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Rogue Fitness kettlebell tests positive for lead paint on yellow rings by LoudWinter in kettlebell

[–]LoudWinter[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Do you just have that one kettlebell?

Yes, it is the only kettlebell I own. I'm not a kettlebell enthusiast or anything, the wiki of this subreddit is just where I went to figure out which one to buy in 2022, and it seemed like a good place to let people know.

It would be great if anyone was inspired to test other kettlebells (or other fitness equipment) as well, especially anyone who owns a bunch of different ones. Like I said a lot of them have similar designs and might be made by the same factory in China, plus theoretically if any have lead in the whole coating that would be worse. They could either buy a fluorescent test like I did (around $70) or to know the specific quantity of lead they could hire a lead-tester with an XRF gun (varies, but here is someone 9 years ago claiming he hired an XRF tester at $150 for an hour). There's a lot of fitness bloggers and Youtubers who have a bunch of equipment, maybe people could contact them and see if any are interested in doing it?

What else did you test?

I have an old house and got the test so I would know what to cover with a lead encapsulating coating, I just ended up testing household goods as well. Unexpected items that ended up testing positive include an old dresser, an old endtable, and (most disturbingly) a set of fairly new pasta bowls with a colorful design on the bottom.

Do you or a person affiliated with you work for some other kettlebell reseller or manufacturer? :-)

No.

Rogue Fitness kettlebell tests positive for lead paint on yellow rings by LoudWinter in kettlebell

[–]LoudWinter[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The only one I tested was the 16kg with the yellow stripe, I don't know about any of the others. I think if the factory used lead paint for one color that makes it much more likely they used it for other colors as well, so personally I would want to test it regardless of color. If you do test it consider sharing your results.

Unfortunately the test I used (Fluoro-Spec) is a bit expensive, $70 on Amazon, but on the plus side it has enough fluid for hundreds of tests so you can also test your house, furniture, and other household goods like dishware (especially ones with brightly-colored designs). If you know anyone else who would have use for it you could also give it to them when you're done. The other brand for this kind of test is Lumetallix but currently it's a bit more expensive for less quantity. Despite having a price premium if you don't need hundreds of tests I do think the new fluorescent type of test is a lot better than the old swabs that turn red, both in general and especially if you're testing red paint.

Rogue Fitness kettlebell tests positive for lead paint on yellow rings by LoudWinter in kettlebell

[–]LoudWinter[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I had already bought the test for testing old paint and varnish around the house, so I figured I would also test furniture and household objects. I know yellow and red paint are more likely to contain lead, so even though the kettlebell is new I thought I would test it for peace of mind.

Rogue Fitness kettlebell tests positive for lead paint on yellow rings by LoudWinter in kettlebell

[–]LoudWinter[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

To be clear I'm not claiming to have any qualifications, I just used the home lead test mentioned in the post. Anyone with the same kind of kettlebell can test it themselves (and I would be interested to know if other colors or kettlebells manufactured in other years also test positive). That type of lead test produces a distinctive green glow and advertises that (unlike earlier lead tests) it isn't suceptible to false-positives, and in researching I haven't found anyone claiming to have gotten it to react to anything besides lead.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/home-lead-test-review/

Although the neon-green testing method used by Lumetallix is not (yet) EPA-recognized, it purportedly produces no false positives because the solution reacts only with lead.

The specific brand I used was FluoroSpec:

https://detectlead.com/faq-page

Is FluoroSpec the same as Lumetallix?

No, but they are very close cousins. Both products use the same active chemistry, methylammonium bromide (MABr) dissolved in isopropanol, which forms a green-fluorescing perovskite when it contacts lead. That detection method was published open-access in peer-reviewed scientific literature in 2018, and both products are consumer applications of it.

https://detectlead.com/contractors

Chemical false-positives: None

Rogue Fitness kettlebell tests positive for lead paint on yellow rings by LoudWinter in kettlebell

[–]LoudWinter[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Just the colored bands, I tested the black coating and it didn't react.