FW: Re: Toxic Things

[w6jd]

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: [hidden email]
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Toxic Things
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2007 21:56:15 +0000

As a 9-12 year old I used to build plastic airplane models, using carbon-tet as a solvent to glue the pieces together. For the past 25 years I've been having to deal with CLL (chronic lymphatic lymphoma) and although my oncologyst can't say for sure there is a connection she strongly suspects there could be. After 4 rounds of chemo over these 25 years  I would strongly recommend against plying around with toxic things without the proper precautions!

Doug
W6JD

-------------- Original message --------------
From: Fred Jensen <[hidden email]>

> I like the people on this list a great deal. Please be careful.
> Someone said you could eat mercury. Don't. Don't even handle it. It
> is a heavy metal like lead and as a vapor is extremely toxic. And
> mercury vaporizes slowly at room temperatures. Like all heavy metals,
> once it is inside you, it is extremely difficult to remove.
>
> Metallic mercury is a major pollutant here in N. CA and in the Comstock
> in NW NV. During the gold rush, many tons of it were used in the
> extraction of the gold from the crushed quartz 150+ years ago, and well
> into the 20th century. A great deal of it ended up in mine tailings, as
> did the cyanide, also used in the extraction process and also *somewhat*
> toxic [used to be used in California's gas chamber]. There are a huge
> number of abandoned gold mines in our area.
>
> Over time, metallic mercury forms very toxic compounds which have washed
> out into the streams, rivers, and lakes. Much of it ends up in the
> Sacramento/San Joaquin delta and San Francisco Bay, where it climbs the
> food chain and is now in many of the fish in dangerous quantities.
> Lahontan Reservoir east of Carson City is contaminated as are many other
> waterways.
>
> I know we OF's used to play with Hg as kids. We also used carbon
> tetrachloride, MEK, trichlorethylene, and other things you can't buy and
> shouldn't be using now. I liked cadmium-plated steel chassis for my
> home brew projects because it was easy to solder to them. Cd is a heavy
> metal and is very toxic. Wash your hands twice after working on your
> Elecraft kits. Don't breath solder fumes. Even a small fan to blow the
> fumes away from you is a major improvement over nothing.
>
> We all have our stories from olden days, but I'd like to think we've all
> learned something in the last 50 or 60 years [e.g. don't eat a lot of
> the fish you catch in San Francisco Bay]. I'd like the Elecrafters to
> be sticking around for a long time and in good health.
>
> 73,
>
> Fred K6DGW
> - Northern California Contest Club
> - CU in the 2007 CQP Oct 6-7
> - www.cqp.org
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