Do you wear your respirator at the bandsaw?

[Patrice Lemée]

Metal cutting bandsaw I mean.

Realized for the first time this morning that there is a lot of steel dust in the air around the bandsaw when in use. And I don't know about you but I don't work at arms length, usually my face is a lot closer to the work.
Thinking about dust extraction there too and of course respirator.

What do you guys do?

 

[KnuckleDownKnives]

I have dust collection at mine. It doesn't get all of it as most of the dust is rather large compared to say my grinder, and some stays on the table because the slit in the table tends to fill up, but it works pretty good. I don't wear a respirator when using it, but I would feel fairly comfortably saying the smaller particulate is picked up by the dust collection. Also a note, my dust collection system at the moment is not very powerful, so someone with a good collection system would probably work much better. Mine simply cuts down on the dust.

 

[REK Knives]

I wear mine almost always when working, doesn't matter what. Better to be safe than sorry and get cancer or something. Check out all the stuff this has kept out of my lungs in about 2 months (3m breathe easy papr)

and the clean inside

 

[Patrice Lemée]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I decided to start with the dust collector option. Only my shop-vac for now, we'll see ho that goes. I really don't want to wear the respirator all the time. Maybe just for extended time at the bandsaw but most of the time it is a small cut here and there.

Here is a pic of my temporary setup.



Thanks again.