Mica Problem in Calfornia?

[TimRB]

Looking in the Midsouth catalog, a the Forster case graphiter, there is a notice "Products containing mica cannot be shipped to California residents." I have not found Midsouth to be particularly paranoid about shipping to CA, but I have never heard of anything like this.

A quick web search shows mica and graphite not to be especially dangerous in any way, so...

???

I would call Midsouth directly and ask them, but I have found that people who answer the phones in these places *never* know why their policies are in place, and probably are not allowed to talk about them even if they do.

Tim

[Divernhunter]

I got mine and replacement powder from Midway but that was years ago.

[pat038536]

This may seem like a dumb question but... What is mica?

[J-cat]

Mica will eat anything!

[jmlivingston]

This may seem like a dumb question but... What is mica?

It's a type of rock, that flakes apart in little sheets so thin they are partly transparent. We have lots of it, when the family goes down to the mines in San Diego to hunt for tourmalines mica is all over the place. Don't know why there'd be a problem shipping items made of it into CA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica

eta: Even better info: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Mica

[sargenv]

I got a 4 or 8 oz can from Ballistic products years ago.. needless to say it's a lifetime supply.. I've hardly dented the can I have.. they call it motor mica.

[TKM]

When I was a little kid in NY, we had an old mica mine on our property. They used to make oven door windows out of it or something. Fun to play with, think flying glass frisbees of death.

Also had garnets, I had coffee cans full of little garnets that I'd picked out of the bedrock with a hammer and chisel.

No idea why the ca.gov doesn't like the stuff.

[bruce381]

they may think it is as bad to breath as asbestos

[Munk]

they may think it is as bad to breath as asbestos

Almost any particulate is bad for you to breathe in the long run. Hell, workers at a microwavable popcorn company started getting "butter lung" or popcorn-lung, depending on the article. The butter sauce mixture was just airborne enough that it gave workers a filmy yellow coating that had similar effects to tar.


However, mica doesn't exactly float on the air the same way. It's almost entirely inert, and is a great dry lubricant. It's too bad those case prep kits are impossible to find in a store near me. I don't feel like ordering one online at the moment, but I would like to see one.

[incredablehefey]

I think it is the silica in the product that is causing the fuss. Recently silicosis has become a hot target of the "safety" police.

[gorblimey]

I just got a set of neck brushes + mica from Graf's.

[jwest]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mica

Chemically, micas can be given the general formula[2]
X2Y4–6Z8O20(OH,F)4
in which X is K, Na, or Ca or less commonly Ba, Rb, or Cs;
Y is Al, Mg, or Fe or less commonly Mn, Cr, Ti, Li, etc.;
Z is chiefly Si or Al but also may include Fe3+ or Ti.
Structurally, micas can be classed as dioctahedral (Y = 4) and trioctahedral (Y = 6). If the X ion is K or Na the mica is a common mica whereas if the X ion is Ca the mica is classed as a brittle mica.
[edit]Trioctahedral micas
Common micas:
Phlogopite
Biotite
Zinnwaldite
Lepidolite
Muscovite
Brittle micas:
Clintonite
[edit]Interlayer deficient micas
Very fine-grained micas with typically more variation in ion and water content are informally termed clay micas. They include
Hydro-muscovite with H3O+ along with K in the X site;
Illite with a K deficiency in the X site and correspondingly more Si in the Z site;
Phengite with Mg or Fe2+ substituting for Al in the Y site and a corresponding increase in Si in the Z site.