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The dangers of puting chrome plated stuff in a forge


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I have heard several people say burning chrome plating in a forge is bad news... I cant find any info on the internet to back that up...

There is stuff that says breathing chrome dust particles is bad.. And you should not eat doughnuts that have been dipped in chrome sauce, Id buy that.....


I know Cadmium and zinc fumes will make you wish you where dead if they dont outright kill you, but I dont think there is any of that in hard chrome plating...

I have been forging tools out of a large supply of old cylinder rods that I have and would really like to know if there is a real danger...

So what do you know? (really know, not what some ol guy told you that you think might be right)

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Larry, do a google search. There is a ton of info on the web about chrome poisoning. I seriously suggest you scrap the rods.



There is lots of info about chrome poisoning from working in factory's where dust is present, and where chrome is in solution... I cant find anything about heat causing a harmful vapor... I have looked and looked.. More or less all metals can be harmful if ingested in a harmful way... some are worse than others... As it stands It really does not appear that heating hard chrome is dangerous enough that it is mentioned in any of the chrome poisoning information

If you know of something on Google specifically stating that when hard chrome is heated it emits a harmful vapor please point it out, provide a link....

To me it sounds like someone saying Guns are dangerous... you better throw yours away....
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Hey MonsterMetal,

I would multiply the effects of welding chrome or galvinived surfaces by 10 for the effect of putting them into the forge.

http://employment.alberta.ca/documents/WHS/WHS-PUB_ch032.pdf

If in doubt. . . don't be an idiot and get yourself killed to save a few bucks. Remember also that the chrome coating is only the TOP coating in a layer of them, much like zinc coatings under most paint jobs, etc.

Caleb Ramsby

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Well so far I still dont see anything that indicates short term exposure is any more dangerous than having a cigar...

Its not about saving money or taking unnecessary risk... If it really is putting my self at risk then I want to see how great that risk is... I take calculated risks every day... I get in my truck and drive, I drink artificial sweetener in my coffee... Are those things stupid? some would say so..


If I wasn't concerned I wouldn't have ask... But I am not going to spend my life under a rock hiding because chicken little said the sky was falling either...

Welding fumes cause cancer and Parkinson's.... I still weld I just try and ventilate the area well and take reasonable persuasions...

Driving kills a person about every 13 minutes in the united states.... Yet we choose to get in our cars every day.... So how many people died today from putting chrome plated shafts in a forge? My bet is not the 115 that died today in car crashes... (statistics from 2005, not sure if they have gotten better or worse)


If there is a real risk I would like to know, thats why I ask....

But to say, dont be stupid.. dont do it... Well ok, you better stop driving your car then...

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I just wouldn't forge it anyway. Driving you kind of need to do. Forging chrome plated rods, you don't. As for the artificial sweetener, what are ya, nuts?

I sometimes wonder how differently google works for different people. Years ago I posted a question on a different forum, after googling it for days, and checking hundreds and hundreds of hits. Frosty anwered that a 10 second google search had given him the answer.

Point being that I read so much bad stuff about chrome poisoning in ten minutes that I will never put any in a forge.

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I kind of side with Larry on this subject. I also smoke cigars

As I have stated in a earlier thread I have been poisoned by heavy metals, including zinc, nickel and chromium buy welding fumes several times in my career. I have had blood tests and my body did flush out the toxins.Long term effects? Who really knows. Everyones body is different. I have also red this in a AWS magazine.

I have been exposed to God knows what kind of stuff through out my carrier from working with large amonts of Kaowool in smelter duct work, to acid plants and amonia nitrate plants. If you use common sense, like use a respirator, ventilate the area, keep your head out of the plume and most important educate yourself on industrial hygiene on how to keep your self safe you can work with almost anything. Granted there is stuff that will KILL you.

I once had a welding professor my first day in college tell our class, " If you decide to do this for a career I can promiss you three things. You will never become very rich but you will make a decent living. You will never be with out a job and if you do it long enough it will kill you." So far he has been right.

So I guess I am dying of something I just don't know what. But aren't we all?

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Have you ever had fume sickness? Vapors is what comes off chemicals fumes are little particles of heavy metals. When you burn cut weld you put off fumes you breathe them in you ingest heavy metals. That's why welding on galvanized is so bad. Chrome is the same way. I'm sure in a forge the harmful fumes are still present but with proppet ventilation it may not be an issue.

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Have you ever had fume sickness? Vapors is what comes off chemicals fumes are little particles of heavy metals. When you burn cut weld you put off fumes you breathe them in you ingest heavy metals. That's why welding on galvanized is so bad. Chrome is the same way. I'm sure in a forge the harmful fumes are still present but with proppet ventilation it may not be an issue.


Its not the same thing..... I would not put a zinc plated bolt or a galvanized pipe in the forge... I may be dumb, but I am not stupid ;)
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when I was young and dumb, and full of comeliness, I thought I was invincible. Thirty three years later, with attenuated hearing due to never wearing ear protection, I am half-deaf. Wisdom in youth propagates health in later years!



Yeah I guess I still young and dumb... On the up side Im turning 40 this year and when I was 20 I was pretty sure I would never make it to 30... So I already have got 10 bonus years..
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As far as hexavalent chromium, I haven't really formed an opinion about how big the risk is. But my guess is that forging chrome plated steel doesn't give you as big a dose as stick welding stainless for the same amount of time. (See the second link, below.) Regarding exposure to hexavalent chromium during hot work, OSHA says, "Hexavalent chromium can also be formed when performing 'hot work' such as welding on stainless steel or melting chromium metal." They don't tell you at what temperatures this occurs. It's possible that typical forging temperatures are too low, but I don't really know. There's some pretty interesting info here:

http://www.aiha.org/aihce07/handouts/po108kampa.pdf

FWIW, in my opinion, based on my own reading, the short-term danger of death or permanent injury from zinc fumes seems to be seriously overstated by a lot of smiths, on the basis of one well known but extremely unusual incident involving a fellow with at least one very serious, pre-existing health problem. (The long-term dangers seem to me to be less clear.) On the other hand, cadmium appears to be genuinely nasty stuff in the long term, at least, and I tend to be cautious about it: http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=preambles&p_id=819

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Some of us probably over play some of the dangers somewhat to try to get the "young and invincible" folks to pay heed. I had a college aged student one summer that I warned about galvanized metal *thoroughly* (pre-Paw Paw though). Next summer when he was back he had already spent several days in the hospital from Metal Fume Fever---and no health insurance! He had "taken precautions" he thought....he allowed that the money he had saved by using the galvanized material had been lost in the first minutes of his multiple day hospital stay.

I avoid plated metals.

I also warn about OLD heavily painted scrap that may not only have zinc rich paint it may have lead based paint!

One thing to remember is that in plating metals are often "stacked" with a base plating, perhaps an intermediate and then the surface plating.


And Be simply scares me---I'd rather work with depleted uranium!

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I am not familiar with the 'well known' zinc incident. I do know that I and others have felt horrible after messing with galvanized stuff. I do know I can threads of white stuff coming off galvanized metal when it is cut and welded. We make a big deal about zinc because it is so readily visible and bad results occur quickly.

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Its not the same thing..... I would not put a zinc plated bolt or a galvanized pipe in the forge... I may be dumb, but I am not stupid ;)


You're right it's not the same thing chrome is far more worse for you. I know you're not stupid. I never knew about fume fever until I got real sick with flu like symptoms, doc asked what I'd been doing and bingo, it's achey and miserable. That's why we got fume extractors and such. Like I said ventilate and you'll be fine.
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I am not familiar with the 'well known' zinc incident. I do know that I and others have felt horrible after messing with galvanized stuff. I do know I can threads of white stuff coming off galvanized metal when it is cut and welded. We make a big deal about zinc because it is so readily visible and bad results occur quickly.


Just to reiterate, I said, " the short-term danger of death or permanent injury from zinc fumes seems to be seriously overstated by a lot of smiths." I agree that there are very good reasons to avoid zinc fumes; I have never had metal fume fever, and I don't want to. However: (1) other metals can also give you MFF; and (2) a great many folks stop just short of saying that zinc fumes will kill you stone cold dead in minutes or days, and that simply appears to almost never be the case. Paw-Paw Wilson is the one and only example of that I have been able to find, and I've looked. In the short term, at least, bee stings seem to be far more dangerous to life.

Just trying to keep things in perspective.
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I am not familiar with the 'well known' zinc incident. I do know that I and others have felt horrible after messing with galvanized stuff. I do know I can threads of white stuff coming off galvanized metal when it is cut and welded. We make a big deal about zinc because it is so readily visible and bad results occur quickly.


http://anvilfire.com/iForge/tutor/safety3/index.htm
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Just to reiterate, I said, " the short-term danger of death or permanent injury from zinc fumes seems to be seriously overstated by a lot of smiths." I agree that there are very good reasons to avoid zinc fumes; I have never had metal fume fever, and I don't want to. However: (1) other metals can also give you MFF; and (2) a great many folks stop just short of saying that zinc fumes will kill you stone cold dead in minutes or days, and that simply appears to almost never be the case. Paw-Paw Wilson is the one and only example of that I have been able to find, and I've looked. In the short term, at least, bee stings seem to be far more dangerous to life.

Just trying to keep things in perspective.


I was both arguing and agreeing with you.

Part of what I was trying to say about zinc is that because the results are easy to see (white fumes and flu like symptoms) we talk about it more.

I'm of the "Don't put plated stuff in the forge" school. It seems like it gets worse beyond zinc; not better. (My stuck comma key is making it hard to formulate complex sentences too.) I have been known to burn all kinds of horrible platings off in the the wood-stove. I don't just want to poison myself; I poison everybody. :P

My favorite method is dumping plated stuff in my jug of dilute acid. How I will dispose of that someday I don't know.
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I've forged chrome alloys with no ill effects, though I rarely heat anything up above orange.
I have however had a lovely case of zinc oxide poisoning, A bit of Phosgene poisoning, and some light lead poisoning, <sarcasm on> It's a great experience and I strongly suggest everyone try it!<end sarcasm> Honestly, HMP/MFF was the worst I've ever felt in my life. If you gotta ask if a plating/coatings safe, GRIND IT OFF! And remember to wear a respirator! I'd of spared my self a week of cramps if I had been wearing mine.

Welding health hazards

 

 

Grind and then do what with it ?  You seem to have missed the posts about responsible disposal of hazmat. Also an alloy is not the same as a coating .

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I was both arguing and agreeing with you.

Part of what I was trying to say about zinc is that because the results are easy to see (white fumes and flu like symptoms) we talk about it more.

I'm of the "Don't put plated stuff in the forge" school. It seems like it gets worse beyond zinc; not better. (My stuck comma key is making it hard to formulate complex sentences too.) I have been known to burn all kinds of horrible platings off in the the wood-stove. I don't just want to poison myself; I poison everybody. :P

My favorite method is dumping plated stuff in my jug of dilute acid. How I will dispose of that someday I don't know.


Fair enough.
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I often wonder about the effects of heavy metal poisoning, as a small boy to late teens up on the north coast of NSW we would go shooting most weekends (back when small boys could do that kind of thing in Australia, without the full SWAT squad being called out cause "someones got a gun down the swamp and they are shootin at people n cows n every thing") We only used slug guns (air rifles) and to make it easier to reload we would just carry about 20 lead slugs in our mouths, all day, just about every weekend. Has this done me any damage? I don't know. I thought it could lead to birth defects, but I have 2 beautiful healthy little girls that says that did'nt happen this time.
I have also copped a few fume fever bouts yet the MSDS on most welding products will say that zinc poisoning will disipate fairly quickly, and your body will actually develop an immunity to it. That is still out to the jury.

Regarding heating and forging of chrome plated bar if you have you furnace or forge flued to an outside area I can't see it being a real big problem, as the chrome should burn off while in the fire. Anyway if you were to stick your head above your furnace or in the flue for an hour with it running but nothing in it I reckon you would feel a bit crook too, just from breathing in the effects of the combustion needed to heat your furnace.

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Hey Larry,
just another thought on this. If you have a chrome shop around, they may be interested in dechoming them for you. Chrome isn't cheap, and they would get some material in doing this for you. We send all of our scrap gold plated parts out, and get paid for what they remove, almost $900 for the last small container we sent out.

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