Lacing cord wax: Any known health issues?

Wax is pretty inert stuff - although the human body can develop allergies to almost anything. It has been used in the radio and television business for years without any major problems arising. The wax can make fingers and clothing a bit messy; it is difficult to wash off with just soap.

The easiest way of cutting nylon lacing cord, if you are a one-man-band, is to grab the soldering iron and melt it. That releases a lot of wax vapour and nylon smoke, which might be a problem to anyone with breathing difficulties or asthma. In a production line situation it would be easy to make sure that a pair of sharp scissors was available and the soldering irons were somewhere else, so that particular problem should not arise.

The most likely cause of injury is a thin-skinned operator pulling the cord too tight and cutting his/her fingers. Gloves are not a sensible option because they make this sort of fine work very difficult and they sometimes *do* cause allergies. It is easy to pull the cord tight with a small pair of long-nosed pliers with rounded backs to the jaws; the cord is gripped in the jaws and then taken a couple of turns around both closed jaws before pulling hard.

Hope this helps.

Contact the place you buy lacing cord from, and ask for an MSDS. Apologetically. Perhaps ask them to throw in an MSDS for drinking water while you're at it.

It certainly _could_ be safe: the stuff that I have looks like it's waxed with beeswax. Of course, the stuff that I have came in a cabinet of stuff from my uncle's estate, which means that it could very well have been surplussed from the Boeing B-17 assembly line right after WWII.

microcrysralline-wax.pdf

I think that the wax itself is going to be dead safe. It's just that it may have been doctored with stabilizers or fungicide, or whatnot, and that would cause problems.

Thanks, John. Looks pretty benign then.

The client has to get the MSDS'es for anything they use in production anyhow. I was more wondering about allergies. For example, 10 years ago I wouldn't even have dreamed people could be allergic to Latex gloves or peanuts.

Back from the days when a bottle of Southern Comfort was the medicine against just about any kind of diseease :-)

That would depend on if the person is allergic to wax. The stuff's been used in the military since before most of us were born - I'd think that if there'd ever been any problem with it somebody would have heard of it by now.

I'd say, don't worry, especially if you have an MSDS on hand.

Cheers! Rich

I've always used a good sharp dikes - the wax will make it slide along the scissor blades.

At one shop where I worked, they had those quart jugs of liquid rosin; I dabbed some on my fingers one day and I had no problem getting a grip on the lacing cord (ours was more like tape), even inside an airplane, where everything is coated with a film of hydraulic fluid.

Cheers! Rich

You guys are idiots. The stuff has been around forever and is mil spec, so it is ALL made the same way.

It was made before the days of "artificial" waxes, so it is very unlikely that the wax is anything other than normal bee's wax or paraffin. More likely the latter.

It has always been meant for hand tying, so the likelihood that it is toxic in any way is at or below nil.

Check out the scissors sold at fishing tackle shops. Usually cheap - 3 or 4 dollars. They have a light serration, are small and pointy and nicely cut lacing cord, smaller wires, copper shim, heat shrink, shielding braid........

Yeah, just like that asbestos stuff we used to shovel by hand on the water front.

(Although I'm sure that the wax is benign)