Humans have e. coli in their guts to help digest food. They have staph bacteria in small numbers on their skin. Either one, where it doesn't belong, such as in the bloodstream, can kill. Most bacteria, in attacking the body, produce toxins. Some of them, chemically, do really nasty stuff like liquify tissue.
Drinking too much water can kill you by diluting circulating chemicals. Too much or too little potassium can zap the electrical circuitry in your heart.
Leaded crystal is lovely to look at, but drinking something from it that causes the lead to leach can kill you.
Aspirin can cure a headache or forestall a heart attack. Can also poison you by a number of actions, including upsetting the blood cell production in your body or eating up the lining of your gut.
Before we get to the grout and cleaning the glaze, be sure to protect yourself whilst cutting the tile. This is a good article on what stuff does to lungs (silica dust - sand - from tile, wood filler, etc.)
Oh, horse hockey.
-- dadiOH _____________________________
dadiOH's dandies v3.0... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at
Of course they don't recommend it. No manufacturer will any longer even hint at doing anything that could make them liable for anything even in the most extreme case. That doesn't change the fact that the way to get set grout or mortar off of tile/brick/whatever is to eat it off with acid. Nor that it is done everyday on a regular basis.
-- dadiOH _____________________________
dadiOH's dandies v3.0... ...a help file of info about MP3s, recording from LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that. Get it at
I agree that "eating away" is a bit of an overstatement but if you want a thrill leave a bottle of hydrochloric acid in your shop for a few months. I'd be quite surprise if many of the steel surface are not well rusted. Same goes for pool chemicals. Anything that releases chlorine will take its toll.
RB
dadiOH wrote:
OK, "eating away" is too dramatic. But, a little corrosion in the innards of electrical/electronics may have "dramatic" results, as in "this item is history". Just trying to counteract the folks who, when they don't know what else to do, say "try muriatic......"
My favorite experience with muriatic acid was watching a neighbor, barefoot, using it full strength to clean pavement. Pavement was just as badly stained afterward as it was before.
I have a great deal of respect for "innocent" compounds, like concrete, that can burn off a layer of skin before the victim knows what is happening. I learned that from someone who didn't wear boots tromping around in some wet concrete.
Genetic selection is a wonderful thing.
RB
NorM>
SOME tile guys say that. The "widely used" practice disagrees.
Most but not all glazes are inert to acid. I believe all my specific cautions and qualifications covered your objections. Dilute, test compatibility, don't inhale, ventilate, etc. No question, it is easily misused to great harm, but properly applied, blah, blah.
The plastic bottles of HCl emit steady fumes. Eats most metals including chromium and nickel. Greatly accelerated by condensing humidity.
Liquid pool chlorinator typically degrades into HCl and O3, both nasty to metals. Shouldn't be stored because it loses it potentcy in weeks anyway. Dry forms are more stable and less of an incidental corrosion hazard.
Use a wet saw, and rinse the effluent.
Stay off the beach. The UV gets you outside, the silica your insides.
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