Official Luthiers Forum!

Just thought I'd post this as a warning/reminder to anyone who uses CA glue. Be careful. I got a drop of thin Stewmac CA glue in my left eye yesterday and I'm still dealing with the aftermath. I was wearing safety glasses right up to a point right before it happened, we were having a warm day and I took them off as my brow sweat was starting to fog them up. I was using a pipette on the end of the bottle and as I went to pull it out from between two pieces of thin stock it flicked a drop straight into my eye. I knew not to just shut my eye as it could weld my lids together, so instead I started blinking rapidly. I know CA is hydrophobic so I was hoping to get it to form a crystal in there that was not stuck to my eyeball. I'm not sure if it worked because it felt like it was in there all night just grinding into my eyeball. After a rough night's sleep which included a session on the couch at around 3-4 a.m. I woke up feeling quite a bit better, though my eye is still prone to watering pretty heavily.

I'm sure it's going to be fine but it was not fun, so don't mean to preach but WEAR YOUR SAFETY GLASSES. You do not want to go through this...

Thanks for the reminder John. That's a scary story.

An ER doc tells me that she has had several patients who were misled by the similar shapes of Loctite super glue bottles and Visine.

I've glued my fingers to a lot of stuff, but hope never to get CA in my eye!

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Last night when I got home I did a google search to check out if I needed to go to the doctor and ran across this info. Seems like it's a common enough thing that they should change the bottle. Of course I can't understand why people would keep the two bottles in a place where they would be confused. I guess they both might be junk drawer items.

As far as I could tell there isn't any long term concern with getting it into your eye. A lot of people simply weld their eyelids together which will release in a day or two. In getting it into the actual eye it sounds like the thing to do is just flush the eye out and suffer for a few days of blurry vision and soreness. TBH the worst part about it today is the psychosomatic reaction I'm having reliving it. Talking about it is making my eye water like crazy!

I hope you never do either Chris!

figured it was worth mentioning Charlie. It's easy to get comfortable or complacent doing certain tasks around the shop and forego the common safety procedures we all know we should be using. Unfortunately those decisions usually seem to coincide with when an accident can happen.

A coworker at my shop was trying to catch up on some work a couple weekends ago and was down to his last couple cuts on the table saw. He didn't have the overhead guard in place and his mind was drifting towards going home. He ended up running his thumb right through the saw blade. Didn't lose the thumb and was actually quite lucky, no ligament damage or long term effect other than a nasty scar. He's got over ten years experience on that saw and he was just a little too comfortable and let his focus slip.

I had a safety meeting with the crew the next day and explained to them how in that case his experience was to his detriment. He had gotten away with doing things the wrong way enough times that he was too confident and comfortable doing something he shouldn't. It's kind of a tough thing to stand in front of a bunch of guys with years and years of experience and tell them the basics of shop safety again, but I think my approach was effective pointing out how it's easy for someone with that experience to talk themselves out of doing the right thing or just being lazy, cause you've gotten away with it so many times before.

Yep, like not buckling up the seat belt for a quick run to the 7-eleven.

That made me wince and cringe reading it O.o

Thanks for the tip. Never again without safety glasses!

I got CA on my eyelashes once. I was trying to blow some extra CA off of the thing I was gluing and the shape of the item cause the CA to blast right up into my face. I saw it coming so I shut my eyes just in time but it did glue my eyelashes together which prevented me from fully opening my eye. I was single at the time and lived alone so I had nobody around to help me cut my eyelashes off. I looked pretty funny until they grew back. I'm glad your eye is OK.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

CA is non-toxic, but it is a pretty nasty irritant! (no permanent damage, plenty of temporary pain)
There's no such thing as an accident, they're all premeditated carelessness

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

The other lesson here, is if you DO get it in your eye, go to the Emergency Room...

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

If I had health insurance I would have...

uh non toxic ??
maybe ??
but the fumes aren't good for you and are a know irritant ..
so it depends on the definition of non toxic .
not trying to start a pissin' match ..
but i have to use it with very good ventilation or a good respirator ......
and know others with the same problem ..
just sayin'

I think that all of the potential toxicity is in the off-gassing of the CA glue, and these fumes can definitely act as an irritant. CA glue has been used as a tissue bonder for years in the medical and veterinary industry as well as a wartime, field suture. The irritation in my eye was mostly due to the hardened crystal of glue that had temporarily bonded to my eyeball, and then broke loose scratching around in there. If I had gone to the ER it would have been to simply get my eye flushed which I had already tried about a dozen times. I personally find the accelerator to be more irritating than the CA glue itself and I've used it on cuts before, where surprisingly it did not cause any pain. Johnson&Johnson sells a version of CA glue as a liquid bandage, it's a version that causes less initial irritation than the stuff we're using for guitars and welding hardhats to I-beams. Here's a link to a CA Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate

Pretty fascinating stuff actually

Yes, CA is non-toxic, it does not cause long-term damage, but it can cause painful irritation.
Non-toxic does not mean it's not dangerous, just that it does not pose long-term health hazards.

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Eye pain is the worst ever. I walked outside on a windy night a few years ago and a dogwood branch went right into my eye. I've been in 3 car crashes (non my fault ), I've broken an arm in three places, Ive been hit by a car riding my bike, been shocked, burned, cut open, and knocked on the head but the very worst few days of my life were after that incident. I honestly would not have minded just dying it hurt so bad. The worst was at night just sitting in a chair crying with pain and not being able to sleep. Ughhhh!!

Hope all is well with you.

That's the same thing that happens with the fumes...they actually cure on your eye, and that's what causes the pain and discomfort.

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Years ago, I had a bottle of CA that the tip had become dried over. I took a sharpened dental pick and holding the bottle down on the bench with my hand, proceeded to punch a hole through the dried glue. I did not realize that I was squeezing the bottle and when the pick broke through, I was looking down at the bottle and shot quite a large dose of the CA straight into my left eye. It hurt like heck but eventually dissolved on its own. ( a few hours) Lesson learned the hard way but no real damage was done. Glad you're okay.

Rinsing with water for at least 15 minutes will assist in alleviating this pain. Sorry you had this experience with a CA tyoe product.

Rick
Gear Up Products, LLC
www.gluboost.com

_________________
Rick Rosenberg
President
[url]www.GearUpProducts.com[/url]
[url]www.ricksguitartalk.blogspot.com[/b][/url]
[url]www.gearupproducts.blogspot.com[/b][/url]

Glad your eye is OK.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate

There is no singular measurement of toxicity for all cyanoacrylate adhesives as there is a wide variety of adhesives that contain various cyanoacrylate formulations.

And that's not to mention accelerators.

Full excerpt:

The fumes from CA are a vaporized form of the cyanoacrylate monomer that irritate sensitive membranes in the eyes, nose, and throat. They are immediately polymerized by the moisture in the membranes and become inert. These risks can be minimized by using CA in well ventilated areas. About 5% of the population can become sensitized to CA fumes after repeated exposure, resulting in flu-like symptoms.[17] It may also act as a skin irritant and may cause an allergic skin reaction. The ACGIH assign a Threshold Limit Value exposure limit of 200 parts per billion. On rare occasions, inhalation may trigger asthma. There is no singular measurement of toxicity for all cyanoacrylate adhesives as there is a wide variety of adhesives that contain various cyanoacrylate formulations.
The United States National Toxicology Program and the United Kingdom Health and Safety Executive have concluded that the use of ethyl cyanoacrylate is safe and that additional study is unnecessary.[18] 2-octyl cyanoacrylate degrades much more slowly due to its longer organic backbone that slows the degradation of the adhesive enough to remain below the threshold of tissue toxicity. Due to the toxicity issues of ethyl cyanoacrylate, the use of 2-octyl cyanoacrylate for sutures is preferred.

I get a nasty histamine type reaction to extremely small exposures. The really odd thing is the 8-12 hr delay between exposure and reaction.

_________________
http://www.chassonguitars.com

I do too, and with the same delay. I have Asthma anyway, so for 3 days I'll be miserable, using an inhaler constantly, in addition to my normal meds, and taking benedryl, which really helps a lot. If I don't, the breathing issues become serious. I don't use CA a lot, but I've found that in tiny amounts for singular purposes, I can use the Titebond CA, which seems to have milder fumes than Hot Stuff and some of the others I've used. I can never use the spray accelerator. It really attacks me even worse. I have not tried the no-smell stuff.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Hi, John,
I saw your thread topic but avoided it for three different check-ins because the topic sounded too awful for me to contemplate. I finally read it just now. I am very thankful that you are okay. This stuff is like any other tool or chemical: So often, they all seem so benign, but they're just waiting to show you their worst properties. Thanks for the very worthwhile alert! I ALWAYS wear safety goggles over my glasses--except for my little gluing operations. From now on, I'll be wearing my goggles for CA glue ups too. Thanks again. Stay well!

Patrick

Thanks for the reminder. I was spraying finish last night and my goggles fogged up so I took them off knowing well that I shouldn't be spraying without eye protection. This is a great reminder so I will be sure to keep the goggles on from now on! It's so easy to get splatters from mixing and pouring and have a splatter go right in the eye. Lutherie can be potentially dangerous. We must stay safety conscious at all times. I hope you continue to get better.