Material Safety Data Sheets and possible OSHA regulations for 3D printing business remove the liability that always surrounds anything new, making sure you have all the information you need on the chemical composition of your materials and supplies. Tom and Tracy Hazzard talk about your 3D material’s property info and its importance to your craft. They stress the need to buy materials from proven or legal sources to ensure quality products and quality customer service.
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Where Can I Find Material Property Info?
We’ve been answering about every question we’ve been getting. Thank goodness we’ve had relevant questions. We’re in the midst of having selected these questions because they have something to do with materials, filaments or any kind of consumables in that way, shape or form. Our question is where can we find material property info, like the property of PLA or the property of these things? They mean more that they want to know where you can find the Material Safety Data Sheet. That’s the more common term for it from a plastic and chemical standpoint.
It’s something established in the chemical industry, especially in the United States. Material Safety Data Sheet contains all of the real chemical content information for any material that a manufacturer use.
You should be able to get that from any manufacturer. If you’re buying from a reseller, they should have that information on file. I know that they think that filament is inert and maybe it’s not necessary on it, but if you’re using it in your industrial facility or factory, it can be your requirement to have Material Safety Data Sheet. We used to have that for textiles because they were dyed. There’s nothing damaging and wrong with polyester fiber, but we used to have that Safety Data Sheet on every single material that went through the facility as a part of an ISO 9000 documentation. It’s not unreasonable to expect that you need these.
Any reputable company who is selling you a plastic material for using a 3D printer absolutely should have this Material Safety Data Sheet. If you ask for it, they should be obligated to provide it to you because you are using that material a lot of times in a home environment or even in an inter-office environment.
Especially in an office environment with OSHA requirements and things like that. You need to prove that your material is inert. It isn’t that difficult to think because it’s not being chemically treated. When we were doing fibers, there was that issue because you could have a fire and then what happens to the flame retardant finish on it or things like that. There are these things that come up that you don’t think about and that’s why you need to have a Material Safety Data Sheet.
Especially now with a lot of more exotic materials coming out that contain metallic flake. There’s always another kind of 3D printer FFF filament coming out every week. There are additives and chemicals to help them flow better or to give them a certain shininess. You have every right to know what those chemicals are.
Material Property Info: Material Safety Data Sheet contains all of the real chemical content information for any material that a manufacturer will use.
In the past episode with Lars Brubaker, he was saying that they got complained about from their prior suitemate. They were inside of the shared office environment and the guy complained non-stop that the 3D printer was off-gassing and making him and his client sick. He couldn’t stand the sound and he wanted them out of the office. He kept complaining to the manager that there was this problem with it. It got as far as a lawsuit. That could have been bad for them if they didn’t have their Material Safety Data Sheet on file and say, “There’s no way this thing is off-gassing. It’s not true. This has always been running.” These things could crop up so it’s important to think about that. It’s a great question.
Material Safety Data Sheet is probably the only known form to get that kind of information and I know this is highly technical, but it’s important.
Because you’re going through a reseller sometimes on Amazon or whatever, first off, there’s a whole way to get in touch with whoever you’ve bought from through the Amazon system or through whatever system you are so they should honor that request. If they don’t, you should complain.
If they don’t, you should think twice about buying that material.
If they don’t know where their product is coming from, the chance of you getting the same thing the next time is slim to none. There are some of those resellers out there and we’ve accidentally bought from them without realizing it. There are some guys out there buying clothes out of stuff that you don’t even know where it’s coming from. That’s not a good thing, especially if you’re 3D printing as a business. You need to think about a solid source of it, where it’s coming from and they know enough about it to help you with that customer service. We hope that helps. If you have any other questions related to that or related to specific material, we’d love to hear from you. You can always go to our Ask Us SpeakPipe link on our website, which is HazzDesign.com.
You can always find us anywhere and social media @HazzDesign.
Thanks for reading.
Important Links:
- Lars Brubaker – past episode
- HazzDesign.com
- @HazzDesign on Instagram
- 3DStartpoint.com
- 3D Startpoint Facebook
- 3D Startpoint LinkedIn
- Hazz Design Twitter
- 3D Startpoint YouTube