One of the things I do to make ends meet is moonlight as a painter. A painter of small, pretty bits of metal. Well, I don't have a formal shop as such, I built my own spray booth for instance, so as far as professional EPA compliance… Not so much. Anyways, The EPA, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to further restrict the already heavily restricted low VOC clearcoats and paints that my customers demand for their finished goodies, and I was forced to find an alternative. As of Jan 1, I wont be able to buy paint that contains any solvent in it, and that includes clearcoats.

So, long story short, I am switching to a ZERO VOC UV light cured paint system. Cool paint- it polymerizes (hardens) in about 3 seconds under a UV lamp. But this monster lamp isn't like the BLB Blacklight bulbs you have hanging over your Pink Floyd poster in your dorm. This is a 1200 watt High Intensity Discharge broadband Xenon/Mercury arc lamp. The light it produces can actually blister paint right off of metal and scorch wood from six inches away. This evening was the first time I've used it for any length of time, and it looks as if my UV protection wasn't "adequate". I'm pretty sure I have Arc Burn… For those who don't know what that is, its basically a 3rd degree sunburn, but on your eyeballs!

I've TIG welded plenty, and never had so much as a sniff of it before, so I know how to protect myself from UV, but I usually have an auto darkening welding helmet, and apparently my regular painting visor isn't up to the task! It feels like sand in your eyes, but it doesn't go away! The worst part is, it takes HOURS for it to show up- you don't know its happening until much later… Wheeeeee!