Health- Does anyone work wet all the time

Cardinal Knife

Cardinal Knife

Joined
Nov 25, 2007
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340
I've become hypersensitive to many things involved in knife making and am wondering if any of you have run your grinder wet for handle shaping (G10, micarta, and wood taken into consideration)? Seems like it would be a complete mess but I'm at a crossroads. I currently run vacuum trap under the belt and exhaust it out the window. I use a full face 3m mask with ear muffs and gloves. When done I remove clothes and shower.
Just recently I began considering selling off my hobby due to future health concerns, but I really don't want it to come to that.
Chris
 
sounds like you are well protected. are you still experiencing issues from the dust ?
 
Running a grinder wet is becoming very common. I wouldn't pour the water on but a steady drip slow drip is all that is needed. Rod Neilsen who makes the magnetic disc grinders for sale has told me that doing the slow drip on a disc grinder can have a large effect on extending sand paper life.
Frank
 
john april said:
sounds like you are well protected. are you still experiencing issues from the dust ?
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If I do as I stated I don't have many problems. I'm still learning; things like washing my mask before putting back into the bag and wearing full body covering with phenolics. Allowing the garage to fully ventilate before re-entering. As a result of all these extra steps I've noticed that I am doing less of the hobby I love.
 
There may be another hobby just waiting, that you'd enjoy just as much without the worry.
That said, if I was experiencing great sensitivity to dust, the first thing I'd ditch would be the synthetics. Carbon Fiber is the worst for me, followed by G10 and Micarta. Grinding wet might make it not an issue, though- make sure to wear those blue nitrile or similar gloves.
Why not try using stabilized American hardwoods, wet, and see how it goes?
 
I think I'd look into upgrading your dust collection. I'm not sensitive at all to any of the materials, but will be hopefully running a 5hp dust collector in an enclosed grinding room before long.
 
Dust collection
I still wear a respirator, but the filters take months to get any noticeable buildup. And the shop is always nice and clean.
I also prefer using a broom and sweeping compound to clean the floor instead of a shop vac. The shop vac tends to blow dust off of every surface, and it settles back down on them all when you're done.
The shop is noticeably cleaner after ditching the vacuum, it made almost as much of a difference as the dust collection
 
elementfe said:
There may be another hobby just waiting, that you'd enjoy just as much without the worry.
That said, if I was experiencing great sensitivity to dust, the first thing I'd ditch would be the synthetics. Carbon Fiber is the worst for me, followed by G10 and Micarta. Grinding wet might make it not an issue, though- make sure to wear those blue nitrile or similar gloves.
Why not try using stabilized American hardwoods, wet, and see how it goes?
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That's actually a pretty good idea. And I'll have nicer looking knives to boot.
 
kuraki said:
I think I'd look into upgrading your dust collection. I'm not sensitive at all to any of the materials, but will be hopefully running a 5hp dust collector in an enclosed grinding room before long.
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Kuraki, I wasn't either. I remember getting into this hobby about 10 years ago. I had your typical cocky male thing going on telling myself I didn't need to wear a mask. I mean, why would I if I had no side effects. The problem is these reactions didn't start developing until a few years ago, after it was too late to do anything about it. I wasn't so careless that I took a block of cocobolo to the grinder for 20 minutes straight without wearing a mask, but there were a lot of small exposures here and there that quickly added up. If you google Type 1 hypersensitivity there's more than enough scientific reading to bore you.
 
I'm sorry I didn't mean to imply anything about developing sensitivity, or that I don't believe exposure to inhalation isn't dangerous. I can empathize with anyone who finds themselves hypersensitive to these things given my life long, sometimes severe, allergies to pollen and mold.

My point was that even though I don't have a hypersensitivity to these products, I personally don't find a vacuum or small 1hp hobby dust collector sufficient, and will be upgrading my dust collection to something closer to industrial capability.

Wet grinding may make it more tolerable in the moment, but the dust your system doesn't capture will dry out and become airborne again.

I grind with a full face respirator without exception but my clothes and every horizontal surface still collect dust. I think the only way to truly minimize that is sufficient collection.
 
Grinding wet won't be a complete solution. There will be a lot of post grinding cleaning involved too. As has been pointed out, the residual dust will eventually dry out and blow around the shop. If the plan is to always keep the dust wet, be aware that all kinds of nastiness will breed on wet dust...legionella, fungus, etc.

Read Bill Pentz's website, he started looking into dust collection after developing a sensitivity to wood dust. It's a big site, and Bill repeats himself a bit, but Bill also made most of the mistakes you can make with dust collection systems so if you read the full site you should be able to set up an effective dust collection system for your wood and handle material dust and get it right on the first try.

You'll probably want a separate grinder for the handle work, with at least a 2 Hp dust collector hooked to it to move enough air. More Hp would be better, but a lot depends on the hood design...

Then we can talk about collecting the metal dust...
 
I have my shop, in my garage and I built a grinder stand that is about 18 inches from one of the steel roll up doors. I grind sitting down in a chair and I have a twenty inch fan just a few inches from my right elbow which I turn on full when grinding. I wear a respirator and the fan sends a blast of air right at my small work rest and blows the dust and steel particles out the door. I wear a long sleeve white shirt buttoned up to my neck when a I use a slack belt on cocobolo which makes me cough and itch and I hold my breath sometimes for a minute when grinding cocobolo. I then strip and shower right away and that does the trick for me. Don't quit making knives...just make some changes to eliminate the dust. Good luck. Larry
 
I have been fully wet grinding for about 3 years now and love it, will never go back. I grind g10, micarta, cf, along with all steel wet. I wear a vinyl apron that is waterproof which catches anything the basin underneath doesn't, but I never walk away with dust all over me like others are describing (note: I will get steel dust/spray on my arms when hogging metal at high speed) Is it perfect? No. I do still have dust in my shop that will collect (as Kuraki pointed out will happen) but it cuts down on it a TON and I have no other dust collection system. I do use the above in conjunction with a 3m Breathe Easy PAPR which I absolutely love as well.
 
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