Mek

It's online

I just did a Google search and found several mail order suppliers.

Bob

MEK alternatives

MEK substitute works fine -- if you google the MSDS to get the ingredients, you will find MEK substitute is mostly Ethyl Acetate. MEK is nasty stuff, ethyl acetate is a much friendlier alternative.

ETHYL ACETATE
Ethyl Acetate is what's in fruity wines that gives those wines the fruity taste, but it's a very small quality. Also, your body makes small amounts of ethyl acetate as a by product of your metabolism.

That said, a can full of ethyl acetate is still a chemical with a strong odor. You need to treat it with respect, it won't do your liver any good if you drink the stuff! (Has about the same chemical hazard warnings as ethanol in industrial settings: ethanol = ethyl alcohol, a common form you may be familiar with: high proof vodka.)

I've been using ethyl acetate (available in a can) as a replacement for MEK and I'm quite happy with it. It's also a much friendlier replacement for lacquer thinner.

32oz can on Amazon, $20 (63 cents per oz): http://amzn.com/B06XRKPGD8/tag=mrhmag-20

BUTYL ACETATE
An even friendlier alternative is Butyl Acetate. Butyl acetate is found in many types of fruit -- it's what's in bananas that gives them their fruity smell, for instance. It's also used in cosmetics to give them a pleasant fruity odor. Butyl acetate is less damaging to your system if you do happen to drink it than Ethyl Acetate.

Butyl acetate can also be used as a styrene glue, but it acts a little slower than ethyl acetate. It has a more pleasant odor in concentrated form than ethyl acetate. Butyl acetate is also a bit harder to find.

One gallon can (Sherwin Williams Prolane thinner), $55 with shipping (43 cents per oz): 
https://www.skygeek.com/sherwin-williams-r6k18gl-polane-thinner-k18-n-butyl-acetate.html

8oz bottle on Amazon, $26 with shipping ($3.25 per oz): http://amzn.com/B017Q2FHF2?tag=mrhmag-20

You can also find good Butyl Acetate deals on eBay from time to time.

Found

2 weeks ago at the local Sherwin-Williams Williams store. I am not sure this is shippable via UPS or USPS and maybe that is why MEK is unavailable on line. I now use a computer fan on the workbench when I use any glues.

Tom

Not in California

I do believe if I was caught with a can of in in California, I’d have my face planted on the hood of a cop car.

I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to buy it in the state. However, I think it can be sold from a company in California to someone who lives in another state.

I ordered it from McMaster Carr once after not being a able to find it anywhere. I received an email that my order was cancelled - I’m not allowed to buy it because I live in California.

@ James

Maybe you could hire an out of work person who smuggled pot out of the state in the old days to smuggle you some MEK into California now????

Nick

MEK is playing with Cancer.

Michael H

MEK not cancer causing

http://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/chem_profiles/mek.html

Love the people that spread fear. Research first before posting.

Still dangerous

What the OSH says is:

Other dangers are listed including

All in all pretty unhealthy stuff.  Not worth the risk for me.

Paul

Kidney cancer twice now

Doctors suspect it may be caused by my heavy use of MEK 40 years ago. Just like Roundup doesn't cause it. Who is right or wrong it's not worth the risk.

Michael H

Another nasty chemical: ethanol

Just to put things in perspective, here's the industrial warning for ethanol:

Common form of Ethanol: high proof vodka. Sounds like pretty nasty stuff.

Just keep in mind the warnings are worst case and made to sound really nasty because scaring you silly minimizes lawsuits later. Generally with some care, good ventilation, you don't drink the stuff or bathe in it, and just use it occasionally and you will likely be fine.

That said, I vastly prefer ethyl acetate to MEK. To me one huge indicator of toxcity is the fact our bodies actually make small amounts of ethyl acetate as part of our metabolism. Our bodies don't make MEK!

Kidney cancer twice now

Doctors suspect it may be caused by my heavy use of MEK 40 years ago. Just like Roundup doesn't cause it. Who is right or wrong it's not worth the risk.

Michael H

Salt

Read this before you sit down to dinner:  https://www.msdsonline.com/2015/04/10/safety-with-salt-sodium-chloride-safety-information/

The problem is these things use scary language both for things which are relatively benign (e.g. table salt) and things that are really bad.  Those safety sheets are missing a sense of perspective.

Also note that saying MEK is "not specifically evaluated" or "not specifically designated" as a cancer causing agent is not at all the same thing as saying it doesn't cause cancer.  It may just mean they haven't done the research necessary to be sure.

Generally I agree with what Joe posted - use a little common sense, if it's not something you eat or drink and it smells, use it with good ventilation.  And don't get too much of it on you.

We all have to decide these

We all have to decide these kind of things for ourselves.

That being said.  Who is to say that today’s “safe” chemicals are not tomorrow’s cancer causes?

Remember many products we once thought safe are turning out not to be.

-Doug M

Mek substitute

I just bought a quart of mek substitute at Ace Hardware for under $9.00. 

By the way everything in California causes cancer.

Your comment on butyl

Your comment on butyl acetate's banana odor brought back a lot of memories.  My Dad was an airplane mechanic for over 50 years and I well remember the smell of aircraft butyrate dope in airport hangars and our own workshop building model airplanes.  If you wonder why it's called aircraft "dope", you haven't been close enough to the painting of an aircraft for long enough.  Some of the old planes (like my Dad's 1941 Piper Cub) even had doped fabric for the interior finish, and I guarantee you'd be "dopy" by the time you finished "doping" the cramped cockpit!

I can help but think of one

I can help but think of one of my late Father's quotes when I see threads go like this. "If we stopped eating and doing everything they say is bad for us, we'd soon die of starvation or boredom!"

Now I'm not suggesting we all throw caution to the wind and inhale a couple of lungs full of the stuff, I mean use common sense of course but don't be paranoid. If you figure out the sheer amount of nasty stuff you  inadvertently expose yourself to on any given day, you won't sleep at night. The safety police stuff just gets old.

Problem With SDS's

I worked in the chemical industry for over 40 years.  The problem with SDS warnings is they are now written by lawyers not chemists or toxicologists.  This has resulted in a tendency for the SDS for milk to sound the same as the SDS for methyl ethyl death.  Lawyers think they are covering their employers legally.  Those of us who work with chemicals have to go to other sources for usable information because of this.  SDS's do remain valuable for certain information such as flash points.  "Not known to cause cancer" means just what it says.  It doesn't tell you details about what tests have been run.  For that you have to dig deeper.  Most organic solvents with a low flash point (or high vapor pressure) have a potential to cause neurological damage if used in high concentrations with poor ventilation.  Note that MEK is very flammable.

MEK Substitute

I went to the Atlanta area's biggest hardware store today looking for several things.  They didn't have good ol' MEK.  Looked at the can of Klean Strips' "MEK Substitute". It did not say what is in the can.  Sorry, I don't like that.  So I looked it up.  Took several steps.  It's a mix of acetic acid and ethyl acetate.  It's probably just as bad for you as MEK if you snort enough of it, and appears to be WORSE for you if you get it on your skin.  I gather it has a lower vapor pressure so it's less likely to create an explosive mixture when spraying a paint thinned with it.  That is why California doesn't like MEK, they don't like any VOCs, but I note that the MEK Substitutes that came up on Google are "not intended for use or sale in California."  That includes the Klean Strip version.  So is MEK Substitute sold in Cali a different chemical mix?

Scott Chatfield

MEK vs ethyl acetate

Your body actually makes small amounts of ethyl acetate as a by product of metabolism. Your body doesn't make MEK. So that's one big difference ...

Another place you find ethyl acetate naturally occurring is in fruity-tasting wines -- it's what gives them that fruity taste. You don't find MEK naturally occurring in wine either.

You can also find ethyl acetate in some cosmetic products and as a flavoring in some foods ...

You won't find MEK in food or in cosmetics, either.

That said, even common table salt consumed in large quantities is toxic. Likewise a can full of ethyl acetate isn't going to do you any good if you drink it straight.

But ethyl acetate is much safer than MEK as a plastic cement and is virtually identical in how it bonds the styrene. EA also is a more friendly replacement for lacquer thinner in modeling.

One interesting study showed Ethyl Acetate that naturally occurs in certain kinds of fruit made into an extract actually has an anti-aging effect on skin. I seriously doubt if you could say the same thing about MEK!

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2014/185716/

Joe

You remind me of Linn Westcott. Always researching, always pushing the envelope in the hobby!

Thanks for the kind words ...

Thanks for the kind words, Michael ... Linn Westcott is a hero of mine and I’ve deliberately become a student of his editing practices. I use many of Linn's philosophies in editing MRH and Running Extra.

For example, one of Linn's practices was to seldom put the scale in the title of an article. Linn felt that scale bias severely hampers modelers from discovering new techniques — and the worst of the lot is probably HO modelers. “Oh, that’s N scale, can’t use it ...” Wrong!

I on the other hand became a student of the N scale magazines many years ago and found the N scale modelers to be doing a lot of very innovative things that I could use in HO. One of my secrets now is to follow N scalers and then take the innovative new methods and write about them for HO modelers.*

So thanks ... it warms my heart to see that others feel I’m at least a little bit like my hobby hero, Linn Westcott.

A comment or two

1. Linn Westcott. Also my hero. Perhaps that's why I enjoy MRH so much? 

2. Back in the day... there was a letter to the editor from a model railroad custom painter who did not use precautions when spraying laquer base paint. He got cancer and wanted to raise awareness of the issue.

3. My dad also worked as an aircraft mechanic in his youth. By the time he was 60, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called multiple myeloma. No direct cause but the chemicals were a strong suspect. Died before 65.

We can't risk our lives for a hobby. Some safety precautions seem to go beyond common sense so common sense sometimes isn't enough. Stay safe. 

Yep

Yep, that's why I moved to acrylics 20 year ago and why I've moved to Ethyl Acetate as a replacement for MEK and lacquer thinner.

I developed double vision from using Floquil and breathing their disol thinner. The first incident happened and went away quickly so I didn't let it slow me down. The next time it happened (a few weeks later) it didn't go away nearly as quickly, so that did it!

No more solvent paints for modeling, period! I am also always on the lookout for friendlier chemicals in all parts of my life now, including my modeling. I am very pleased with Ethyl Acetate.