In message
"al" wrote:

How does one tell if paint has lead in it?

Just got a heat gun to remove all the horrible layers of flaking paint from
my garage. It's a 1930's house, but I've no idea when the garage was added
(not recently though!). I believe paint in the 60's and before quite often
had lead in it - don't really want to breathe it in or ingest the dust if it
does!!!


You can only tell if it contains lead through analysis.

The introduction of lead in household paint was banned sometime during
the mid sixties IIRC, However if your in doubt as to it's content I'd
recommend wearing a mask anyway just to be on the safe side

I am presently rubbing down (or stripping to be more precise) painted
woodwork thats over eighty years old and it almost certainly contains
lead, Okay it's on a vehicle but unfortunately I cannot use any other
method to remove the paint other than by hand and wearing a mask is
pretty uncomfortable in this weather too

Steve.


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