I've been well served by just using a P100 respirator when I'm doing anything dirty or dusty. There have been a few times that it's reduced exposure to something bad that I didn't know about, among them removing old shingles from my attic (asbestos composite material) or sanding paint that I had tested negative for lead (transparent varnish underneath had lead).
Weird. Wasn’t lead typically used as an opacifying agent?
In any case, if you test by taking a little scraping, you can only detect lead that you actually scraped. But if you test with X-ray fluorescence, you get an integrated density over a decent thickness.
Also, even if the P100 respirator protects you adequately while sanding, it provides no protection against future exposure to the dust that you create.
Comments
I've been well served by just using a P100 respirator when I'm doing anything dirty or dusty. There have been a few times that it's reduced exposure to something bad that I didn't know about, among them removing old shingles from my attic (asbestos composite material) or sanding paint that I had tested negative for lead (transparent varnish underneath had lead).
Weird. Wasn’t lead typically used as an opacifying agent?
In any case, if you test by taking a little scraping, you can only detect lead that you actually scraped. But if you test with X-ray fluorescence, you get an integrated density over a decent thickness.
Also, even if the P100 respirator protects you adequately while sanding, it provides no protection against future exposure to the dust that you create.
That's its role in paint, but lead glass [0] is a thing, so transparent lead-based compounds do exist.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass