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I have the same problem with this as with retro youtubers using lead solder. Consumers are not the only ones that matter The people working in the factoriesar

I have the same problem with this as with retro youtubers using lead solder. Consumers are not the only ones that matter The people working in the factoriesare exposed to lead. The people at the mines are exposed to lead. The people in shuttered ghost towns like Pitcher Oklahoma are exposed to lead. The people transporting lead are exposed to lead. People working in recycling or waste management or landfills are exposed to lead. Lead is not good to put into the manufacturing stream or the waste stream. By continuing to create demand you are continuing to put lead in the environment in forms where it gets into humans and damages their brains.

mikewarot 3y ago
Soldering doesn't involve boiling the lead in the solder. I worry more about the fumes from the flux than I do the solder. I just wash my hands afterward to make sure I don't ingest traces of it.
- SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
  Yeah, well standard drivel from lead soldier connoseurs. The flux used for tin-bismuth or tin-germanium solders is exactly same. No point to perpetuate extraction of poisonous substances.
  - mikewarot 3y ago
    So you want me to remove all the lead/tin solder from the stuff I'm repairing... and do WHAT with it, exactly? I've been using the same roll of Kestler fine solder since the I got it about 20 years ago at the Dayton hamfest. I'm not exactly a bulk distributor of the stuff. The ad-hominem attacks are un-called for. I was merely pointing out that the other used of lead involved boiling them off... and thus the lead was far, far more likely to go EVERYWHERE as a result.
    - SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
      "20 years ago at the Dayton hamfest". yeah explains a lot. There is a lot animosity from older gen EEs towards lead free solder, lot of lies as the flux is more poisonous etc., however the point is in fact is not only personal harm, but reduction of consumption of lead at first place. The less lead is produced and thrown away the better.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - mikewarot 3y ago
        Ok, so I'll keep using my old solder, and buy the new stuff next time I need more solder. (Unless of course, someone gives me more of the old stuff before then, in which case its best to use it, and keep it away from the landfill)
frankharv 3y ago
Exposed to lead? Heck I machine it. What do you think SAE660 bearing bronze contains. This level of hype is horribly misguided. I have not witnessed one machinist harmed by lead in 40 years. If I cared I would wear a face mask when working with bronzes. Truthfully Hexavalent Chromium exposure from stainless scares me more. That is a known carcinogen and I machine alot of high Chrome content stainless.
- pgcudahy 3y ago
  "I have not witnessed one machinist harmed by lead in 40 years." Do you know what you're looking for? Lead poising can be subtle but eventually devastating. This is like the asbestos industry saying that miners didn't get harmed because they didn't follow up with them years later when mesothelioma slowly strangled them.
- copperx 3y ago
  I suggest you temper your gut feelings with a blood test for lead. It's $49 at Quest and you don't need a doctor's order.
- msrenee 3y ago
  It's interesting to me that there's so little public awareness about stainless steel as it affects workers. I'll go ahead and skip working with it as the piddly amount of a pay bump doesn't offset the known danger it poses. My nose has the correct number of holes in it, thank you very much. Add in the cancer risk and I've got no intentions of screwing around with the stuff.
rsaxvc 3y ago
You're eactly right. I saw the blight at Herculaneum, MO in the 2000s - dozers plowing down houses in a slowly expanding circle centered on the smelter. 1 in 5 students had excess blood lead. The schools nearby were scraped down and soil was replaced whenever the lead levels got too high from the dust blowing off the open ore and slag trucks running town. The smelter didn't hit EPA requirements for 25 years, and when faced with enforcement, decided to leave rather than produce lead cleanly, because it is not economical to do so cleanly. Cheap lead offloads the environmental and health effects to someone. https://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/pdf/Hercschools.pdf https://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/p... https://www.kbia.org/science-and-technology/2012-08-08/the-end-of-a-lead-laced-era-polluting-smelter-to-close-after-120-years https://www.kbia.org/science-and-technology/2012-08-08/the-e...
- doubloon 3y ago
  thats very interesting, i never heard of this, i wonder how many other towns are off-the-radar. and in China probably even more now. i wonder if the EPA could be better off if it gave grants instead of fining people.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    government handouts seem to escape their original purpose, famously. For a recent example there are the covid relief scams galore. very often in the news the last year or two at least in Arizona, where some egregiously shameful people 'embezzled' and 'gamed' the grants system to buy super extravagent properties, etc. .
  - analog31 3y ago
    Superfund is such a a program.
- LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
  Doesn't have to be a smelter. Battery factory is enough. Like former VARTA, now Hawker, now closed (2021) in Hagen i.W., Germany. Lead, so sweet, its dust a sheet, over kindergardens, parks and shools, the fools! https://osm.org/go/0GMgy_p2J--?m= https://osm.org/go/0GMgy_p2J--?m=
ShitHNsays 3y ago
[flagged]
wakawaka28 3y ago
That retro Youtuber gripe is silly. You really think it's worth getting bent out of shape that one guy is using a little bit of lead solder to repair a valuable antique thing full of lead solder and thus keep it out of the landfill? They want to use it for technical reasons. There are many more significant sources of lead than oddball hobbyists, such as aviation fuel. Technically most hazardous chemicals we ever use end up in the environment. Even medication. So getting too fixated on a rare specialist use of lead is misguided. We should reduce the uses of lead and other toxic materials where possible, but sometimes it isn't possible or economical.
- doubloon 3y ago
  The tiny amount of lead they use is inversly proportional to their social influence, they are literally called influencers, and they are influencing an entire generation to be indifferent to use of lead in electronics because the personal risk is easily mitiigated. None if them discuss the social or environmental risk , as if these disasters like Pitcher didnt happen or dont matter
- Brian_K_White 3y ago
  "You really think it's worth getting bent out of shape that one guy is using a little bit of lead solder to repair a valuable antique" Yes. Not even close. As someone who repaires such things myself, I know that there is no excuse for it. Simple as that. I do it myself and so I know just how not-a-problem it is. Several lead-free solders are perfectly usable in all the same places, and the only way to reduce the background radiation of lead permeating the entire environment, is to stop putting it into the environment. Keeping the antique radio out of the dump does not excuse the fact that the same user had to buy a spool of lead solder which had to be manufactured, and at least half of that spool will go right into the environment, not into museum exhibits. It will be in spatters and sponges and wicks and soldapults and brillo scrubbers and random junk scrapped wiring and junk projects that are not antique radios housed in museums forever. Probably 90% or more of that spool ends up all over the environment rather than in some precious artifact. Yes the lead-free solders are slightly more difficult to work with, but hardly enough to matter. If you never soldered anything before, the very act of soldering successfully at all is a baffling art to a lot of people. After some amount of trial & error, maybe training if they're lucky enough to know someone, they eventually develop a feel and a sense for how to get it to work right. Going from lead to lead-free requires a similar adjustment, but it's a freaking microscopic fraction of the difficulty. Complaining about lead-free solder is nothing but pathetic baby crying, and crying over something that is simply not that difficult, and something that comes at a simply inexcusable cost.
skybrian 3y ago
As with anything in the manufacturing process, it depends how it's done. You can imagine it being done safely or dangerously, but either way, it's not a fact, it's something you imagined. Unfortunately, we usually don't know what safety procedures were followed or whether they're adequate. This requires insight into the whole supply chain. So, maybe it's better to be safe and ask for alternatives? But we don't know if it helps, because there are other materials and other reasons why one manufacturing process might be better than another. Consumer purchase decisions are a very indirect way of affecting working conditions and a poor substitute for work-safety regulations.
- bobmcnamara 3y ago
  Must not be from the midwest. Gilman and Pitcher closed because the cities could not be decontaminated. The Doe Run plant outside Saint Louis closed because they couldn't refine clean lead economically. Much of the city around it was bulldozed off and buried. There's a difference between "we don't what safety procedures were followed" and "there's no such thing as clean lead".

mikewarot 3y ago

Soldering doesn't involve boiling the lead in the solder. I worry more about the fumes from the flux than I do the solder. I just wash my hands afterward to make sure I don't ingest traces of it.

SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
Yeah, well standard drivel from lead soldier connoseurs. The flux used for tin-bismuth or tin-germanium solders is exactly same. No point to perpetuate extraction of poisonous substances.
- mikewarot 3y ago
  So you want me to remove all the lead/tin solder from the stuff I'm repairing... and do WHAT with it, exactly? I've been using the same roll of Kestler fine solder since the I got it about 20 years ago at the Dayton hamfest. I'm not exactly a bulk distributor of the stuff. The ad-hominem attacks are un-called for. I was merely pointing out that the other used of lead involved boiling them off... and thus the lead was far, far more likely to go EVERYWHERE as a result.
  - SomeoneFromCA 3y ago
    "20 years ago at the Dayton hamfest". yeah explains a lot. There is a lot animosity from older gen EEs towards lead free solder, lot of lies as the flux is more poisonous etc., however the point is in fact is not only personal harm, but reduction of consumption of lead at first place. The less lead is produced and thrown away the better.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikewarot 3y ago
      Ok, so I'll keep using my old solder, and buy the new stuff next time I need more solder. (Unless of course, someone gives me more of the old stuff before then, in which case its best to use it, and keep it away from the landfill)

frankharv 3y ago

Exposed to lead? Heck I machine it. What do you think SAE660 bearing bronze contains. This level of hype is horribly misguided. I have not witnessed one machinist harmed by lead in 40 years. If I cared I would wear a face mask when working with bronzes. Truthfully Hexavalent Chromium exposure from stainless scares me more. That is a known carcinogen and I machine alot of high Chrome content stainless.

pgcudahy 3y ago
"I have not witnessed one machinist harmed by lead in 40 years." Do you know what you're looking for? Lead poising can be subtle but eventually devastating. This is like the asbestos industry saying that miners didn't get harmed because they didn't follow up with them years later when mesothelioma slowly strangled them.
copperx 3y ago
I suggest you temper your gut feelings with a blood test for lead. It's $49 at Quest and you don't need a doctor's order.
msrenee 3y ago
It's interesting to me that there's so little public awareness about stainless steel as it affects workers. I'll go ahead and skip working with it as the piddly amount of a pay bump doesn't offset the known danger it poses. My nose has the correct number of holes in it, thank you very much. Add in the cancer risk and I've got no intentions of screwing around with the stuff.

rsaxvc 3y ago

You're eactly right. I saw the blight at Herculaneum, MO in the 2000s - dozers plowing down houses in a slowly expanding circle centered on the smelter. 1 in 5 students had excess blood lead. The schools nearby were scraped down and soil was replaced whenever the lead levels got too high from the dust blowing off the open ore and slag trucks running town. The smelter didn't hit EPA requirements for 25 years, and when faced with enforcement, decided to leave rather than produce lead cleanly, because it is not economical to do so cleanly. Cheap lead offloads the environmental and health effects to someone. https://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/pdf/Hercschools.pdf https://health.mo.gov/living/environment/hazsubstancesites/p... https://www.kbia.org/science-and-technology/2012-08-08/the-end-of-a-lead-laced-era-polluting-smelter-to-close-after-120-years https://www.kbia.org/science-and-technology/2012-08-08/the-e...

doubloon 3y ago
thats very interesting, i never heard of this, i wonder how many other towns are off-the-radar. and in China probably even more now. i wonder if the EPA could be better off if it gave grants instead of fining people.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  government handouts seem to escape their original purpose, famously. For a recent example there are the covid relief scams galore. very often in the news the last year or two at least in Arizona, where some egregiously shameful people 'embezzled' and 'gamed' the grants system to buy super extravagent properties, etc. .
- analog31 3y ago
  Superfund is such a a program.
LargoLasskhyfv 3y ago
Doesn't have to be a smelter. Battery factory is enough. Like former VARTA, now Hawker, now closed (2021) in Hagen i.W., Germany. Lead, so sweet, its dust a sheet, over kindergardens, parks and shools, the fools! https://osm.org/go/0GMgy_p2J--?m= https://osm.org/go/0GMgy_p2J--?m=

ShitHNsays 3y ago

[flagged]

wakawaka28 3y ago

That retro Youtuber gripe is silly. You really think it's worth getting bent out of shape that one guy is using a little bit of lead solder to repair a valuable antique thing full of lead solder and thus keep it out of the landfill? They want to use it for technical reasons. There are many more significant sources of lead than oddball hobbyists, such as aviation fuel. Technically most hazardous chemicals we ever use end up in the environment. Even medication. So getting too fixated on a rare specialist use of lead is misguided. We should reduce the uses of lead and other toxic materials where possible, but sometimes it isn't possible or economical.

doubloon 3y ago
The tiny amount of lead they use is inversly proportional to their social influence, they are literally called influencers, and they are influencing an entire generation to be indifferent to use of lead in electronics because the personal risk is easily mitiigated. None if them discuss the social or environmental risk , as if these disasters like Pitcher didnt happen or dont matter
Brian_K_White 3y ago
"You really think it's worth getting bent out of shape that one guy is using a little bit of lead solder to repair a valuable antique" Yes. Not even close. As someone who repaires such things myself, I know that there is no excuse for it. Simple as that. I do it myself and so I know just how not-a-problem it is. Several lead-free solders are perfectly usable in all the same places, and the only way to reduce the background radiation of lead permeating the entire environment, is to stop putting it into the environment. Keeping the antique radio out of the dump does not excuse the fact that the same user had to buy a spool of lead solder which had to be manufactured, and at least half of that spool will go right into the environment, not into museum exhibits. It will be in spatters and sponges and wicks and soldapults and brillo scrubbers and random junk scrapped wiring and junk projects that are not antique radios housed in museums forever. Probably 90% or more of that spool ends up all over the environment rather than in some precious artifact. Yes the lead-free solders are slightly more difficult to work with, but hardly enough to matter. If you never soldered anything before, the very act of soldering successfully at all is a baffling art to a lot of people. After some amount of trial & error, maybe training if they're lucky enough to know someone, they eventually develop a feel and a sense for how to get it to work right. Going from lead to lead-free requires a similar adjustment, but it's a freaking microscopic fraction of the difficulty. Complaining about lead-free solder is nothing but pathetic baby crying, and crying over something that is simply not that difficult, and something that comes at a simply inexcusable cost.

skybrian 3y ago

As with anything in the manufacturing process, it depends how it's done. You can imagine it being done safely or dangerously, but either way, it's not a fact, it's something you imagined. Unfortunately, we usually don't know what safety procedures were followed or whether they're adequate. This requires insight into the whole supply chain. So, maybe it's better to be safe and ask for alternatives? But we don't know if it helps, because there are other materials and other reasons why one manufacturing process might be better than another. Consumer purchase decisions are a very indirect way of affecting working conditions and a poor substitute for work-safety regulations.

bobmcnamara 3y ago
Must not be from the midwest. Gilman and Pitcher closed because the cities could not be decontaminated. The Doe Run plant outside Saint Louis closed because they couldn't refine clean lead economically. Much of the city around it was bulldozed off and buried. There's a difference between "we don't what safety procedures were followed" and "there's no such thing as clean lead".