last longer also.:D
 
The Blade Show asked me to present a seminar at 10:30 Sunday morning on exposure hazards for knife makers. One of the objectives is to learn how to read MSDSs and where to get more detailed information on what the hazards are. In today's world of rapidly changing materials development it can be very challenging to get information. An example is when the folks at the "Skunk Works" began to have problems associated with the, then, new fangled carbon fiber composite materials. They actually had to threaten to refuse to work with the material until the gvt. brought in IHs with the proper clearance to even see the stuff. Considering privatization, scrap, new commercial developments it's no surprise you have to look in more than one place for safety data.
 
"The Blade Show asked me to present a seminar at 10:30 Sunday morning on exposure hazards for knife makers. One of the objectives is to learn how to read MSDSs and where to get more detailed information on what the hazards are."


That sounds great. Do you think you could post a text version of that seminar, after Blade? Many of us can't go, and I, for one, sure would like to read that info.

"An example is when the folks at the "Skunk Works" began to have problems associated with the, then, new fangled carbon fiber composite materials. They actually had to threaten to refuse to work with the material until the gvt. brought in IHs with the proper clearance to even see the stuff."

I understand some of the workers at the so called "Area 51" had similar problems. Some started developing scales, like reptiles, because of exposure to toxic waste that was being burned at that site.

Doctors needed to know what the material was so they could treat the workers(who had since retired) properly, as they had never seen that type of toxic poisoning. The Government refused, and even a subsequent lawsuit failed to get the information. They just died.
 
I'll be happy to. I've been answering knifemakers' questions for years about this sort of thing so I don't mind sharing information to a wider audiance.

I'll be focusing on the common exposure hazards and their controls as well as how to get information from various sources and how to interpret it.

Try copying this and pasting into the URL line -
http://www.espi-metals.com/msds's/vanadium.pdf
 
Interesting. Thanks for popping up, Mike, I didn't realize that you were "hso". I hope no umbrage was taken by me citing your Letter to the Editor. I am just concerned about exposure safety in the home shop, and thought it helpful to make mention of your letter for those who may work LM but don't read Blade.

One thing about respirator storage I believe is important is that it is helpful to keep a box of wet-wipes around, and clean the respirator inside prior to putting it into a plastic bag. While there are probably not too many anaerobic cooties living in our mouth, it is almost best not to give the little critters a place to hide while we're not watching!

BTW, I received my BreatheEasy6 HEPA/vapor powered respirator this week and have to say I like it much better than the helmet-style I had at work. It seems to have the same particle and vapor exclusion capabilities as the helmet, but is a bit more comfortable on a damaged neck with the reduced mass. Now, if i could only get that belt unit to stop sliding off my butt because of this belly! Suspenders, I suppose, are my fatman's answer to gravity!
 
"hso" stands for Health and Safety Officer, which is my "day job".

I'm glad more makers are interested in protecting their and their family's health, so I couldn't be happier that you used the information to help others.

As to cleaning the respirator before putting it into the bag, you're absolutely correct! It's amazing how some folks take a respirator with a nasty contaminated exterior, put it in a bag to "keep it clean", and then put it back on after allowing the material to dust off in the bag and INTO the facepiece and not even recognize they are contaminating their facepiece. You should actually wash the facepiece to a respirator from time to time and never store it without at least wiping it down both inside and outside prior to stoarag. We use mild dishwashing detergent diluted in a large enough container of water to completely get the facepiece under water when performing hazwaste/rad work. Swish it around several times and then rinse it off well with lots of water. (Oh yeah, take the cartridges off first ;) ) You can dry it with a clean paper towel and then set it out to dry the rest of the way. Inspect the valves (inhalation and exhalation) to be sure that they work properly and then store it in tupperware, zip lock, or even a garbage bag. Large operations use a dishwasher and mild (ivory) soap on cold cycle to clean the facepieces.

I'll go over fitting respirators and checking, cleaning, and storage in the seminar if people are interested.

I like the breath easy also. The cheap belt is awful so using a back support belt to hold the blower is good. A cheap LBE or Y/H harness is good also.

Oh yeah (again!) Will consult for knives! :D
 
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