The Well-Dressed Prop Builder

Figure 3-1: The well-dressed prop builder.

The well-dressed prop builder wears clothes and accessories that help protect against accidents and injuries, and avoids wearing things that can lead to harm.

Machines and power tools can catch loose or dangling pieces of your outfit; with the high speeds the machines operate at, these bits can quickly pull your person into the danger zone. Neckties, wristwatches, jewelry, and even certain rings should be removed during this kind of work.

Long hair should be tied back and up so it will remain out of the way. When wearing an apron, the strings should be tied around the back. Woolen sweaters are a particular danger, as the strands of wool are long and unbroken, so one strand that gets caught can pull a person into a machine before the strand is broken. Long sleeves of any kind are safer when rolled up securely.

A Clean Shop and a Clean Body

Keeping your work area clean is both good practice and vital to your safety as well. When you leave tools or supplies on the floor, you will surely forget about them and step on them when carrying a heavy prop. You can slip or trip on objects, while heavy or sharp objects can injure your foot. Cords and hoses are a trip hazard and should be kept out of paths where people walk. If you absolutely must run a cord or hose over a walkway, make sure it is running flat and smooth along the ground, and not draped in the air or twisted in spaghetti shapes.

Dusts and liquids on the floor are also slip hazards. Dust left unswept is a double hazard, because every time you drop or push something, or something creates a breeze or gust of wind, you raise the dust back into the air where it can be inhaled.

Figure 3-2: This is a professional shop where work was expected to be done.

Figure 3-3: The prop shop at Berkeley Rep Theatre, on the other hand, has clean floors, well-organized storage, properly labeled flammables cabinets, and adequate dust collection and ventilation.

Figure 3-4: Retractable power cords on the ceiling (such as these at Childsplay Theatre in Arizona) allow you to run electricity to the middle of a room without running a cord along the floor which you can trip over.

Avoid working in a shop alone whenever possible, particularly if you are running power tools or dealing with toxic substances. If you are knocked unconscious, or sustain an injury that prevents you from calling for help, then you can potentially lie on the ground and bleed to death. An opened container or spill of a toxic substance may also go unnoticed and affect your brain to the point where you do not have the mental capacity to realize something is wrong.

As a hobbyist or sole proprietor working out of a home or studio space, this may be more challenging. Whenever possible, have your spouse, roommate, or neighbor check in throughout the day. Have a working phone easily accessible; if it is a cellphone, make sure you get a signal in your shop. It is also vital that your safety infrastructure is in solid working order. It is not terribly expensive or challenging to install items such as “kill switches,” which are large buttons that, when hit, will cut all the power to the tools in your shop. With these placed strategically around your shop, you can always hit one with a hand, foot, or other part of your body when a power tool gets out of control or traps you.

Before starting any potentially dangerous, loud, or otherwise hazardous tasks, check to make sure your fellow workers are out of harm's way and prepared for what is coming.

Do not eat or drink in your workplace. If you eat where you work, the dust can settle on your food. Also, you can get trace amounts of toxic materials on your hands and fingers, which will transfer onto your food as you pick it up and put it in your mouth.

Pay attention to your body; it will tell you when you are pushing yourself too hard. If you feel a headache developing, or you start getting dizzy, it can mean any number of things. If you have been working with or around any kinds of chemicals, it is likely that your body has gotten tired of being exposed to toxic substances. In other cases, it may mean you are physically exhausted or haven't been eating well (or enough) lately. This can happen a lot in theatre, television, and film, where heavy workloads and short deadlines leave prop builders sacrificing their own rest and nourishment to prove themselves. Working when exhausted or hungry can leave you slower to react in emergencies, and you may end up making stupid mistakes because you are not thinking clearly. Take a short break to look at what everyone else is working on. Move to a different project for a bit so you can refocus your brain or exercise different parts of your body. Grab a quick snack or even a quick nap if you are allowed; even a brief fifteen or twenty minute nap over a lunch break can do wonders. If you find you are completely exhausted or ill from chemical exposure, you may even need to go home. If you think you cannot miss even one day of work, imagine what would happen if you had to miss work for the rest of your life.

Some of us like to pride ourselves on never taking a sick day, even with an illness. But coming to work when you are sick just makes it likely that your coworkers will get sick. You may think you are saving the production by not taking a sick day, but the end result may be that five people need to take a sick day because they caught your cold. Also, some people may have weaker immune systems, or care for people with weaker immune systems, so while you may be able to “tough it out,” you will pass your illness on to someone who can't. Don't think of a sick day as a negative (“I am skipping work”), but rather as a positive (“I am preventing an illness from spreading further”).

Drugs and alcohol affect your body and its ability to use tools and machines safely in the shop. Most shops expressly prohibit illegal drugs and alcohol use while at work, or arriving while under the influence. Some legal medications, such as cold medicine, sleeping aids, and painkillers, should also be avoided. Check the labels; if it warns you not to drive or operate heavy machinery, or that it may cause drowsiness, you should avoid power tools as well. Certain drugs, such as daily medications, vitamins, aspirin, and coffee, may be okay to use while at work. Cigarettes and other tobacco products are usually prohibited while indoors, and in some locales they may even be prohibited outdoors within a certain distance of building entrances. Most workplaces retain designated smoking areas where tobacco products can be used during breaks. Remember, in addition to being a health hazard, they can also be a fire and burn hazard, so take care not to smoke around flammable or combustible materials, and to fully extinguish lit cigarettes when finished.

All props artisans should keep up on their tetanus shots. You will most certainly be cut, stabbed, or pierced by metal objects while working, whatever your specific discipline is. Unlike other bacteria, you cannot build an immunity to tetanus through repeated mild exposure, only through vaccination. You only need a tetanus shot every ten years, and they are affordable even if you are an American without health insurance. If you get a puncture wound and cannot remember when you last got a tetanus shot, go ahead and get one now.

Many companies will have you fill out an accident report if you have an injury or accident while working. You should fill these out even if your injury does not require medical attention and you can continue working. If the injury worsens after several days or weeks, such as when you get a cut that later gets infected and swells, that original accident report would prove to the company and its insurance agents that you received the injury while on the job, and it will remain covered under workers' compensation laws.

Ventilation

Do not breathe anything but air. While a workplace has codes and regulations for ventilation depending on the number of employees and the type of work being done there, it is still incumbent on the employee to watch out for his or her own health. Very few substances other than air are helpful or neutral when they enter the lungs. It is especially bad when you are working with airborne substances all day for several days in a row. If you smell something, then you are breathing chemicals. If you can see dust or fumes in the air, or distortion waves from heat or fumes, then you are breathing chemicals. In addition, some hazardous chemicals cannot be smelled or seen while you are breathing them.

Avoid getting dust and fumes into the air wherever possible. If you have a wood shop, a dust collection system hooked up to each of your power tools is ideal. Even if you are wearing a disposable respirator, the other people in your shop might not be, so sucking the dust up before it gets into the air will keep their lungs happy. You can even hook portable power tools up to a vacuum cleaner so they have their own mini-dust collection system. If you are generating dust by hand, or you cannot hook a dust collector up to your tool, you can work on a downdraft table, which is essentially a table with lots of holes that suck the dust into a vacuum cleaner. If no other dust collection systems are available to you, you can just turn a vacuum cleaner on and work right in front of the hose. Dust collectors need to be emptied regularly; be sure when you empty it, you do not breathe the dust or release it back into the shop's air.

Fume extraction works on the same principle as dust collection. You can get little fume collectors for soldering, bigger ones for welding, and spray booths for spray painting. You can even use fume hoods, like you find in a high school chemistry classroom, for more toxic processes. A fume hood completely surrounds the materials and tools you are using, with just a small space in front for your hands to reach in. Fresh air is sucked into the hood through that space, and everything is exhausted away from the workspace. In theory, none of the airborne chemicals can make it back into the room. A glove box works in a similar manner, but the air is completely separated from the air you breathe; you manipulate everything inside with gloves attached to the box itself. Fume hoods or glove boxes are particularly helpful for processes such as casting urethane, which off-gases hazardous fumes for several hours; you would not want to wear a respirator that whole time.

Figure 3-5: A sandblasting chamber is a type of glove box. The gloves allow you to manipulate the item inside the chamber, which is completely closed to prevent the airborne particles from entering the general atmosphere of the shop.

Figure 3-6: A properly maintained spray booth will keep fumes, vapors, and gases from entering the rest of the shop.

Spray booths, fume hoods, dust collectors, and similar systems all rely on filters to keep the air clean. Some use particulate filters, which physically prevent dust and other large particles from passing through. Others use chemical filters, which attract and trap certain kinds of airborne chemicals while letting regular air continue through. All of these filters need to be checked and changed regularly or after heavy use. A clogged particulate filter makes the system run less efficiently and can present a fire hazard in some cases. A chemical filter can only trap so many chemicals before it is “used up” and lets just any old thing flow through it.

You always want to be “upwind” of whatever you are working on. Fresh air should move from your nose toward the dust or hazardous chemicals and into the extraction or collection system. Fresh air can be brought in from open windows or via the room's ventilation system. Fans can be placed in your shop to help move the air around in the proper direction.

Proper Training

Unfortunately, in the world of prop making, we do not always have the ideal training situations. There are a lot of jobs, especially with summer stock and smaller theatres, where an inexperienced person is given the keys to a shop and left to figure everything out on their own. If you are an outside contractor on a film or television show, you are left up to your own devices to deliver a completed prop by a certain day.

Never use a tool or a machine that you have not been trained on. A good vocational or college program will teach you the safe practice on all the machines you will be expected to use. If you find yourself in the workplace having to use equipment that you have never used before, it is okay to ask a supervisor or coworker how. Do not try to figure it out on your own just because you feel you “ought” to know how to use it. None of us are born knowing how to use tools, and every one of us has had to learn how at some point.

An accomplished artisan knows when to grab a buddy to help pour a giant bucket of plaster, or spend the time constructing a jig to hold everything in place while running a router. It is the inexperienced person who thinks good prop making means jumping in as quickly as possible with blades spinning to prove they can do it without assistance.

For experienced prop builders, some accidents come from habit. Your work becomes second nature, and you stop paying attention to it. You are thinking about something else and in that instant, an accident happens. Other injuries happen when a prop builder thinks, “I've never done it this way, but just this once…”

Using Tools

Power tools bring up additional safety concerns. Always use the right tool for the job. If something feels dangerous when you are doing it, figure out a better way to do it.

Make sure your tools have sharp bits and blades and are well maintained. Sharper blades are safer than dull ones. It may seem counterintuitive; a sharp knife is easier to cut your skin with than a dull one. But with a sharp tool, you do not have to put much effort into it, and the tool will do most of the work for you. If your blade is dull, you have to push and pull with more force in your cuts. If, while struggling and straining, your blade slips, it may hit a part of your body with all of that force; you may even lose your balance and exacerbate your injuries. A sharp blade is easier to control.

Always be aware of where your fingers (and other body parts) are in relation to the blade or other moving parts. In high school, I nearly cut my thumb off when it drifted over the top of a spinning table saw blade; I wasn't paying attention to where my hands were in relation to the blade. Before making any cut, stop and take a half a second to visually check all your appendages and whether they are in the path of the blade.

Before beginning any action with a tool or machine, double-check that you have good footing and balance. If a tool should slip or do something unexpected and you are in an unbalanced position, you are likely to fall. In addition to the injury from falling, you might also fall or slip into a sharp blade or a rapidly moving part.

Well-maintained tools are safer. An older but well-built tool that is properly maintained can be safer than a brand new but poorly built one. Spending a few minutes every week or a few hours every month on maintenance will save you from losing a whole weekend or even a few weeks when your tool breaks down. A couple of bucks here and there on replacement parts may save you from having to make a larger purchase down the road. If the tool feels unsafe when you are using it, it probably is unsafe (assuming you are familiar with the tool and have used others like it).

Figure 3-7: I cut through this table saw rail with a circular saw because I did not check to see that it was clear of the path of the blade. This could easily have been my hand.

Some tools require regular oiling, and some need regular cleaning. If you work with wood, the sawdust that accumulates and remains on the metal parts of tools can absorb moisture from the air and promote the formation of rust. Dust can also accumulate inside of tools and machines and gum up the works. If it accumulates on top of a motor, it can trap the heat generated by the motor and cause it to overheat or, in rare cases, catch fire.

Once you begin removing or disabling the blade and belt guards or other safety features, you risk your own safety or the safety of others who will use the tool after you. If you have not used a tool or machine in a while, or if you are in a new shop and using a tool or machine for the first time, always double-check it first to make sure all the guards are in place, everything is appropriately adjusted, and parts are aligned correctly. This may require running the machine for a second before placing your material inside.

Always use the right tool for the job. Screwdrivers should not be used as chisels, because the metal is tempered differently, and the tip of a screwdriver can chip or shatter when struck like a chisel. Likewise, a chisel should not be used as a pry bar, because it was not made to withstand forces in that direction and pieces can snap off. These are just two examples of how tools used incorrectly can either damage them or cause you personal harm.

Never carry a power tool by its cord, or pull it by its cord to unplug it. If you notice the cord breaking or peeling away to reveal the wires inside, you should repair or replace the cord before using it again.

If you go to use a tool or machine and find that it is broken, do not just leave it for someone else to discover it is broken. Tag it or put a note on it and let your supervisor or foreman know it needs to be repaired or replaced. Unless you own the tool, do not attempt any repairs without first checking with your supervisor or boss. Machines should be unplugged when you are servicing them and when you are changing bits or blades or otherwise setting them up. It is also a good idea to keep them unplugged when you are not using them, so you cannot accidentally turn them on by hitting the power switch.

As with firearms, do not carry portable power tools with your finger on the trigger. Keep it away from the power switch until you are ready to turn on the tool.

For many tools, even hand tools, where the material remains stationary, it is safer to secure the material with clamps or a vise, or to a table. For some tasks, such as crosscutting a board with a handsaw, you can safely secure the board with just your body. For tasks with more aggressive tools, your hands are not strong enough; if the tool or machine grabs a hold of the material and starts rapidly moving or spinning it, your hand will go along for the ride.

Chemicals and Hazardous Substances

A hazardous substance is any substance that is a physical or health hazard. Physical hazards include chemicals that are explosive, flammable, combustible, compressed, or otherwise unstable or potentially reactive. Health hazards are chemicals in which a study has shown significant evidence of acute or chronic health effects in people exposed to that chemical. These chemicals can be carcinogens, toxins, irritants, corrosives, reproductive hazards, and more. While nearly every product and material we use in a prop shop contains at least one hazardous chemical, the important thing to know is how these chemicals can enter our body, how much exposure our bodies can handle, and how to prevent or limit our exposure while using them (note: carcinogens have no known safe exposure limit).

Chemicals can affect us in a number of ways. They have both acute and chronic affects. They can be poisonous on the spot, or they can build up in our body over time. They can have mutagenic effects, causing either cancer or reproductive problems. They can be sensitizers, where you suffer no ill effects when you first start using them, but have allergic reactions after repeated exposure. Finally, a chemical may be an irritant, which means it causes temporary discomfort, such as redness or itchiness, upon exposure but disappears once the chemical is removed (though it can be a few hours after the last exposure for the symptoms to fully dissipate). Most irritants will lead to sensitization or more permanent harm with repeated exposure though.

The Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) maintains a database of every chemical used commercially. When I wrote the first edition of this book, they listed over 67,509,000 registered chemicals. As I write this sentence now, they list over 101,484,000. By the time you read this, who knows what that number may be, as they add about fifteen every minute. Only about 900 chemicals are believed to have been tested for cancer worldwide.

The easiest and most effective step you can take is to use the least toxic alternative. Sure, methyl ethyl ketone will clean paint off of a surface in record time, but it will also clean the brain out of your skull while doing it. Scrubbing the paint with soap and water may take some more elbow grease, but you will not lose the ability to reproduce while doing it. If you do your research, you can almost always find a safer material or substance to work with.

Remember though, safe is not enough; it must also do the job. It is worthless to switch to a “safer” alternative if you have to compromise too many of your prop's needs. It is worth it to invest in the necessary safety infrastructure if a more hazardous product is the only option to get the job done. The key is to (1) know what the harms are and (2) how to minimize them. For that, you need to know about Safety Data Sheets and how to read them.

Labeling

All products you use must be correctly labeled in their containers to identify the name, brand, and manufacturer of the product, along with relevant health and safety information. The label may also tell you exactly what the product does and what it is intended for. Instructions for how to use it may also be listed, including how long it takes to dry or cure, how soon it can be painted or sanded, and what other products it may be compatible or incompatible with. Always read the label before using a product.

OSHA regulations have specific requirements for what needs to be on the labels of products used in a professional shop; the labels that are already on the products' containers are usually sufficient, as long as they do not become obscured with paint or other goop, or wear off and peel away. Unless you fully understand these OSHA regulations, you should not be transferring products to another container with a homemade label. The regulations do allow you to transfer materials to a temporary, unlabeled container for use while you are at work, but if you keep it in there once you are done with the day (or however long your shift is), it becomes a violation.

Figure 3-8: The formatting of an SDS is standardized by the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS). It has sixteen total sections.

Even if you work on your own, this is a good practice to follow. You may think you can keep track of everything, but you quickly amass a collection of “mystery containers.” The label is there to give you accurate information about what is inside, and to guide you to the correct SDS for the product for further information. If you do not know what is in a container, you cannot dispose of it properly, because your local regulations have special requirements for disposal of many chemicals. If you get sick while working and need to call your poison control center, you will not be able to tell them what you were exposed to if the container has no label. Finally, if there is an emergency spill or fire, the fire department or hazmat team will not know what chemicals they are potentially dealing with.

Reading and deciphering a label can be tricky, especially when you consider how companies use marketing to make their products seem safer and more attractive than they probably are. A label that says “for industrial or professional use only” implies that one should know how to find the correct SDS and refer to it for more information. Some consumer products may also have an SDS available, but others will only list pertinent information on the label itself. While a label must be explicit about whether it contains harmful or hazardous chemicals, if you remember from our discussion about chemicals a couple pages back, we have only tested around 900 of the 101,000,000 chemicals in commercial use for cancerous properties.

Figure 3-9: Found while cleaning out an old prop shop. Clearly not a helpful label.

The word natural on a label is essentially meaningless. Lead, mercury, snake venom, and cyanide are all “natural” substances, but they are harmful to your health, and can be harmful to the environment if you concentrate them and dump them down the drain.

The term nontoxic on a label covers only acute toxins. Any chemicals with chronic effects, such as carcinogens, birth defects, sensitizers, or other cumulative effects can be labeled nontoxic. In addition, chemicals whose hazards are unknown or untested can also be labeled nontoxic.

Lifting and Carrying

When you lift, carry, or otherwise manipulate heavy items and materials, you put yourself at risk of injury if you do not move your body correctly. Once you injure a muscle, you will only exacerbate the injury if you continue lifting and carrying things incorrectly. It is important to lift and carry things correctly and to know your physical limitations so you do not exceed them.

Lift with your legs, not your back. Carry items as close to your center of gravity as possible. This is not a contest; if something is heavy or awkward to lift and carry, ask someone to help you. It is the eager amateur trying to impress the boss who strains his muscles by carrying things heavier than he can handle and moving faster than he should. The pro knows that carrying things happens every day; if she wears herself out today, she won't be able to carry things tomorrow or the next day, and eventually, she will destroy her body to the point where it is hard to carry anything.

“Never lift what you can drag, never drag what you can roll, never roll what you can leave.” The old stagehand's axiom holds true. Lifting and carrying is not always about hoisting items with brute strength. Other methods of moving may take more time but require less effort. Truly heavy objects may require some very creative thinking to move them.

Prop builders should understand they have chosen a career that involves lifting and carrying heavy or awkward materials and objects. Many workplaces specifically require employees who can carry a certain amount of weight (anywhere from fifty to seventy-five pounds is typical). It is a good idea to develop your upper body and core and to work on your physical stamina if you intend to do this for a living. Stretching and doing warm ups before the day begins can be beneficial as well.

In a similar vein, try to build your props so they are easy to lift and carry by others who have to manipulate them, such as stage hands and crew, or the actors on stage. This may mean putting handholds or handles on a particularly heavy prop, or even providing a cart or case to carry it around in. If you have trouble lifting and moving it in the shop, then everyone else who moves it will have trouble as well; do everyone a favor and create a solution before anyone asks.

Another potential hazard to check for before handing your props off is whether they have any sharp edges, corners, splinters, or other protrusions that may cut or injure an actor or crew member. Run your hands and fingers all over the prop, particularly where it will most likely be handled.

Repetitive Posture and Strain

More than 1.8 million US workers a year report musculoskeletal disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome and back injuries, with 600,000 of these resulting in time off from work. Prop builders are not immune to these. Even though we switch tasks frequently, we can still end up in stooping postures or other unnatural positions for several hours at a time.

If you are setting up to do a task for a few hours, pay attention to the ergonomics of your setup. Standing all day on hard concrete can be especially tiring; soft mats placed underneath your feet help immensely. Sitting all day can be exhausting as well; really, it is the amount of time spent in a position rather than the position itself that can lead to exhaustion. Be sure to switch positions frequently, or at least take breaks where you can stretch your muscles in opposition to how they have been situated. You should have a seat or stool that allows your feet to rest on the floor; your table should also be at a height that allows you to work comfortably. Seats and chairs with adjustable heights are extremely useful in allowing you to adapt your position to the task at hand.

Many companies and workplaces have settled on a ten or fifteen minute break every two hours, with a longer meal break every four hours; even if you set your own hours, this is a good schedule to stick with to keep from tiring your muscles out.

Fire Safety

Make sure your shop has an appropriate number of working fire extinguishers in easily accessible areas. A professional shop will have actual regulations as to the number, type, and location of fire extinguishers depending on what country you are in. Generally, place them near exits, or in hallways where they are easily accessible from multiple points. A person should not have to travel more than seventy-five feet (twenty-five meters), through more than two doors, or to another floor to get to a fire extinguisher. They should be visible and not stored behind anything. Areas near flammable materials or heat sources should have their own dedicated extinguishers.

Though different countries have slightly different classifications for fires, most separate them into categories such as ordinary combustibles, flammable liquid and gas, electrical, and combustible metals. Fire extinguishers use different extinguishing mediums. Common ones include water, dry chemical, and carbon dioxide (CO₂). Some of these mediums are preferred for certain classifications of fire, while some can actually make certain kinds of fires worse. For instance, you do not want to use a water fire extinguisher to put out an electrical fire, as you will electrocute yourself. Choosing the right type (or types) of fire extinguisher involves consideration of what kinds of fires you can potentially cause in your shop. A combustible metal fire is probably rare to find in a prop shop; perhaps you may be building something from magnesium, but even that is an exceedingly specialized material. More likely, a prop shop will see fires started by ordinary combustibles (wood, paper, fabric, etc.), flammable liquids (alcohol, solvents), flammable gas (propane, butane, oxyacetylene), and electrical. You can find certain types of fire extinguishers that can deal with all three of these fire classifications.

Welding can be a particularly potent source of potential fires in a shop. Grinding metal and other processes that create hot sparks are other potential sources. Welding should always be done away from any sort of combustible material; in the United States, OSHA regulations actually state welding must be done thirty-five feet from any combustible material. Whenever dealing with a process like welding that generates a lot of heat, it is a good idea to watch the area for a half an hour or so; errant sparks can find their way to a small, hidden pile of sawdust and smolder for several minutes before they generate enough energy to catch fire. You don't want to leave the shop immediately after a welding project; you could come back in the morning to find your whole shop has burned to the ground.

Since grinding or cutting metal with abrasives can also create sparks, you do not want to connect these tools to your dust collection system. Dust collectors are filled with large volumes of moving air saturated with highly combustible sawdust. If you have ever heard of a grain silo explosion, you can imagine what would happen if you introduced hot sparks into this explosive atmosphere.

Any flammable liquid should be stored in a flammables cabinet that is kept away from ignition sources and exits. A product's label will say if it is “flammable,” “inflammable” (which, for some reason, means flammable), or “combustible”; the SDS will also have information about its flammability. If more than one person is working in the shop at a time, make sure one person is not working with flammable chemicals while another is working with an ignition source.

Shops require a passageway to be kept clear at all times to get out of a room. You should also keep clear areas around fire extinguishers, electrical breaker boxes, first aid kits, and emergency eye wash stations. Prop shops can run short of space particularly when you are under a heavy time crunch, but do not use that as an excuse to stack things you do not need in the middle of the floor where it will block you from exiting should a fire break out. Leaning long items up against a wall, or piling unsecured items on top of each other can cause them to topple or fall on you. Keeping fire egress paths clear is doubly important when your prop shop is part of the same building as a theatre or studio that an audience and performers will use.

Depending on the local regulations of your municipality, any time your props will be used in a space shared by an audience, your props may need to be either fireproof, flame resistant, or flame retardant. Though the definitions differ depending on your local regulations, fire resistant typically means the material discourages the spread of flames, flame retardant means it will slow the spread of flames, while fireproof means the material will literally not burn. Of course, these definitions depend on the intensity and duration of a material's exposure to flame; even steel will eventually succumb to fire. Again, the specifics depend on your local jurisdiction; the rules differ wildly from town to town, and even within different buildings and situations within the same town or city. Determining whether your prop needs a certain level of flame resistance is something that should be known before the build begins as it can affect what types of materials or techniques you use. Some materials are easier to make flame resistant than others, while some are inherently flame retardant. For other materials, there are a number of paints or coatings you can add on top to make them flame resistant. Finally, some materials can never be adequately or satisfactorily flame proofed; you do not want to finish building a complicated and expensive prop only for the fire marshal to tell you it needs to be completely replaced or removed before the production can pass the fire inspection. Find out the rules and plan ahead accordingly.

Conclusion

When it comes to health and safety, remember this: Your goal in life is not to finish a single prop; your goal is to build props for the rest of your life. Taking shortcuts now will affect your health later on, making it more difficult or even impossible to use all the skills and techniques you learn. No prop in the existence of humankind has ever been more important than your health, so take care.

It is never too late to pay attention to your health. Even if you have spent a lifetime paying little attention to it, you can still make improvements; your body will thank you. Do not despair if you lapse every now and then in watching out for your health. It happens to even the best of us; forgetting to wear your goggles one day is no excuse to leave them off in the future. You just have to keep trying and watching yourself, and trying to make your shop a little safer every day. There is always room for improvement.