It has been common practice to use wood or wood laminates as an inexpensive screen frame material. Although it is not a cost-effective material due to its limited working life, it is used widely in less demanding applications.

One of the major problems with wood is that it is porous and water intake during the cleaning process leads to swelling, warping and cracking which accelerates its deterioration.

The porosity of the frame not only takes in water but also the ceramic colour which often contains lead bearing and/or heavy metal products. Any working surface that absorbs lead/heavy metals would, under the guidelines issued by the Health and Safety Executive (H.S.E.), be regarded in the working environment, as an area which should be the subject of a risk assessment to ensure that compliance under Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) are correctly managed and procedures adhered to.

This became apparent to the UK and European ceramics industry some years ago who promptly replaced wooden screen frames with non-porous materials.

The glass industry has so far not appreciated the potential danger of wooden or wooden laminated frames and it is strongly recommended that they are immediately removed from the decorating area and replaced with a non-porous material such as steel or aluminium in order to avoid any potential breach of Health and Safety guidelines.