Sign people with neurological disorders.

[chester215]

I went to a wedding last weekend and was by chance seated next to a sign painter (He is very talented) that had been in the sign painting business
for over 40 years and his hand were visibly shaking. Probably un-diagnosed Parkinson's.
I was diagnosed with Parkinson's over 10 years ago, probably because of exposure to chemicals related to Golf Course maintenance.
Some of the places I worked at spent over 100k a year on pesticides and I was the one applying them.

But it got me wondering, do you or do you know of someone in the sign industry with an neurological disorder such as Parkinson's??
Paints may be a little safer now than in the past but they still contain some pretty toxic stuff.
I do not think they are 100% sure what actually causes it, but exposure to chemicals is pretty high on the list of possibilities.

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

I mean, I have GTC epilepsy but mine is not from exposure, had it long before i was working at a shop. But exposure to the tons of chemicals that we tend to deal with on a daily basis would make sense in that regard. Long term exposure to anything chemical related can have pretty bad effects down the line.

 

[Gino]

I knew a guy who worked around electric signs of all kinds his entire life. He was from the old days when ya made the frames outta angle and wrapped the cans with whatever ya had laying around. He did so much welding and with all the bright flashing lights. Any time I was at his shop, he was always cutting or welding something. He started having seizures up in the bucket, so they took him outta that, but as they got more and more frequent and longer, he hadda stop completely. He died at what I consider a young age. He was only about 61 or 62, when he passed.

Also, I knew a buncha guys who eventually got lead poisoning from the paints. It was always under our fingernails, in the cracks of skin and cuts.

 

[pjfmeister]

My Grandfather passed from Parkinson's - hand painted signs his entire life

 

[Souldar]

I know back in the day when I got started (30+ years ago) a lot of the smaller shops were pretty lax about spraying automotive grade paints. Where I worked we had 1 resporator for the guy spraying with 3 other guys working in a room about the size of a double garage. I got unemployment when I got fed up with that and other things about the shop after I put that on my application. Many a sign maker fried their brain those days...

 

[citysignshop]

I too started hand-lettering and spraying paint before we acted on the hazard...we knew about it, but it was just part of 'the job'. Now I wonder when people say...'boy, that Ecosol printer, or..... the laminate adhesive...... really stinks when exposed..."
well, Obviously there's some airborne crap that we're ingesting, just not at levels that are setting off alarms......YET!
There's another generation coming that's going to get some disease from the junk that we've replaced lead paint and lacquer thinner with!

 

[Solventinkjet]

I too started hand-lettering and spraying paint before we acted on the hazard...we knew about it, but it was just part of 'the job'. Now I wonder when people say...'boy, that Ecosol printer, or..... the laminate adhesive...... really stinks when exposed..."
well, Obviously there's some airborne crap that we're ingesting, just not at levels that are setting off alarms......YET!
There's another generation coming that's going to get some disease from the junk that we've replaced lead paint and lacquer thinner with!

The amount of people who think the "ECO" in ecosol means ecological is far too high. I saw a guy who made tie dye shirts with Mimaki SS21 inks and told him it's probably not a good idea. He got mad at me

 

[RabidOne]

I used to work for a publishing company where the pressmen were old school. No gloves while washing up the press, smoke hanging out of their mouths, no thought about the chemicals and how it affected them.
One of them was diagnosed with some weird form of MS that was like Parkinson's.

 

[JBurton]

just not at levels that are setting off alarms......YET!

Don't worry, you guys and cali will get the extra restrictions, we'll get all the voc's we can consume, and we'll be grateful at the lack of government oversight! Freedumb!

 

[Boudica]

How are you liking the price of gas in cali? If you need government to think for you then "natural selection" will, no matter what business you are in.

Burton is not in Cali. You don't research much around here do you

 

[Boudica]

WTF do gas prices in California have to do with this thread?

 

[Boudica]

I'll explain it to you like a 5 year old Boudica.

JBurton was making claim that "Freedumb" is the cause of people getting sick from VOCs. I countered that if you need government to think for you then you are already doomed anyways and gave the price of California gas (a government that does the most thinking for people in the USA). Does that help?

Hey if you want to huff gas and not have anyone tell you it's not good for you.... be my guest. you do you.

 

[Gino]

Back in the mid & late 70s, I worked at a side job where we used to do van conversions. The guy who did all the painting and clearing used mostly lacquer paints. He did it all day long and into the night. He never used a respirator or a mask. My eyes alone would burn and I was in the next 2 stalls over with a solid wall barrier in between. Luckily I'd only be there in the evenings. I highly doubt that guy is alive anymore.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Hey if you want to huff gas and not have anyone tell you it's not good for you.... be my guest. you do you.

The irony here is that for a lot of things, even things that we do need (such as water, even pure potable water, sunlight etc) can be toxic when over indulged. It's not just the flat out "bad stuff". That's actually how fragile things are. Shoot, some really good foods can be bad in too high of levels. As my mom would always say "moderation in everything".

How many in this thread have tats? Not exactly the best thing for one's body either. To my knowledge, there is nothing listed at the tat shops about that here stateside anyway about the risks of toxicity in those inks.

Sometimes people just need to be able to reason about things themselves. Otherwise, if waiting to have some regulatory body tell you something is OK, that's putting a lot of trust in something that could be siding with special interest groups that want to increase the size of their purse strings.

 

[JBurton]

JBurton was making claim that "Freedumb" is the cause of people getting sick from VOCs. I countered that if you need government to think for you then you are already doomed anyways and gave the price of California gas as an example (a government that does the most thinking for people in the USA). Does that help?

Yeah, I'm in Arkansas bud. My governor will never allow any canadian/californian/cambodian to step on our right to spray without a respirator!

 

[GAC05]

Back in the mid & late 70s, I worked at a side job where we used to do van conversions. The guy who did all the painting and clearing used mostly lacquer paints. He did it all day long and into the night. He never used a respirator or a mask. My eyes alone would burn and I was in the next 2 stalls over with a solid wall barrier in between. Luckily I'd only be there in the evenings. I highly doubt that guy is alive anymore.

I remember when my father first started using DuPon't Imron 2-part polyurethane paint in the shop—nasty stuff. Everyone who worked there has passed away, except my brother and me (It was almost 40 years ago, but I'm not sure that was a factor).

 

[The Blind Signman]

back in the 80's i knew alot of sign painters and stripers who drank alot and got parkinsons later on in life

 

[Gino]

back in the 80's i knew alot of sign painters and stripers who drank alot and got parkinsons later on in life

Seriously ?? There are no connections between drinking alcohol with parkinson. In fact alcohol consumption is recommended to a certain extent to help prevent the disease. Now, if you mean they were drinking the leaded paint, I could believe you. I did mucho research on the subject. You might get tremors from drinking, but it's not parkinson.

Anyway, we still drink alot. I quit drinking in 2018 for a very special reason.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Seriously ?? There are no connections between drinking alcohol with parkinson.

Some studies have shown that it can increase the symptoms, not necessarily cause it from what I have read. Prolonged consumption of alcohol can increase neurological deterioration (which would lead to worse symptoms from those that have it already).

In fact alcohol consumption is recommended to a certain extent to help prevent the disease.

That is actually mixed. Some studies believe that low to moderate usage may have a slight decrease in the chances. I'm skeptical of even that, but that's just me for you.

Considering how alcohol is broken down in the body, it's essentially poisonous in nature.