Graybeard...While in the service of the USCG, in the early 70's, we used a form of zinc (that I thought was chromate) on all steel surfaces and bulkheads of Uncle Sam's Yacht Club. We called it Blue Death. It came in 6 gallon pails with an internal gallon of acid that had to be mixed with the paint before using. It was almost as thin as solvent, had an unmistakable smell, and would chemically burn you if not removed with mineral spirits in short order from exposed skin. Another manufacturer provided the "classic" yellow-green colored pre-mixed chromate that is much more identifiable today. It was all a bear to get off of a bulkhead with a needle gun and wire wheel.
We also used 55 gallon open drums of the now "dreaded" trichloroethylene. Stick your arm in, get a bare hand full on your rag, wipe down surfaces prior to painting. Three years of this, two to three hours per day, half dozen days per month and I don't exhibit cancer, three eyes, or deformed children 30 years after. Guess some genetics are hardier than others.
...which, while I am thinging about it, makes me remember that historically lab reports came back with zero or 0.00 or None Detected as the result. Then advancing technology moved the number of places to the right of the decimal point and zero vanished. We can now detect more and more minute traces of substances in almost everything. Practically sixteen decimal places worth!
What to do with that small number? OSHA does not know. Make rats eat enough to kill them so we have something to put on the MSDS pages. Who thought that up? Make good press on the herbicide and insecticide bottles.
Heed the warnings. Mental and physical health conditions are NOT reversible. Once gone, it stays gone. You will never know, but your loved ones will. Not spoken from first hand experience thank goodness.
