Possibly Lead Paint?

[Transistorized]

Hey Everyone

Today I decided to polish my box. Because the surface is painted I decided to use car polish and then follow that up with Carnauba wax just like my car. Well I started to polish and noticed something I hadn't expected. The white polishing pad started turning Black.

Now I know this is common when polishing metal using metal polish but on Paint? Never happened on my car and even on severely worn surfaces your rag might just turn the color of the paint...not black. This box is the Gold version.

Now I know that most paints ceased to contain lead back in the 60's but sometimes a few manufacturers managed to slip it in under the radar. Heck this might not even be a result indicating lead in the paint. I don't know.

Does anyone know if a mid 80's Conion box could have been painted with lead paint? I've finished my wax job and it looks great I just cant figure out why my rag was turning black. No matter how many times I went back over the surface...same result without even the slightest indication of improving.

Just so everyone knows I used McGuire's polish and wax and the box looks great.

Any ideas?

 

[restocat]

buy a lead paint detection kit and try it on a surface that is not important. (inside the box or something).

Or lick the box a few dozen times. if Pictures of Yellon or Hillary Clinton start looking attractive, you probably have lead paint.

 

[Lasonic TRC-920]

if Pictures of Yellon or Hillary Clinton start looking attractive, you probably have lead paint.

 

[Reli]

When you say polish, do you mean the kind of stuff that is supposed to remove swirl marks? If so, that's a little dangerous to use on a boombox IMO. Boombox paint isn't as smooth or hard as a car's paint. You probably took a couple layers off, LOL.

 

[JustCruisin]

Sorry to inform you but polishing pad turning black is a dead giveaway that your gold CONION is a fake, fools gold..
If the polishing pad stays white that is a true gold CONION!





j/k

 

[Transistorized]

Sorry to inform you but polishing pad turning black is a dead giveaway that your gold CONION is a fake, fools gold..
If the polishing pad stays white that is a true gold CONION!





j/k

OH MY! LOL!

Glad to see the j/k at the bottom...you had me going at first.

 

[Transistorized]

When you say polish, do you mean the kind of stuff that is supposed to remove swirl marks? If so, that's a little dangerous to use on a boombox IMO. Boombox paint isn't as smooth or hard as a car's paint. You probably took a couple layers off, LOL.

Yeah. I thought about that. Made sure I only went over it once. It did add shine Also made it smooth. I was worried it might remove paint (and/or possibly be pulling out lead in the paint) so I stopped. The color is all that ups the value so I definitely don't want to destroy that.

I haven't tested the paint but it wouldn't surprise me if they did use lead paint back then.

Anyone know for sure if the use of lead paint has been used for plastic boxes in the past?

 

[Reli]

Considering that even today, many toys from China still use lead paint, I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Transistorized]

That Post from JustCruisin got me again coming back years later.....haha. Dang you man!!! lol

 

[Superduper]

The only thing that comes to mind when I read this thread is.... does it matter?. I mean, nobody licks or eats off their boombox no matter how much they love it right?

 

[Reli]

But what if after you touch the boombox you touch your food or your eyes or mouth....

The problem is that the government only monitors food, they don't really care about durable goods like electronics or office furniture, which is full of toxins, especially the cheap Chinese stuff. You shouldn't have to wash your hands after touching your office chair, but based on what I've read, you probably should.

At work there was one of those cheap Harbor Freight dollies / hand-trucks near my desk, and I could smell it from 15 feet away because of all the volatile petrochemicals and solvents it was exuding.

 

[BoomboxLover48]

The Al flakes used for the metallic looks in the paint is what you are seeing on the pad. So many boomboxes have those very small particle size Al flakes. Most polishes take a very thin layer like a few microns from the paint surface. Stay away from using polish it will make the matt finish shiny and you will have gloss variations on the surface. Paint used on our boomboxes were not advanced like the ones we got these days. They were low performers.

In my career I have synthesized so many polymers that goes for various coatings applications including automotive, architectural, industrial, marine, wood, powder, metal, can and coil, and formulates coatings also. I have over 27 years of coatings experience.

 

[Superduper]

But what if after you touch the boombox you touch your food or your eyes or mouth....

The problem is that the government only monitors food, they don't really care about durable goods like electronics or office furniture, which is full of toxins, especially the cheap Chinese stuff. You shouldn't have to wash your hands after touching your office chair, but based on what I've read, you probably should.

At work there was one of those cheap Harbor Freight dollies / hand-trucks near my desk, and I could smell it from 15 feet away because of all the volatile petrochemicals and solvents it was exuding.

Let's say that the paint had lead in it.... Even if you handled your boombox and decided to eat KFC after which you licked your fingers clean, you still wouldn't be exposed to enough lead to damage your health. First the handle is not painted. Secondly, you are likely to only flip switches and turn the tuning knob... those are plated. And lastly, lets say you loved your C100 sooooo very much that you like to rub only the painted finish, provided you were able to find enough contiguous painted area to put your entire hands on it, and rubbed it continuously like it was a buddha belly after which you ate like they do in india (with your hands, dipping bread into sauce and licking along the way) .... you still wouldn't pick up enough to turn you into an idiot. Lead danger in paint primarily exists when they are used in chinaware and you use them to serve food ALL THE TIME. Or if you have them in your house paint after which you then strip the paint (say outdoors) by sanding or with sandblasting and it goes into the sandbox where the children play. Well children like to chew and lick things and put hands in mouth, so they ingest the fine particles... in those circumstances, then yes, the childrens blood levels could very likely be higher than acceptable. Even in detroit, the water distribution pipes never caused a problem until the knuckleheads decided to pipe in acid water which stripped the oxidation (that basically acted as a barrier and minimized lead leaching). Voila, leaded water cocktail. I'm not trying to minimize the effects of lead, merely to say that in the narrowly scoped case of a boombox which has paint that has lead... it takes a whole lot more than some handling by some 40's something boombox collector to acquire lead poisoning through simple handling. I'm presuming you would wash your hands occassionally (especially when it looks black) and also don't lick your hands clean like a cat.

Look at solder. Old school solder has lots of lead in it. I handle it all the time and after doing a huge project, fingers can indeed turn black. There is also fumes emitted during soldering that probably has some amount of lead in it. Look, I take simple precautions like washing my hands afterwards and so far, I'm not yet an idiot. Though lead is now quite expensive, at one point, lead was quite cheap and used in all sorts of fishing weights. We used huge baseball sized weights when we went salmon fishing in party boats, necessary for use trolling in the rough seas. Everyone handled those weights and nobody turned hysterical when their hands would turn black. Again, excercise some common sense and DON'T lick black fingers.

Now, this is probably all moot because I don't think the paint has lead in it. Rather like Royce says, I think it's mostly aluminum. In fact, if you were to try and polish an item painted with aluminum paint, your hands will turn black like nobody's business. Seriously, no matter how many times you rub the paint with polish, it will always come up black. This will continue until you polish all the paint off of the item. And when you are done, your hands will look like you are wearing black gloves.

 

[6.1SRT]

I have an 1980 car with the original paint and when polishing, some color does come off. Vehicles back then didn't have a clear coat to protect the color coat like today. Been working on cars my whole life and have restored a few. Basically you are removing "dead" paint and adding oils to the remaining paint when you polish it. I'm not sure if it's lead paint, but with any paint from that era I would say that it's normal to see some on the cloth when polishing.