Should WW Forums have a position on dust hazards and practices?

[noty]

Yes Groggy a couple of comments.
This thread seems to have been answered a while back with a no-It is up to us, not the forum to create input for this.(not denying your help) So maybe a new thread-Creating a FAQ sticky for good dust extraction would help because I am reading useful stuff here on the basics of extraction which has little to do with the thread name. I am here via Gunnaduit's bandsaw! Thanks for hanging in Gunnaduit. Oh, and by the way I don't believe that stuff about you not caring for other people's health.
Cheers, Tony.

[Gunnaduit]

Waldo, I think your point is that you don't want some authoritarian big brother type force to take away a bloke's freedom to do what he wants in his own shed. So, could that happen just from reading a faq? How?

What if the idea is just to alert newcomers, if they care to know, that there is one hazard in the workshop that you can't see, and that not many hobbyists know about, but is really there all the same - the respirable dust.

Why is it a bad thing to alert people to a hazard that they might want to know about? They don't have to listen to the advice if they don't want to. Nobody has to do anything. It's advice to newcomers like young people coming into the hobby. The motivation comes from an interest in remaining healthy into old age, plus an interest in not being ripped off by false advertising on bad products.

They won't tell you about respirable dust in the shop, because then they'd have to admit their products just let a lot of it through. That's the conspiracy going on if you want to find a conspiracy. Actually I don't think there is any conspiracy, it's just that it's cheaper to make slack products than quality products, it's as simple as that. If you want independent discussion and advice, by forum members for forum members, that is what the faq is for.

[Gunnaduit]

Oh, and by the way I don't believe that stuff about you not caring for other people's health.

Yeah, well, Noty, sometimes you have to look a bit tough and uncaring, when there's a pub brawl going on.

[Groggy]

Yes Groggy a couple of comments.
This thread seems to have been answered a while back with a no-It is up to us, not the forum to create input for this.(not denying your help) So maybe a new thread-Creating a FAQ sticky for good dust extraction would help because I am reading useful stuff here on the basics of extraction which has little to do with the thread name. I am here via Gunnaduit's bandsaw! Thanks for hanging in Gunnaduit. Oh, and by the way I don't believe that stuff about you not caring for other people's health.
Cheers, Tony.

Last night I created the FAQ thread and locked it. The initial content of the FAQ will come from this thread as it already has some very good information. Once the FAQ is up and running I will unlock the FAQ thread so it can move into a normal sustainment mode on its own, this thread can then be closed off.

Yeah, let's have warnings about Ozzito and XU1 stuff as opposed to better quality stuff while we're at it.

Onya Waldo, there's always one I get your drift, and know it is tongue in cheek, but as far as the FAQ goes it is just to lay out a series of condensed facts and warnings for the new punter to read and learn from. If they choose not to act on the information that is entirely up to them.


Lets wait until the FAQ appears and critique it then so we are not shooting shadows.

[Waldo]

Gunaduit, I don't see it that way sorry. There's alwAys lengths you can go to try and try and mitigate risks, but how far you go and whether or not that is sufficient for one person or not is for that person to determine, and it may oray not be what you or I might choose for myself or not. So with that I fail to see what out one you expect of this.



I'm not suggesting it's wrong or right though. But a count of a percentage per micron of dust per area etc. may or may not be tolerable from one to another person. My plumbing set up may or may not be ideal based on Bill Pentz for example, mainly as it did my head on trying to understand it all. But I know its better than it ever was, and following advise of oDthers the dusty has long been outside in its own she'd and with it is a 44 gal drum acting as a second stage collection. I also have a room filter which runs for a few hours after using any machinery. It's helped keep dust down considerably and noticeably. Bit my set up isn't another's.

You can do what you can, but can you do everything? Of course some dustier and cyclones are more efficient than others and everything you do is determined by what you can afford.

[Gunnaduit]

Waldo, I 100% agree with all of what you have just said. Lengths taken to mitigate risk are a personal choice that will vary from one person to the next, and depends on their circumstances. Different people will have different susceptibility (but nobody knows the odds). You can do what you can, but you can’t do everything. At some point there is still going to be a risk factor.

What will a faq achieve? To me it looks like you have answered the question already. You already know about this stuff, you’ve already looked at Bill Pentz, and had a go at improving your situation with regard to the exposure risk.

What the faq will do is make it easier for people to get across the issue, like you did, help them to assess their own risk, and also find out about possible options they might choose to take. It is a starting point. We can’t stop nature, the problem will still be there. But if the ‘Showcase’ faq that Groggy is suggesting can stand up, it will show what others are doing with regard to this issue. That will help those who want to pursue it to spend their resources more wisely and more strategically in order to deal with the problem, as they see it.

[Waldo]

That's fair enough.

[m2c1Iw]

Looks like things are on a roll so I'll add a comment based on my experience in building and installing an exterior vented Bill Pentz style cyclone DE system. It is not enough. The table saw is the main offender and despite many hours of tinkering I've decided it is impractical to exclude dust from the work area from a TS. So I've since added a Microclean filter to the shed but I'm still not confident these precautions are enough particularly when running machinery so I invested in a quality respirator with pre filters and use it religiously.
Therefore I would add:

Do not rely on a DE system or air filters for respiratory dust protection a quality respirator should be worn at all times during and after operating woodworking machinery.

[Chris Parks]

Bill P makes that exact statement, you must still wear a personal respirator and some choose to and a lot don't. I would be interested to discuss what you find hard with the TS as I have always found it to be the easiest to deal with. perhaps take it to PM so not to go off topic.

[m2c1Iw]

Bill P makes that exact statement, you must still wear a personal respirator and some choose to and a lot don't. I would be interested to discuss what you find hard with the TS as I have always found it to be the easiest to deal with. perhaps take it to PM so not to go off topic.

Done

[GraemeCook]

Just back from a fishing trip with a friend of 50yrs who runs a moderate sized panel beating shop - about 20 employees - with lots of fine to very fine dust and some rather nasty chemicals. Coincidentally while waiting for the fish to find us we had an interesting conversation on this topic - but for a commercial shop; NOT a home workshop.

He has just finished converting his shop from mainly Italian made Rupes sanders to the slightly more expensive German made Festool sanders. His reason was based purely on the effectiveness of their dust collection systems interconnected to an integrated shop-wide air control system, (not using their proprietary vacuums), on his duty of care to his employees and the constantly changing requirements to provide a safe working environment. Apparently over the last decade most court cases have been against the employer/insurer and the standard for workplace safety seems, in his opinion, always to be a little higher than that in the last court decision. Standards keep rising.

Few home workshops create the volume of dust as their commercial counterparts, but even fewer have sophisticated air processing systems. Perhaps the handiman might therefore be even more exposed than the tradesman????

Just adding to the debate.

Fair Winds

Graeme

[bill pentz]

Dust risks and collection are really very simple, but there is so much bad information, equipment and advice that few have good dust collection or safe shops.

Woodworking dust poses numerous hazards, and most fail to protect themselves amply from two of the greatest risks, chemical exposure and fine dust exposure.

Before working any wood you should check a good wood toxicity table such as: WoodToxicityTable because wood contains many toxic chemicals. Additionally, many woods often carry other toxic chemicals from exposure to herbicides, pesticides, finishes, preservatives, etc.

Medical researchers have so studied the health risks of fine invisible dust that a Google search on “PM Health Risks” now gives over 77 million references. The bottom line is every exposure to fine invisible dust causes a measurable loss of respiratory capacity and some of this loss becomes permanent. The more and longer the exposure the greater the loss. Medical insurance studies show in large woodworking facilities workers lose about 1% to 2% of their respiratory capacity per year of work.

This is horrible news for small shop woodworkers. Particle meters show that most of us receive more exposure in a few hours work than full time large commercial facility woodworkers receive in months. The reason is simple. Those big facilities almost all have much better dust collection systems that vent their dust outside. Affordable air quality meters such as the Dylos Products 0.5-micron meters (use my name for a small discount) show our systems are pretty ineffective and because we trap this dust inside it builds to dangerously high levels even in the cleanest looking shops.

The simple fix is buy and wear a good fitted dual cartridge respirator mask such as a 3M 7500 with the fine dust filters. Additionally, to keep the fine dust from building you need to open your shop main door and run a strong commercial fan that blows out a side door or window to get good cross-flow ventilation. Our meters show we need to put on our masks and fans before starting to make fine dust and then leave the masks and fans on for about a half hour after we finish making fine dust.

If you can’t or won’t vent outside then you need good fine dust collection. I have thousands of hours invested with suggestions from hundreds of experts that share on my web pages how to affordably get good fine dust collection. Wayne Davey and others on this forum long ago started making cyclone based systems using my help and designs to get good fine dust collection.

Regardless, I am now taking classes on effective web design and illustrations to totally redo my pages. I welcome suggestions and help as I also want these pages to be far more helpful.

bill pentz

[Groggy]

Bill, thank you for posting here and congratulations for achieving so much in raising the general knowledge of dust danger and collection amongst non-professional woodworkers.

As a moderator of these forums I would like to request your permission to be quoted and hyperlinked once the FAQ is built. Obviously you will always have the right to request removal to any links to your content you feel are inappropriate or out of context.

[BobL]

The simple fis is buy and wear a good fitted dual cartridge respirator mask such as a 3M 7500 with the fine dust filters.

Just a reminder that a respirator may not do anything for eye based, and will not do nothing for skin based health reactions. Also it's not just good enough to remove a mask 30 minutes after dust making activity, in addition one should remove and wash ones clothing and take a shower as the human body acts like a chimney as the fine dust fluffed off clothing with movement will funnel upwards into respiratory tract openings. This information comes from OHS principles associated with management of radioactive dust. In the radioactive business respirators are used in addition to taking all other possible precautions first.

[bill pentz]

Bill, thank you for posting here and congratulations for achieving so much in raising the general knowledge of dust danger and collection amongst non-professional woodworkers.

As a moderator of these forums I would like to request your permission to be quoted and hyperlinked once the FAQ is built. Obviously you will always have the right to request removal to any links to your content you feel are inappropriate or out of context.

You are welcome and have my permission to be quoted and hyperlinked...

Also, you are welcome to make suggestions toward my web pages rewrite.

bill