Safe Crafting?

[pfinarffle]

Does anyone here do a lot of arts and crafts type things around their flock? Specifically, I was wondering about painting and clay-related crafts that require baking that could potentially produce fumes etc. But I've heard really good questions about various types of glue etc. Would love to get any input or advice on what's safe vs not.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

I have a small jewelry studio in my house. I do some soldering (including pickle and flux chemicals), torch firing of metal clay, curing of polymer clay and occasionally use glues. Reluctantly, I decided to not allow the bird in the studio when any work is going on at all. When I'm working I open several windows in the studio area and turn the fan on if necessary. Depending on what I'm doing, I may also close the bird's room door and open his window. The two rooms are fairly well separated -- at need, I can close three doors between. As far as I know, none of these activities are actually creating dangerous fumes and it is very small scale, but I am cautious.

[pfinarffle]

Do you use any sort of air filtration? I know others here do, but I wonder if the charcoal filters would get out all the potentially dangerous chemicals in the glues etc. I'm in an apartment, thus have limited ability to keep the bird that far away from any crafts. There's a small scale filter, but no charcoal filter component.

Regarding the glue, I'd heard that so long as the bird isn't eating gobs of it, things are generally safe. This was in the context of someone asking about whether toilet paper rolls are safe as foraging toys. What're the general concerns with glue, anyway? Zinc? Other heavy metals?

[entrancedbymyGCC]

No, I'm not using any air filtration. I might consider it, but unless you maintain the unit scrupulously, you can actually make things worse. I do use a Hepa filter vac when I vacuum which helps keep from recirculating dust. I would not count on air filter to remove gaseous toxins, I think they are much more effective at removing particulates.

I may get a vent fan for the studio.

I think there are two concerns with glues -- ingestion and inhalant. For the studio, I don't worry about ingestion risk, I'm not making stuff the bird is going to chew on. Inhalants are a concern, many glues give off quite a bit of odorous hydrocarbon gasses when curing. At best they could be irritating to lung tissue and at worst toxic. I'd hazard a guess that for ingestion, again, we are mostly worried about organic poisons, not heavy metals.

I should also be clear that when I say glue I'm usually referring to any adhesive -- epoxy, cement, or a true animal-based glue.