Category Archives: Safety

A Drinking Problem

The following two stories remind us not only why it is important to keep all chemicals properly labelled in your shop, but also to have your props crew meticulously check their presets before the show.

From The New York Times, July 6, 1902:

The reminiscences of J. H. Stoddart recall an experience which came near being his undoing. It was during the run of “A Celebrated Case,” in 1878, in which Mr. Stoddart played the role of the Sergeant.

“I have reason to remember his character,” writes the actor. “In the prologue I had a scene with Mrs. Booth, who played wife of Jean Renaud, the hero, in the course of which she was supposed to give me, as the Sergeant, a cup of wine, which I had to swallow. It so happened that the property man had been using kerosene on the stage during the day, and had left the bottle containing that liquid upon the dresser, where Mrs. Booth was in the habit of finding the drink for the Sergeant. During the business she poured a full cup from this bottle, handed it to me, and I swallowed the contents at a gulp.

“‘Oh, Lord!’ I said, as I received the potion.

“‘What have I done?’ asked Mrs. Booth under her breath.

“I could only gasp out ‘Kerosene!’ and made a hasty exit. For almost a week every one who came within range of my breath sniffed and inquired if I detected the odor of coal oil.”

From The New York Times, February 14, 1922:

Miss Christine Norman appeared in her part in “The Nest” at the Forty-eighth Street Theatre at the holiday matinee yesterday afternoon and, presumably, will continue to appear for the duration of the play, but for some time last Saturday night and Sunday it was doubtful when, if ever, she would come back to the stage. She had looked upon property wine when it was not property wine and found that not even stage beverages are always harmless these days.

In the first act of “The Nest” Miss Norman drinks two glasses of supposed champagne. Usually she tosses them off with every evidence of relish, one almost immediately after the other. But at last Saturday evening’s performance the first glass almost choked her. It burned and she gasped, hardly able to continue her role. When she was offered the second glass, according to the text of the play, she hurriedly improvised the line “No, thank you, no more!” and the audience did not know why she was so emphatic. They merely thought that she did not want another drink, and she didn’t, for the “champagne” she had drunk was furniture polish. An assistant property man had made a mistake and put the wrong bottle where the maid, who brought it on the stage, usually found a bottle containing a harmless liquid that looked like champagne.

Although Miss Norman was made ill by the furniture polish, she fought through the performance without betraying her condition to the audience. When she reached her home Saturday night she sent for Dr. Elliott C. Burrows of 1 West Sixty-ninth Street, who found her suffering acutely and said that only the oil in the polish, which counteracted the effect of the other chemicals, had prevented a critical and perhaps fatal illness. As it was, Miss Norman spent some bad hours, and was still shaky yesterday afternoon.

Review: Health and Safety Guide for Film, TV, and Theater by Monona Rossol

The Health and Safety Guide for Film, TV, and TheaterIt’s difficult for me to write a review about the Health and Safety Guide for Film, TV, and Theater (Second Edition) by Monona Rossol for several reasons:

  1. The information inside is mandatory.
  2. No other book is dedicated to this information.
  3. Monona Rossol has been teaching health and safety to theatres since at least 1986 and is uniquely qualified to write this book.

So rather than a review, this is more of an introduction about being aware of your own health and safety, and an encouragement to read this book and act on the information contained within. This goes for those working professionally, as well as the growing number of hobbyist prop makers (I would say especially for hobbyist prop makers).

I’ve attended Monona’s safety seminars three times, and even with this book, I am still learning about the hazards we face in our line of work and the precautions we need to take. Luckily, she uses a very factual and empirical approach with this book. Rather than present her personal opinions, she discusses what the laws and regulations are. She will also present the various studies done where she feels the laws don’t go far enough in protecting workers. This is perhaps one of the more striking lessons to take from this book or her seminars; as stringent as we may feel OSHA is, the dangers we face remain woefully understudied, and manufacturers have great latitude to push untested chemicals on the market or provide misleading safety claims on their labels.

You’ll notice the mention of OSHA above. This book is very much grounded in the legalities of working in the United States. Though she may occasionally mention regulations in Canada, the UK or Europe, her focus remains firmly enmeshed in US law. Unfortunately, there is no real equivalent to this book outside of the US. All is not lost for my international readers, though. Since US laws protecting workers are among the most lax in the developed world, this book can be seen as presenting the absolute minimum guidelines for protecting yourself on the job.

While the book does deal with electrical safety, shop safety, fall hazards and other areas of physical danger, the majority deals with materials and chemicals and the less-understood danger of chronic exposure. We all know that you should avoid chemicals that could instantly kill you if you accidentally breathe them. What is far less understood is the result of your body somehow absorbing a myriad of chemicals and products throughout the day and over the years you are in the workforce. Some of these can live in your body for years, reacting in unknown ways with all of your genes and the other chemicals present in your body. Steve McQueen died from mesothelioma at a time when asbestos was used frequently in the theatre and film industry for painting and prop making; what are you being exposed to?

If you’ve never given thought to any of this, this book will be overwhelming in the information it provides. You may think we are safer these days with our stronger laws and new products. After all, lead paint only comes from China and we don’t use crazy materials like Celastic anymore. But as Monona points out, lead has only been banned in indoor house paint; it can still be found in any number of industrial paints. Some filling materials and putties were still being taken from a mine which contained asbestos as late as 1998. We are also exposed to far more chemicals on a daily basis than our fore-bearers in the past. Every one of us is already carrying a certain amount of mercury, dioxin, PCBs and countless other chemicals in the tissues of our body (known as our total body burden); scientists estimate we carry as many as 700 contaminants regardless of where we live in the world. Any additional chemicals we add from our work place enter that toxic soup and can have all sorts of additive or synergistic effects. So it’s even more important for us to monitor what we use than it was for our grandparents.

This second edition is long overdue; the first edition came out over 11 years ago in 2000. Monona includes many of the important changes to the laws as well as advancements in the science behind the effects of the chemicals (both of which have a lot owed to Monona’s own tireless work), and the addition of new types of products in the marketplace, such as nanoparticles. Unfortunately, the through-line remains the same: companies don’t want to spend money on safety training, manufacturers add more toxic products to the market, scientists can’t afford to study even a small percentage of their effects on the body, and governments refuse to pass stronger laws or give their agencies the power to enforce existing ones.

Until all that changes, though, we have this book. Read it and use it.

Breathe Nothing But Air

A visual comparison of healthy versus harmful gases.
A visual comparison of healthy versus harmful gases.

My father is a potter, and his job includes all sorts of dangers to the lungs, such as dust from dry clay, mist from spraying glazes, and fumes from firing pots. His words of wisdom for dealing with all this safely are “breathe nothing but air.” Putting these simple words into practice can be a bit more complicated, however.

Proper ventilation is a must when working in almost every aspect of prop-making: wood-working, welding, molding and casting, painting, etc. You can (and should) supplement it with more specific safety measures, such as respirators and dust collection systems, when necessary, but overall ventilation is still the backbone of any healthy prop shop. Without ventilation, you will be putting other workers and visitors to your shop at risk. Also, many harmful particles remain in the air for a long period of time, well after you’ve completed your task and removed your respirator.

It’s helpful to know the different kinds of harmful substances that may enter your lungs, as this will determine what kind of protection you need. I learned about the various physical forms a chemical can take while working at the Santa Fe Opera, which has a great safety training program:

Solid, liquid, fume, dust, mist, gas, vapor.

I would hope you know what a solid and a liquid are; the other forms may require some explanation. It is important to know the difference between them because they determine what kind of protection you need to keep them out of your lungs. Wearing a dust mask to protect against vapors, such as those found in spray paint, is not only useless, but can even be more harmful than wearing nothing. Why? When wearing any kind of mask or respirator, your lungs need to work harder to pull in enough air to breathe, so wearing the wrong kind of mask will make your lungs suck in more spray paint than when your breathing rate is lower.

When a solid is heated to its melting point, it may release a fume, which is a solid particle suspended in the air. Welding and soldering are common practices which create fumes.

Sanding, grinding and even just handling powders can create dust. Like fumes, these are solid particles floating in the air. Though most dust is trapped by your nose hairs, some dust is so fine it can make it all the way to your lungs; these are known as “respirable” dusts, and are the most harmful. Some are so fine they are invisible.

Tiny liquid droplets in the air are known as a mist. You can create mists from spraying liquid, or from boiling it. Some mists may even carry solid particles inside.

A gas is the third phase of matter, after solid and liquid. Normally, when we talk about what form a certain material comes in, we talk about what phase it is at room temperature. Common gases used in the props shop can include argon and carbon dioxide for welding, and acetylene and propane for torches.

When a liquid evaporates, it becomes a vapor (notice how “vapor” appears in the word “evaporate”). Evaporation can be sped up by heat. Vapors are molecules just like gases, and the only real difference between the two are that vapors can re-condense to a liquid or solid in a high enough concentration.

You’ll notice the first three forms–fume, dust and mist–are all particles of some sort. You can filter particles with a physical barrier, such as those found in NIOSH-approved disposable respirators (sometimes referred to as “dust masks”).

Gases and vapors are molecules and cannot be physically filtered. A barrier which keeps molecules of harmful gas from passing through will also keep molecules of oxygen from passing through, and you kind of need oxygen to live. In these cases, you need a respirator with a chemical cartridge. A chemical cartridge will either capture and hold the harmful molecules or chemically react to transform them into something less harmful. One of the earliest substances to be used in this manner is activated charcoal, which is still relied upon for filtering many kinds of chemicals. Your Brita filter uses activated charcoal to filter your tap water.

There is no single type of chemical respirator cartridge which will filter out every kind of gas or vapor found in prop making. It is absolutely vital that you know and understand what kinds of chemicals you are working with and what physical forms they are in so you can choose the correct type of respirator and cartridge to wear. As with particles, wearing a respirator makes your lungs take bigger and deeper breaths to compensate for the reduced flow of oxygen; wearing the wrong kind of respirator means you are taking bigger and deeper breaths of a toxic substance than you would wearing nothing. Some chemicals cannot be filtered by any type of cartridge and require either a supplied-air or self-contained breathing apparatus.

In any case, proper ventilation in your shop is still your best defense against airborne chemicals.

Is MDF really that bad for you?

I’ve run across shops and artisans who tend to avoid Medium Density Fiberboard, or MDF. MDF is an engineered lumber product made of sawdust bonded together with a urea-formaldehyde adhesive. When you work with MDF, the dust you release also contains this formaldehyde, which you may end up breathing. So is that really that bad? The short answer is “yes, with a but”, while the long answer is “no, with an if”. Like any other substance or material used in a props shop, the safety of using it is dependent on knowing the risks and possible hazards and taking the appropriate precautions. After all, people can safely work with plutonium if their shop is set up correctly and they wear the appropriate gear.

Let me start off by saying yes, you should avoid breathing MDF dust. Formaldehyde is suspected of being a carcinogen, and MDF has some of the highest concentration of urea-formaldehyde adhesives out of all the engineered wood products that use it. Other products which use UF adhesive include hardwood plywood and particle board. Some products, such as softwood plywood and oriented strand board, use phenol-formaldehyde resin which emits much lower concentrations of formaldehyde. Nonetheless, when working with these products, you should have appropriate dust collection at the source of dust creation, proper ventilation and air filtration, and wear an appropriate personal respirator (a NIOSH-approved dust mask for particulates) when sawing or sanding.

So if it’s unwise to work with MDF without proper safety precautions, why am I asking the question in the title of this post? Here’s what I’ve seen; some shops avoid or even downright ban the use of MDF because of what they’ve heard about UF adhesives. This is absurd for several reasons. First, all materials are “bad” to some extent. A better way to phrase that is to say that all materials require you to understand what the potential hazards are and how to minimize them. If you are barbecuing in a grill, you know there is a potential for things to catch fire, so you have a fire extinguisher close by. If you understand why MDF is potentially harmful, then you can figure out how to minimize those harms; if your shop is unable to minimize those harms, than its use should be avoided.

My second point is this: if a shop avoids MDF because the dust gets in the air and employees breath it, it implies a larger safety issue. While formaldehyde is a suspected carcinogen, sawdust itself is a known carcinogen. Let me repeat that: sawdust is a known carcinogen (see here). If you allow sawdust to fill the air of your shop, you are basically filling your shop with carcinogens. So a shop or person that avoids MDF because the dust gets in the air is still allowing the dust from other products to fill the air, which is just as harmful to breath as MDF dust.

If you work with lumber of any kind, the proper precautions include dust collection at the source, ventilation in the whole shop, and the use of a personal respirator. These are the exact same precautions you need for using MDF. Also, the proper safety protocol in a shop is to keep track of all substances which you may be exposed to and take the recommended precautions to minimize exposure.

Thus, avoiding MDF in a wood-shop implies that not only does one not know proper safety protocols, but that one is exposing workers to other potentially hazardous dust. So my question, “Is MDF really that bad for you?”, has the same answer as every other substance. If you know the potential harms and how to minimize them, then it is no more “bad” than any other hazardous and toxic material you work with to build props. In other words, the proper question isn’t whether MDF is “bad” (it is, but so is everything else you use), it’s whether your safety procedures are bad.

Safety Goggles

Props people are often said to “have a good eye” when it comes to building furniture or dressing a set. Well, if you don’t wear safety goggles when working in the props shop, you may end up with NO EYES AT ALL.

Safety goggles are often thought of in two different ways; there are impact resistant goggles and chemical splash goggles.

When you are woodworking, grinding metal, even hammering, you are creating the risk that a piece of material will fly into your eyes. Impact resistant goggles will protect your eyes from all but the most severe projectiles; if you are working on something that can break through a pair of impact resistant goggles, it can probably also break through your skin and or bones, in which case, you need more than just eye protection. Specifically, OSHA sets the minimum standard which impact resistant goggles must meet to ANSI Z87.1. You can read a summary of ANSI Z87.1 to see what kind of tests they perform on goggles.

For chemical splash goggles, most labs also recommend goggles which conform to ANSI Z87.1 as a minimum. Additional recommendations include goggles which wrap around the sides to fit snugly against the face. Elastic bands keep the goggles tight against the face and resist being knocked off from side impacts. Vents on the side help the eyes breathe and keep the goggles from fogging, but they should be designed in a way so that chemicals splashing from the front can’t get inside.

You can, of course, find goggles which claim to be chemical splash goggles but offer no impact resistance whatsoever. These will keep your eyes dry but little other protection. Since you should have ANSI-rated goggles for both impact and chemical protection, these kinds of goggles are completely worthless and should be avoided at all costs.

Working in props can demand both types of goggles. Carpentry, metal-working and other “hard materials” projects require impact resistant goggles. Working with epoxies, resins, powders, paints and other chemicals, as well as with heat and glassware, require chemical splash goggles. You can, of course, find a single pair of goggles which fills both needs, or you can have two pairs of goggles. Either way, you do not want to use goggles which fit neither needs. Often, you can find yourself working in a prop shop where a couple pairs of goggles are found thrown in a bin, with no indication of whether they conform to safety standards, not to mention how unhygienic this is. If you can’t identify the brand and model of a pair of goggles, then you can’t know whether it conforms to safe standards, and you have to assume it does not.

I recommend having your own personal set of goggles. Besides working in shops with a poor selection of safety equipment, you may also find yourself working in places which aren’t actually shops. Technically, your employer is supposed to provide you with the safety equipment you need, but like most props artisans, you may do a fair amount of work on your own, either as a hobby or to make extra cash. A personal pair of goggles also means you can find a pair that fits well and that feels well; you should not forgo eye protection just because most goggles feel uncomfortable on your face. You have a multitude of choices in eyewear out there, most under $20. Even the most expensive pairs are only $80-90, which is still far less than the cost of a visit to the eye doctor, not to mention the lifetime cost of losing an eye. Mind you, the price of goggles is not necessarily an indication of their quality or effectiveness.