Need a cheap respirator?

If you're planning on painting or sandblasting your bike, you might want to consider serious protection. I've been bothered by the thought of isocyanates in new paints and I no longer think it's smart to sandblast without a respirator. These are a joke and these aren't much better. These are too costly as is a self-contained breathing apparatus for the hobbyist.

Thanks to Uzivelli's tank painting thread, I believe I've found one that will work. It's here and it's about $20 delivered to your door. I just got mine today and it's too cool. The carrying bag alone is worth the money, but the mask is very clean (appears unused) Finnish military surplus, made by Nokia and mine was dated 1993. The mask is very comfortable and the field of vision is super. It looks strangely similar to the $175 Scott's mask linked above and I prefer it to the M-17 I used for 2 decades.

Please ponder this: an NBC mask is intended to be worn in toxic environments (nuclear, biological + chemical) for an extended period of time and definitely longer that it will take us to blast/paint a bike. If it will filter nerve agent, it can certainly handle the lesser toxins in what we work with. It covers the full face so nothing is going to seep in through your tear ducts and a $5 disposable tyvek suit together with nitrile proctologist gloves ($1 per pack of 4) from the Dollar Store completely protects you. As a bonus, a piece from a leftover nitrile glove can be used to fix leaking carb diaphragms...

If you go this route, never attempt to flush the filter with liquid to clean it (not good for charcoal and such), wipe it clean with a damp cloth, store the mask in the bag and -- most important -- cover the inlet at the filter with the palm of your hand to ensure you have a tight seal. If properly sealed, the facepiece should 'cave in' around your face. One filter should last you for more bikes than you'll paint in your lifetime but replacements are available cheap -- much cheaper than 3m.

If you wanted to get really ingenious, you could jury rig a forced air breathing system using light plastic hose and the outlet on your bride's vacuum cleaner. Take the old bag out first (yuck!). The "old bag" in the vacuum, that is...

Just a thought and sorry for the long boring post. It bothers me that too many hobbyists take shortcuts that can be harmful in the long haul. :wink:

 

Has anyone else gotten one of these? I got excited and bought one today, given that it is obviously cheap and provides eye protection too, so I can finish painting my bike, but then I was doing some research which deemed them obsolete. These are apparently a copy of the US M9. Does the canister say activated charcoal? Or have an expiration date? I'm wondering if the only reason it is obsolete is the 60 mm filter, or something worse (pre WWII gas masks contained asbestos). I'm guessing there is a reason these are cheap. Either way...one is on the way.

 

In my 30 years in the US military I never ran across one of ours that looked quite like this but the concept is the same. The screw-on cannisters are a significant improvement over what we had up to about the early 90s.

Visibility isn't the greatest and if you have to wear glasses you'll have to get some special-made to fit inside it. Notice the similarity to the Scott M95? I suspect they're pretty much the same thing.

I know of a unit that wore masks in a training exercise then for an ispection a couple of months later. In the intervening time mold had started to grow on the filter and made quite a few people ill. Apparently the inside of the filter got moist enough to allow the mold to start growing. I would suggest changing the filter regularly, or, if you only rarely use it, just get a new one every time.

 

Here's my $.04 from what I DO know about military masks, having used them for almost 20 years. I have used M17, M24, M40, M42.

Good: Eye protection
Face protection

Mediocre: Particulate protection (not much better than the 3M mask)
Generally filters come in many types. We (U.S. and NATO) no longer have "training" filters in the system. This is good. Training filters will do the same particulate filtering and work for tear gas, etc. But only the live charcoal filters protect against "live" agents, Nerve and Biological. As far as chemical agents go, I am not an expert, I have friends that are, (they have the clearances to know, and I will ask them), but filters DO break down over time and definitly lose their effectiveness with use. Generally speaking, IN chemical combat, filters are to be changed every 24 hours, as a rule.

Bad: Filters DO NOT stop carbon monoxide!!! (Don't run your XJ in the closed garage in winter and think this will help).


I guess what I am trying to say is that, yes, a surplus mask is actually a pretty good idea, and will work better than most things, and is probably cheaper. But I would be very careful on what chemicals you are trying to protect yourself from. I would use one only if I KNEW that the paint or stripper were ACTUALLY being stopped by the filter.

 

So am I the only one that fell for this. All I've been reading is that the filter has a shelf life of not more than decade, so these things aren't going to be worth anything. Even if I get a 60mm to 40mm adapter, what kind of filter will help against VOC (which I believe isocyanates are, but cartridge resipirators aren't to be trusted because isocyanate is odorless and exposure can have such searious consequences)? I did like the idea of full face coverage. I can never apply the "if it sound too good to be true" wisdom when I need to. I guess when the wife finds out I can just play it off as a holloween costume .

 

Unless you have the data sheet on that military mask, I wouldn't trust it to do the job because that isn't what that cartridge was designed to do. Properly fitting masks are another challenge to the user. They are made in various sizes and one size from one manufacturer sometimes is not the same for another. You MUST get a mask that fits you correctly or you are wasting money and exposing yourself to danger. Isocyanates are nothing to monkey with, they can KILL.
You should NEVER EVER keep using a cartridge if you can smell the material you are working with once you have PROPERLY donned your mask. The break-through point has been passed, chuck that cartridge straight away and install a new one.
Particulate filters have a LONG shelf life so long as they are kept in their factory seal.
If the factory seal is intact on a filter, it should have a shelf life of decades. What does go bad is cartridges built for various specific types of pathogens, microbes and other assorted nasties.
The concern seems to me to be about the length of time that activated charcoal remains useful. It does have a finite life span after it has been exposed to air so keep this in mind.
I'll HIGHLY recommend that you contact a/an industrial hygienist, reputable shop or manufacturer and ask them what it takes to get fitted correctly and proper filter selection. North (the brand of respirator I have used for over 15 years) has a website with a guide on how to select proper gear and cartridges as well as a cartridge calculator.

 

Haha...the data sheet is going to be in Finnish (or at least the instructions will be). I have an AOS two cartridge filter mask, but had to wear goggles and would really like eye protections as part of the mask. And I'm not sure that there are any cartridge masks that are "supposed" to be used with isocyanates, only supplied air systems with a positive pressure seal are deemed safe (by NIOSH). And is isocyanate vapor a particulate? or something else that's filtered?

!?!?!I consider myself a well educated (graduated from a prestigous Institute), young person and yet I've been stupid enough to exposed myself to too much of this stuff already and might be feeling some symptoms of HP (I really hope it's a cold). Now all my plastics are painted red, the tins are primered. Yet I'm too dumb to want to let go and figure some other way to paint it, or pay to have it painted, since I've already bought the paint and am half way through. I know that anyway I look at it, there is no cheap proper way to handle isocyanates, yet I feel too invested in this don't want to give up, but don't want to pay $350 for a hobby supplied air system. I wish I had just rattle canned it and melted the finish with gas...then be in the position I'm in now. At least the one smart move was to move the painting out of the attached basement garage, so my wife won't get sick....Rant over

 

I like the idea of a forcd air supply, a $3.00 hair drier from the thrift store, some 30 feet of hose? duct tape, you could even put the hair drier inside the house for clean air.

 

Ok...I know we got a wide range of very smart and experienced people here. Suppose I'm being cheap (and stupid). What do I need to make my own supplied air system with things that won't end up affecting my health worse than isocyanate exposure. I've got hair dryers that can work with the heat off. I've also got a small air scout compressor (oiless). I'll soon get this darn gas mask with a 60mm fitting. I've know that there are 60mm to 40 mm adapters to use with modern filters. What specifically can I use for hose/adapters/air supply.

One of the things that I've read is that the air supply still needs to be filtered to not let oil, carbon monoxide (where is this supposed to come from?), dust particulates, etc in. We can assume that I can put the source somewhere without VOCs. Some hoses are made of nasty materials and such (garden hoses for instance have lead in them). The devil will be in the details with this project, but I really think that building my own fresh air system would be better than two cartridge with no eye protection. I'm guessing lots of duct tape will be involved. Does it off gas anything nasty?

Also, lets see if we can do this for under $100, which would make it worth it for the next noob that decides to use the "professional" big boy paints.

 

The carbon monoxide warning and oil in the respirator air would come from a gasoline powered air compressor, the exhaust could get sucked right into the tank, and that kind of compressor can put oil in the air.

If you used a 5 year old garden hose, it would have already out-gassed the bulk of the volatiles in the rubber, as compared to a brand new hose, and yes , it would still smell. I don't know what kind of hose would be "clean" but maybe something the hospital would use??

Do you think that lead in the rubber would hop out into the air?

Duct tape is used for residential air systems. If you were worried about the glue, you could wrap the immediate area being taped with Saran wrap, and wrap duct tape over that. You would not be breathing glue vapors.
You could put the hair dryer in a box, and put a damp towel over the box, upwind of your work area. Box fans could help.

 

Not that I think lead would necessarily "hop" out into the air, just general you never really know what's in the everyday items we use. I've drank from a hose many times when I was younger. If CO is only from gas powered compressors, or nearby cars etc, then good. Maybe one of the rubber hoses for painting hooked up to an oiless air compressor (even that is does say don't use for breathing), and duct taped on the other the end to the mask filter (to use the particulate filter for anything else coming down the line). Anyone think why this shouldn't be done?

 

I applaud your efforts to protect yourself ManBot, self preservation is a worthwhile endeavor (I'm sure your sweetheart would agree).
But I think you are in need of information into exactly what is needed to create your own forced air system. An oil-less system with a filter is a great idea but you will need to regulate it. This can be done with off-the-shelf parts but will take some tinkering to get the flow rate right. What you do need to do is ensure you have a compressor with sufficient CFM that can run for an hour or so without falling flat. You also need to ensure that ALL sources of sparks are at least 20 or 30 feet away from your painting area. A hair drier that has had the heating elements disabled isn't going to supply enough CFM and the motor can create sparks so I don't think the hair drier will work. The vacuum cleaner idea sounds ok but I wouldn't use one unless it was brand-new, right out of the box. Icky things can grow in those things so I wouldn't employ a used unit.
A full face mask is great, I totally agree but I will caution you, paint will get on it and create a fog after a while that can only be cleaned with the appropriate solvent. Most full-face lenses are of a polycarbonate variety and solvents tend to attack those surfaces so the half face is not a bad idea. The inexpensive goggles can be chucked when they get trashed (and they will get trashed).
Another issue should be the type of mask you use. Only medically qualified folks should wear respirators. This means that you have had your lungs checked out and you are not in danger of fatigue. Folks have and do pass out when they wear the respirator for too long and are overcome by the effort of breathing (no kidding here). So make sure you have a spotter when you use one if you don't know your limits (cheap insurance).
A forced air mask is a better choice as you are not taxing your system to draw air into the lungs near the same as wearing a respirator.
While I'm sure your inexpensive mask is a great find and will probably do the job, what is the price of being wrong or getting hurt? I think my well-being is worth every penny spent on the right mask with the right cartridges (usually about $100).
I would like to ensure that you make a good choice without exposing yourself to the hazards associated with shooting paint. I would be willing to set up a Skype session to go over your ideas and provide what knowledge I have.

 

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