Speaking of painting your car in the garage .....

[Bruce Dorsi]

Just remember as soon as you open a charcol filter it is going to start it's shelf life as it is exposed to the air.  When I use to use one I would keep it in a zip-lock bag when not in use, but don't know if that really helped or not.  Like Carl said if you can smell the paint at all it can hurt you so if you smell the paint at all change the cartridges.

========================
The better respirators have various cartridges available.  

There are cartridges for organic vapors, acid fumes, dust, odor, particulates, etc.  .....Some cartridges are "combination" filters and offer protection from several hazards.

Storing them in a sealed plastic bag DOES increase their useable life.

[purplepickup]

I know I've posted this a couple of times before but I've had some heavy exposures to isocyanates which are in most of the modern paints and it's probably worth repeating.  My lungs are shot and I've developed what they call isocyanate sesitivity.  Any exposure at all gives me asthma type symptoms where it's really hard to breathe, my lungs and throat hurt, I get a severe headache, I vomit uncontrollably, sometimes I get nosebleeds, and my eyes get real irritated.  My lungs ability to absorb oxygen have been permanently diminished.  Isocyanates are odorless so you don't necessarily know when you're being exposed.  While the paint is curing is a particularily dangerous time.  There's a 2 page post   here about one time I screwed up where others made comments too.  I did a quick search and here's a page that explains some of the technical stuff

Anyway, I thought it might be good to remind you to be careful.  I still paint but I have a Neoterik supplied fresh air system I got from Len at Autobodystore.com

Just be careful.

[sirstude]

I was at a "No Rod Rod Run" a couple of weeks ago, and one of the classses was put on by the Dupont rep.  He was talking about the waterborne paints that are coming out.  He hopes to have their first test site in Montana some time this summer.  He says the problem with the water stuff, is that our skin is designed to absorb water, along with most of the rest of our bodies.  The paint suits will be even more required than for Iso.  They also have to be very careful on how to vent it all and on top of everything else, it will not cure unless it has very high air flow across it during the drying process.  

Doug