Lead Paint and statues

[William Paquet]

Having seen the other posts in the closed thread I wanted to offer two cents worth.

I have always been under the assumption that China uses lead based paint due to the rich pigments and the coverage they get. Again this is an assumption based on decades of painting figures with traditional acrylics. Ask anyone that paints statues or kits what a nightmare it is to paint yellow over any other color. Forget it. The paints that we can get are simply weak.

Again, I always assumed that all statue manufacturers used lead paint, but unless you plan on eating your statues, there is no reason to be raising alarm bells. Frankly, it is my opinion that the fears are grossly overstated.

Obviously, this post is only my opinion. I would hate though to see some kind of frantic panic over nothing.

Let me state one last time, that I do not know for a fact that lead paints are used, I simply assume they do because of the pigments. I may be totally misguided. Regardless, these are not toys that children will put in their mouths. Anyone here spend their time eating lead pencils?

Elephant in the room?...I don't think so.

Mountain out of a mole hill?...more likely.

[rychehitman]

very well stated Mr.Paquet

[Tetragrammaton]

A joke?

I should have realized it was a typical Rychehitman joke based on the utter lack of laughter.

[ftrez]

Must...fight...urge...to...gnaw...statue!

D'oh!

[cma3]

Originally Posted by William Paquet

Having seen the other posts in the closed thread I wanted to offer two cents worth.

I have always been under the assumption that China uses lead based paint due to the rich pigments and the coverage they get. Again this is an assumption based on decades of painting figures with traditional acrylics. Ask anyone that paints statues or kits what a nightmare it is to paint yellow over any other color. Forget it. The paints that we can get are simply weak.

Again, I always assumed that all statue manufacturers used lead paint, but unless you plan on eating your statues, there is no reason to be raising alarm bells. Frankly, it is my opinion that the fears are grossly overstated.

Obviously, this post is only my opinion. I would hate though to see some kind of frantic panic over nothing.

Let me state one last time, that I do not know for a fact that lead paints are used, I simply assume they do because of the pigments. I may be totally misguided. Regardless, these are not toys that children will put in their mouths. Anyone here spend their time eating lead pencils?

Elephant in the room?...I don't think so.

Mountain out of a mole hill?...more likely.

They do. Mattel just recalled 1 million toys for this reason. Here's a recent article from NYT:

"Lead Paint Prompts Mattel to Recall 967,000 Toys
August 2, 2007, Thursday
By LOUISE STORY (NYT); Business/Financial Desk

Mattel is recalling nearly one million toys in United States due to use of lead paint; all affected products were made in factories in China; more than 300,000 have already been purchased by consumers; this is toymaker's 17th recall in 10 years"

[cma3]

here's another entry:

"About 50 percent of the paint sold in China, India and Malaysia had lead levels 30 times higher than U.S. regulations. In contrast in Singapore, which has well-enforced regulations, only 10 percent of paint samples were above U.S. regulations, the highest being six times the U.S. limit."

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2...6-08-24-02.asp

[cma3]

but back to the parent post...

i get the whole eating your statue thing...but as a sculptor/painter isnt this a concern? Using these paints, assuming that your paints are made in china; and having it seep through your pores should be alarming.
I dont know a thing about this side of the industry, my guess is that the paints that are being used being painters on our side of the pond are not lead based.

Edit: I just saw this post by Randy in another thread:

"We use acrylic paints. No lead.

In general though, you're better off not to chew your statues."

[Car50n]

magnesium oil paint tastes like peanuts..mmmmm.peeeanuts. me am no eating stattatues.

[hellspawn77]

Somebody please tell William to stop licking his statues!

...specially the ones from 300!

Claudio

[wktf]

Mr. Bowen has weighed in on this subject as well:

http://www.statueforum.com/showthread.php?t=54226