Electric Furnaces and Zinc Fumes

What I know is that I was working on scrapping a ship and a guy cut into galvanized pipe with a cutting torch below my workmate and myself, and the fumes were hellish.

Truly Hellish is the word, and it was a miracle that we even made it to deck.

I wouldnt be too worried about it The temperature is 100's of degrees below the zinc melting point; (787 F +/-) it sublimates only at low pressures (vacuum basically) and the growth of Zn whiskers http://www.downsstanford.com/pdf/Zinc23.pdfon the outside is not problematic. I would let my kids build it.

Th major hazards i see a re steam explosions if water get s spilled inside, or if someone is silly enough to try to heat food by contact on the side where the food could chemically react with zinc ( i've worked in steel mills and seen men cook meat on runners of just solidified steel)

Having it outside under a shed roof with plenty of air flow is just common sense

milo

Take Milo's word for it.

Thank you to both of you.

I assumed that as long as I was below the melt point (plus a safety margin) that I would be ok. Since I don't know why zinc is so nasty I didn't want to trust my assumptions. I'd like to go many more years before I check out and I didn't want a little zinc to change my plans.

Thanks,

Bruce

I got a bad case of galvanized poisoning one time while cutting and welding toe plates around pipe penetrations in galvanized bar grating. I have cut and/or welded on galvanized steel many times in the 30 years I have been welding and all though I would feel a little bad from what I supposed was the fumes I wasn't prepared for the type and severity of sickness I got this one time. I had the chills were so bad that I could only get warm in a tub of hot water and it went on for 12-15 hours. I really nearly went to the emergency room before I got better, the next day the chills had stopped but I felt so bad, kind of like a really bad case of flu with the body aches and all and I had a galvanized metal taste that would not go away. It took about 4 days before I got back to near 100% and still longer to get my appetite back. Believe me that is truly some nasty stuff and anyone that tells you that it isn't that bad has obviously not ever really had a case of it. I do not think you can get sick from only heating it to a few hundred degrees though and I think you have to make a vapor by burning it at a temp. over it's melting point. If a welder is careful and sees to it that he has good ventilation there is a good chance that when burning and/or welding on galvanized the fumes will not hang around to harm him. Galvanize has that classic smell when it burns and most people can spot it right away. It also creates a multi colored smoke at the burning source that changes to thick white smoke as it drifts away from the burning area.

Hi pipewelder

This was mentioned in occupational health lecture at uni.

Some used to call sickness from Zn fume the "bosses disease".

In brass foundries, employees used to inhale Zn fume. It would build up in the body all day and they would go home and be quite sick and "off color".

By morning they were well enough to go to work.

This continued all week and could go on for years. the weekend (usually 1 1/2 days off) was enough to clear things so he could go back to work on Monday. No lost time, never sick enough to affect his work, but still crook.

Only cleared up when he retired and after a few months it cleared from the system and he felt better than he had for the last 40 years.

Apparently it makes you crook, but with usual doses, he has no permanent damage, because the fume and the oxide are soluble in body fluids so it can be cleared out easily.

Small comfort to the victim.

Few people get as severe a dose at one time as you did.