NWD

[pickdropper]

That's a great space.  Well laid out.  Should be easy to get things done there.

[Rockhorst]

That's a great space.  Well laid out.  Should be easy to get things done there.

Well, let's just say that the room shouldn't stand in the way of that, indeed. Other stuff though

[Leevibe]

I feel like I need to clean up my workbench.

...and buy like a million enclosures

[alanp]

As far as lead goes: the consensus is that it's so heavy that it immediately falls down. There's no real risk of inhaling any vaporized lead particles. (strictly/technically speaking we should be talking about it's vapor pressure: there's no real chance of gaseous lead atoms escaping from the liquid when soldering). There have been quite extensive studies, measuring lead content in the blood of professional solderers. Virtually none was found I believe. Don't eat and drink at your work space and wash your hands afterwards and you should be fine. Wisdom handed down from RG Keen years ago (credit where credit is due).

The flux is what you should be really worried about. It's nearly always organic (rosin), and when it burns (like, say, when you're soldering things with it), it releases all kindsa crap into the air as smoke.

[alanp]

There's a baby boy coming sometime in the middle of March, so we had to rethink the rooms in our house a bit.

Ha! You distracted us all very nicely with the diygeek stuff, but I noticed eventually!

Hope all goes well

[Rockhorst]

...and buy like a million enclosures

It's a hundred enclosures...I took advantage of the big PPP sale earlier 2017 when they were clearing out everything from the shelves...Still sort a feel it in my bank account, but I think I've got enclosures for life haha.

Ha! You distracted us all very nicely with the diygeek stuff, but I noticed eventually!
Hope all goes well

Well spotted Alan. So far, it's going relatively easy I think (and my girl friend confirms). We've seen/heard horror stories about the last bits of pregnancy (my sister hasn't been able to walk properly for months now, she's ready to pop, can't sleep etc.). Nothing too extreme here. So let's hope she keeps this up for 9 more weeks and everything goes smoothly.

[pickdropper]

...and buy like a million enclosures

It's a hundred enclosures...I took advantage of the big PPP sale earlier 2017 when they were clearing out everything from the shelves...Still sort a feel it in my bank account, but I think I've got enclosures for life haha.

Ha! You distracted us all very nicely with the diygeek stuff, but I noticed eventually!
Hope all goes well

Well spotted Alan. So far, it's going relatively easy I think (and my girl friend confirms). We've seen/heard horror stories about the last bits of pregnancy (my sister hasn't been able to walk properly for months now, she's ready to pop, can't sleep etc.). Nothing too extreme here. So let's hope she keeps this up for 9 more weeks and everything goes smoothly.

For reasons that I can't fully explain, folks that have had kids love to share every horror story of childbirth with first time parents.  It must be some sort of hazing/rite of passage.  I've seen it do a good job of terrifying people.

Sure, things can go wrong, but there's no need to assume they will.  Congrats to you and your girlfriend.  I hope that everything goes smooth and that you remember the process as a magical time in your lives.

[Leevibe]

For reasons that I can't fully explain, folks that have had kids love to share every horror story of childbirth with first time parents.  It must be some sort of hazing/rite of passage.  I've seen it do a good job of terrifying people.

Sure, things can go wrong, but there's no need to assume they will.  Congrats to you and your girlfriend.  I hope that everything goes smooth and that you remember the process as a magical time in your lives.

Well said. I've given this advice to lots of my friends. Childbirthing stories are like war stories or fish stories. My wife's last pregnancy turned out to be twins. We knew several people who had had twins and they were talking like it was going to be armageddon. We were braced for the worst. As it turned out, it was a lot of work but to us it wasn't anything like what we had heard about. I later realized that for those people their twins were their first pregnancy. By the time we had ours we had some experience under our belt. I think of the week or two after our twins were born as the very best time of my life. I was off work caring for our other two being mister mom and just enjoying life. It was perfect.

[gül]

Do you guys use a de-fumer or just hella fans (like me)? I thought about buying a de-fumer, but reviews seem to be mixed about how effective they are.

I've been using a Toolcraft defumer like you see in the last picture (it's not a lamp). I previously had a unit standing on the table top and I think this new one with the swinging arm is going to be a nice upgrade. IMO, it definitely helps. I haven't got asthma or anything, but I always noticed sore throat and coughing after soldering without any kind of active ventilation in the past. There's acidic stuff from the resin core in the fumes that can really affect your breathing. I used to use a bathroom fan with a hose attached transporting fumes out of the window years ago. Both options seem to work and keep things manageable. No sore throats or coughing since.

As far as lead goes: the consensus is that it's so heavy that it immediately falls down. There's no real risk of inhaling any vaporized lead particles. (strictly/technically speaking we should be talking about it's vapor pressure: there's no real chance of gaseous lead atoms escaping from the liquid when soldering). There have been quite extensive studies, measuring lead content in the blood of professional solderers. Virtually none was found I believe. Don't eat and drink at your work space and wash your hands afterwards and you should be fine. Wisdom handed down from RG Keen years ago (credit where credit is due).

Cool, thanks for that helpful info!

[jubal81]

You've no idea how jealous I am. That's brilliant.