Thread: Engineers need dust extraction too

Metal workers have an advantage that metal dusts are typically between about 5 and 15 times denser than wood so metal dust doesn't doesn't hand around as long as wood dust but as you indicated there other things to worry about such as the dust from resins and glass fibres used in abrasive wheels, and the smoke, fumes and gasses from welding etc.

Yes there's certainly plenty of stuff I'd rather not breathe; I can't decide which is worse, coolant smoke or atomised grinding fluid

They were aware of this way back in the 50's, my Cincinnati N0 2 came with dust extraction, ( I really miss that machine )

Originally Posted by elanjacobs

Yes there's certainly plenty of stuff I'd rather not breathe; I can't decide which is worse, coolant smoke or atomised grinding fluid

They are both bad. The vaporized oil damage is accumulative. I was around it as an inspector for 26 years and I believe some of my issues are from it and I wasn't hanging over the machine. There was one operator that after a couple dozen years of it got so bad he had to go on workmanship comp for over 6 months until he could breath somewhat normally. He came back to work and was just as bad again in a week and was wearing a P95 mask. He was pensioned out by workmanship comp. As uncomfortable as it is get a cartridge mask and wear it.

Pete

Some of our T&C grinders have extraction, but not the big surface and cylindrical grinders. Fortunately I'm not in the CNC building; the air in there can get quite smokey

I have my fancy Cleanspace P3 half face respirator that I wear when grinding, although I'm wearing it all the time now with covid