Material Safety Data Sheets - I Feel A Rant Coming On

 I first encountered Material Safety Data Sheets in college in either 1986 or 87 at the beginning of my chemistry career.  I have used them a lot.  They are very helpful.  First rant, for some reason, they are now called Safety Data Sheets.  Why drop the word material?  I'm finding lots of terms I learned in my 20s are being changed.  Why?  We were supposedly enlightened when we came up with these terms.  New terms are not needed.  Ok, rant under control.

Lately I have started to experiment with oil finishes on the outside of projects.  Mostly, but not exclusively, I have used shellac as a finish and have been happy with it over the past 7 years.  I want to try some different oil finishes just to see what they are like.  At some point down the road, I will likely write up my thoughts so I can document my findings.

Naturally, being a chemist and being safety conscious, I wanted to see what was in these finishes.  I am finding most of the safety data sheets almost useless.  It is as if the manufacturers want to reveal as little as possible about their "proprietary" blend as possible.  I have no doubt they are meeting the legal requirements for the safety data sheets and as a working chemist in the pharma/biotech realm, I realize there isn't a single number but rather an acceptance range.  However, the ranges they are using on these sheets is huge to the point where they could not even contain any linseed or tung oil.  In some cases they don't even tell you what kind of oil.  Just frustrating.  I also for one product found safety data sheets that listed two different chemical driers.  So, which one is it.  Grrrrr.

Denatured alcohols also annoy me on their safety data sheets.  I'd like to know how much water, how much of the methanol, isopropanol, or butanol is in them.  It doesn't annoy me enough to go run it through a gas chromatograph.  Still.  It just feels a little disingenuous.

I will give a shout out for Tried and Ture varnish oil.  A decade or more ago, Christian Becksvoort wrote an article extolling the virtues of this oil finish.  I can see why.  The label is clear what is in it.  It smells nice.  Etc, etc.  Good chance that either that or pure Tung oil will end up being my favorite. Fortunately being a hobby woodworker I am in no rush to get the finish applied and I really don't care that much about cost given the board feet of furniture I make a year.