A Safer Topcoat-Please help

[Lure--Prof]

I have been building custom homes for 32 years. Since products are swithing to v.o.c. compliant we have had failures with polyurethane floor finishes (not water base) were the coats are not fusing together. I have seen some of the construction adhesives and caulks turn to useless runny snot right out of the tube. These so called safe products are being shoved into the market with out proper testing and there are issues. The problems arising from laquer base, oil based, and acetate based products are mainly from not using proper ventilation and protection. If you are using ANY products do it with proper ventilation and a respirator and they are much safer to use. I bought an Artograph bench top spray booth for $300.00 and built a panel that replaced a screen in my garage window with two flat style dryer vent outlets. I crank open the window turn on the unit and crack open another window a hair for make up air so the unit can exhaust properly. I am in Michigan with the heat on. I spray automotive two part epoxy sealer and urethane paints with a two part automotive clear all with airbrushes. There are larger bench top units available from Paasche that will keep up with full size guns if that is what you need. The lack of fumes is fantastic. The quality bench top units available work great and are affordable, a small investment for your health. Maintain your respirator and filters correctly. If you think spraying Createx or water based products with out ventilation or a respirator is ok or safe you are mistaken. Contact the company and ask for the MSDS on thier products and see what you are using.

Given the choice of using products with toxicity safely, or using inferior products that are non toxic, I will choose to use the superior product safely every time. This is currently our choice, and if you wish to pursue the luremaking craft, and depend upon using nothing but non-toxic materials, then you should, in all sincerety, pursue a new craft. Molton lead gives off toxic fumes. All wood dust is toxic, and some woods produce dust that will put you in front of a doctor faster than the clearcoats.

FishThanks has it right. Protect yourself! While we may not currently have high-performance non-toxic materials with which to work, we do have the means to protect ourselves from toxic products! From the simple to the sophisticated, we can all make ourselves and our work areas safe by persevering to use some common sense!

Sonny.BarileRe: A Safer Topcoat-Please help

Just get some Minwax Polyacrylic. It is almost oderless and is water based. It is in no way as harmfull as epoxy. I know some folks say it isnt as durable, but if you dip it, it will be thick enough to hold up. I finished two baits lastnight and tried both methods. The first got 2 brushed on coats I can see that it probably wouldnt hold up to being dragged up the sandy beach. The second was dipped twice. It is thick and very clear. I think it will put up with some abuse. Besides, when brushed it dried in about 20 minutes. The dipped however took about an hour. I also learned you can speed up that process with a blowdryer........

This stuff is much cheaper than epoxy and does not need to be thinned with more caustic chemicals. It is acrylic (hence the name) so say goodbye to paint/coating compatabilty issues...........

Sonny,

Yes, I am some folks. Polycrylic has been used successfully for sealing wood, but not for a clear topcoat. If you want to use it, that is quite up to you, but please don't advocate that others should try a product that has been a documented failure on this site in years past without having tested it thoroughly. As Polycrylic has already been tried, and has failed, I was trying to save you the time and effort of using this product for a job that is beyond its capability for success. If you want a simple product for topcoating for which you don't have to don protective gear, try some spar varnish. I, like many of us here, build and sell a few lures, and I know that if I insisted on using Minwax Polycrylic for my topcoat, my customers would be gone...all of them...very quickly.

saltyrossRe: A Safer Topcoat-Please help

Since I posted this it is evident that there are those of you who want to put your head in the sand and those that understand we donot have a SAFE TOP COAT to work with.Trust me you donot want to be 80 with poor lung function.This should be a priority of this site.WE NEED TO FIND A SAFE TOP COAT-Lets get involved

Saltyross, while I fully appreciate that some of the products we use could indeed be safer, to tell the membership that it is evident that most of them are sticking their heads in the sand because we haven't found a safe top coat with which to work in a matter of hours, seems a little unfair, and a little presumptuous, considering that since 2003, many of us have been looking for, and have been testing anything and everything we can find that may possibly be utilized as just such a product.

Dean

[mark poulson]

Dean makes a great point here.

We're all adults here, or, at least, old enough to access this forum on the computer.

Most things in life have risks. If you drive a car, statistically, you will be involved in an accident. It's not if, but when. To drive or not is a choice we all make.

Educated decisions are the best defense against risk.

Education, in the form of learning from what others who have tried things post, is the greatest part of this forum.

Not having to fall over our own feet to learn some of the painful lessons others have learned the hard way.

It's up to us to make educated, informed decisions about how we pursue our hobby.

We can't take the risk out of life, but we be smart about how we approach and deal with it.

[Sonny.Barile]

I didnt say that polyacrylic was better or even equal to the epoxy coating. Just that it is good for my situation. I need to do my finishing on the kitchen table. Also, these lures are for Blue Fishing in which on any ordinary day of doing so, I lose about 2 or 3 lures. This is mainly due to the fact that I refuse to use steel leaders. Making them quick and cheap is for economical reasons. I think I explained to the person requesting info on alternate materials that if brushed on it couldnt handle being dragged accross the beach. I have tested only in short term and found that it will be adequate for what I am doing. As far as the lead, I dont have a place to melt it down to work with it. I am using purchased egg sinkers in the lures. I think they are super steel which means I wont mind them rolling around on the table where I need to dine. I do not boast these methods as to say they are superior to the tried and true standard. However, they offer a solution to a minority that may turn away from a really great hobby if left only with traditional materials.

[FishThanks]

Mark the baggie for the respirator is a great idea I am going to do that today. About eighteen years I quit offering clad as an upgrade and will not build a house without extruded frame/ clad windows. I also use extruded door frames except when people want wood front doors. I use Pella and Marvin here.

For people using Createx or other gentler products the Artograph can be used with out venting outside. It has a three stage filter system that works well. They also had a differant unit that was made strictly for adhesive glue type work. I did use createx indoors to learn how to paint on pieces of one inch pvc pipe and actually had a can of polycrylic I shot over to see what they looked like when cleared. It was a lower oder than most but i believe it was at the time a solvent based product.

What ever you do guys take the little extra time and expense needed to protect your self. I have some lung issues from all the things I have done through the years. I tell all the younger guys working for me know to wear masks that if I could back up in time it is one thing I would change. I started for my dad with a broom, shovel and wheel barrow. I could probably still take two peices of paper and gak out enough drywall dust to make you a mini sheet. lol

[pikester]

Dean; I don't mean to beat a dead horse but why is it that the Polyacrylic was is deemed a failure as a topcoat? I tried to do a search but was not able to find any past info on the subject. I'm wondering because I am one of those guys who thought it sounded like a safe alternative for coating & just spent $20.00 for a pint?(946ml) of the stuff! Was it durability, hardness, yellowing issues, etc. I guess if nothing else, it sounds like a less toxic alternative for sealing than the proportionate I'm using now. Thanks, john.

[Lure--Prof]

John,

Polycrylic is simply not fishing lure durable. If you're going to all the trouble of making a custom fishing lure, why get to the very last step and use an inferior top coat for fishing lures. Hook rash, where the hooks rub against a wiggling lure, was a common malady on old-time baits. It will scratch Devcon, but will not go through it. It will eventually work through Envirotex-Lite on large lures with sharp hooks. I have yet to see it mark Dicknite's. But hooks swinging against Polycrylic will eat through it very quickly. Bass and striper teeth with scratch right through it. I've seen it, and I'm not the only one. Any veteran lure-builder would touch it with his thumbnail and snicker. That's why, since 2003, no one who uses this forum on a regular basis and also sells lures, uses Polycrylic to clearcoat lures. I've never seen a builder of bass lures with a website, or an ebay store use Polycrylic for a topcoat because there are som many things that are so much better, including products made by Minwax. There is no telling how many discussions have taken place at TU on topcoats, much of which has been lost, but Polycrylicseldom rated more than a single response in those thread if it was brought up at all, simply because it just doesn't rate as a topcoat. I still sometimes use for seal-coating relatively hard wooden baits though.

Sonny.BarileRe: A Safer Topcoat-Please help

Just get some Minwax Polyacrylic. It is almost oderless and is water based. It is in no way as harmfull as epoxy. I know some folks say it isnt as durable, but if you dip it, it will be thick enough to hold up.

Sonny, I know this doesn't say that Polycrylic is superior to a tried and true standard, but it still sounds enough like a recommendation that I felt obligated to say what I said, in order to keep those just beginning to get their feet wet in hard bait building from feeling confident in purchasing Polycrylic for their topcoating duties. So don't take it personally, but when you say, "Just get some Minwax Polycrylic", I feel a responsibility to this forum to state what I know about the product for this use. I did say that, "if you want to use it, that is quite up to you." A lot ofpeople are tuning in to TU these days...

Dean

[Lure--Prof]

If I was going to try a water-soluble Minwax finish, I would try their polyurethane floor finish.

Polycrylic says it is hard and durable, and by Indoor-rated furniture clearcoat standards it probably is. I have used their exterior rated Helmsman Spar-Urethane, and it is a decent finish, especially on colors where you use its ambering to your advantage--I looked pretty good on some Tennessee Shad striper poppers I did a few years back.

Dean

[pikester]

Thanks for the response Dean, I may try it on some pike lures that are experimental or didnt turn out just to see how long it takes for those teeth to massacre them! I guess I will likely relegate my polyacrylic to sealing duties.

[mark poulson]

What ever you do guys take the little extra time and expense needed to protect your self. I have some lung issues from all the things I have done through the years. I tell all the younger guys working for me know to wear masks that if I could back up in time it is one thing I would change. I started for my dad with a broom, shovel and wheel barrow. I could probably still take two peices of paper and gak out enough drywall dust to make you a mini sheet. lol

Funny, sounds like you worked for my father. We used to use handkerchiefs for dust masks when we tore out asbestos insulation. He, and the rest of the WW2 generation didn't know anything about asbestos danger in the early 60s. Of course, he didn't believe in cranes, hoists, and nail guns either. I had two bad knees by the time I was 18, but they kept me out of Vietnam. At least I'm here to complain now. Not like a lot of my friends who went and came home in a bag.

I tell the young guys who work for me to have one extra man for heavy stuff, instead of taking the chance on being one short, because workman's comp. can never pay you enough for your health, and, once it's gone, it's gone.

And I buy dust masks by the ton. I've finally gotten them used to them, to the point they actually ask for more before they run out. Hooray!

Aside from limited lung function from years of breathing dust and diesel, I have residual numbness in my hands from a virus that passed the blood brain barrier when I inhaled some Woodlife that I was spraying on door jambs before we plastered. Nasty stuff. It was a great preservative, but, unfortunately, it was really bad for all living things, not just mold and mildew.

I've found a great mold treatment that's made by Borax Corp. called "Timbor". It's a solution of borax, glycerin, and water, and it's safe for people and pets. It kills mold, mildew, powder post beetles, and penetrates raw green framing lumber to a depth of 10" over a period of six months after it's first sprayed on.

You can look it up on the Internet under the trade name "Timbor". I swear by it.

[redg8r]

This should be a priority of this site.WE NEED TO FIND A SAFE TOP COAT-Lets get involved

Again, safer & "green" products are in great demand, only problem is science is having a hard time finding products that both "PRODUCE" & are "SAFE" Believe me, I work in the finishing industry & spray @ 20 gallons of finish a week, I go to industry tradeshows, meet with all the major reps & they are hastily looking to meet that demand, unfortunately there is currently a trade-off in performance.

Dean; I don't mean to beat a dead horse but why is it that the Polyacrylic was is deemed a failure as a topcoat? .........................I guess if nothing else, it sounds like a less toxic alternative for sealing than the proportionate I'm using now. Thanks, john.

Actually, the Proprionate dip is one of the SAFEST topcoats used here simply because it's reduced in Acetone which has been deemed HAPS & VOC compliant by the EPA. Acetone is also the main reducer used in many of the LEEDS compliant water based finishes. Don't misquote me, it does contain dangerous compounds but the parts per million were low enough to pass.

The issue here seems to be concern for safe application. so you need to protect yourself & your area accordingly, which I see most do here. The majority of the builders here want a product (along with a topcoat) that is superior to whats available on the store pegs & in my opinion, you wont get that with a non-toxic product.

[RiverMan]

I always wear a mask when applying etex and have for a long time. I faithfully seal up the mask when it's not in use and change it out about every 30 days. My guestion though is how much ventilation does a guy need? My drying wheel is in my garage and in the winter it's way too cold to think about opening up the door.

RM

[spidergrub6]

Ya I'm in the same boat as all of you as to finding a safe top coat. I've used spray on enamal- cracks and isn't waterproof. Polyurethanes- gets gummy when soaked in water.Component systems Seal Coat- cracked and peeled around the lip and hook hangers, even after three coats( Although on the rest of the bait it held up okay). Now I'm gonna try etex just cause I don't see an alternative but I'll have to use it outside which, here in Wisconsin, rules out 6 months of the year because of freezing cold weather. Maybe all the top scientists in the world should add a safe dependable seal coat to their agenda along with curing cancer and world hunger.

[skeeter334]

I personally would not spray/dip or brush any solvents without the proper ventilation. I have a spray booth in my basement when painting my lures. when i dip my lures in DN, i hang the lures in my booth with the filter/fan turned on. i also have a ceiling mounted exhaust fan which exhaust the fumes outside. i also use a 3m mask when using the DN'S.