Lung damage

R

RugerNurse

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Jul 13, 2019
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Someone in a YouTube video stated small bits of metal can become airborne with sharpening knives dry, is this true? I can understand wearing a mask while grinding metal to shape the blade but haven’t thought about just using a Spyderco sharp maker or some dry stone.
 
You have way more things to worry about than that. Like normal dust in the air or god forbid, diesel exhaust! Still, I never sharpen with anything dry. I always use water as in my experience it improves the cutting action and helps wash the swarf away. This includes plated diamonds.
 
someone on the internets advises to use spyderco sharpmaker stones with oil . so i do . then no concerns about airbones . but with machined dry sharpening methods of course one could be concerned . wow K kreisler you are very helpful .
RugerNurse said:
using a Spyderco sharp maker or some dry stone.
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You should disinfect door knobs every time someone uses it too. Some people are really on over kill setting. Dont stress it. But I also use water and dawn mix on all my stones due to better cutting and easier on the knife and stones.
 
I figured it was overkill but just curious. Working as a nurse I’m exposed to all sorts of stuff without incidence.
Don’t know much about knives sharpening though.
 
Everything said on Youtube should be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.

A person doesn't need to actually know what they are talking about to be on Youtube, just a camera and a computer or smartphone.
 
Dry stones tend to collect and hold swarf, rather than scatter it to the air. This is actually the reason most stones are better used with some form of lubrication, to keep that swarf from sticking to the stone and making it easy to wipe away. Unless there's a very strong movement of air, as from a nearby fan or wind through a window, I've never noticed an issue with swarf getting airborne when sharpening by hand on stones. And ceramic hones will really hold any swarf scrubbed from the blade. They're actually more tenacious in their tendency to not let it go, and are therefore more challenging to keep clean if they're used dry.

I've been a little more careful with stuff like SiC wet/dry sandpaper, when using it dry. It'll shed a lot of the SiC grit, which also gets broken down as it's used and therefore generates a lot of fine black dust. So a lot of dust is generated, between the SiC grit and any swarf present. Even then, so long as I've been sensible about NOT doing something careless like flailing the dirty sheets around in the air, I've not found any reason to worry about that.

And I've also been careful with some dry powder form chromium oxide grit, which I obtained at a lapidary supply store and used for strops, mixed with some mineral oil. That green powder is extremely fine (0.5-1 micron nominal grit size) and makes a green-stained mess of anything it gets spilled on. I make sure I use it in a space that's very still in terms of air movement, and close up the container immediately after I've measured out a small amount (1/8 tsp. or less) for mixing with the oil.

My sinuses are pretty hyperreactive to most anything in the air (very low humidity, dust, pollen, smoke, scented products, etc). So, I tend to notice right away, anything that's even marginally dusty in the air. Sharpening on stones is one of the things I've not noticed many issues with, at all.
 
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Your lungs have a defense mechanism to protect you from a certain amount of things like metal dust. It's when you overload it that there is a problem.
 
catspa said:
So I guess licking the swarf off my stones is a bad idea? Tastes kinda icky but I never would’ve suspected it was bad for ya.

Parker
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Everything in moderation! Trace elements and minerals are essential part of a mans diet. :)
 
No, iron is a metal. You can't absorb metallic iron and the lungs will mostly expelled it (cough it up). If you get it in the eyes and it stays there in any quantity you can not have a MRI (the magnets will rip the iron out in a most unpleasant way).
 
RugerNurse said:
Someone in a YouTube video stated small bits of metal can become airborne with sharpening knives dry, is this true? I can understand wearing a mask while grinding metal to shape the blade but haven’t thought about just using a Spyderco sharp maker or some dry stone.
Click to expand...
How much metal do you think those Spyderco stones remove? How much of that metal do you think is put into the air? Do you believe if you could measure it it would be significant? Or that perhaps their are more pertinent things to worry about like your 401k, diet and exercise.
 
Hazard recognition and risk analysis are very personal to each individual. I’m scared of things that haven’t even occurred to you, and vise versa. Our resulting decisions and precautions sometimes seem silly to each other.

That said, I firmly believe it’s better for us each to do our own thing than to try to enforce our own preferences onto each other. Do what you must to accept the level and mix of risks you choose, and don’t be surprised if I don’t understand it.

Parker
 
Not too worried about metal dust, but now I’m wondering how good it is to inhale .25 micron diamond dust when dry stropping. Maybe a little oil is a good idea??
 
"The lungs are constantly exposed to danger from the dusts we breathe. Luckily, the lungs have another function - they have defense mechanisms that protects them by removing dust particles from the respiratory system. For example, during a lifetime, a coal miner may inhale 1,000 g of dust into his lungs. When doctors examine the lungs of a miner after death, they find no more than 40 g of dust. Such a relatively small residue illustrates the importance of the lungs' defenses, and certainly suggests that they are quite effective. On the other hand, even though the lungs can clear themselves, excessive inhalation of dust may result in disease.

What happens when we breathe in dust?​

The lungs are protected by a series of defense mechanisms in different regions of the respiratory tract.
When a person breathes in, particles suspended in the air enter the nose, but not all of them reach the lungs. The nose is an efficient filter. Most large particles are stopped in it, until they are removed mechanically by blowing the nose or sneezing.
Some of the smaller particles succeed in passing through the nose to reach the windpipe and the dividing air tubes that lead to the lungs [more information about how particles entering the lungs].
These tubes are called bronchi and bronchioles. All of these airways are lined by cells. The mucus they produce catches most of the dust particles. Tiny hairs called cilia, covering the walls of the air tubes, move the mucus upward and out into the throat, where it is either coughed up and spat out, or swallowed.
The air reaches the tiny air sacs (alveoli) in the inner part of the lungs with any dust particles that avoided the defenses in the nose and airways. The air sacs are very important because through them, the body receives oxygen and releases carbon dioxide.
Dust that reaches the sacs and the lower part of the airways where there are no cilia is attacked by special cells called macrophages. These are extremely important for the defense of the lungs. They keep the air sacs clean. Macrophages virtually swallow the particles. Then the macrophages, in a way which is not well understood, reach the part of the airways that is covered by cilia. The wavelike motions of the cilia move the macrophages which contain dust to the throat, where they are spat out or swallowed."

It's all about how much you inhale.
I have to wonder how the amount inhaled by hand sharpening for years might compare to the amount inhaled by a person grinding one knife on a power grinder for one minute.



www.ccohs.ca

What are the Effects of Dust on the Lungs?

What are the lungs? The lungs are the organs of breathing: they are responsible bringing oxygen from the atmosphere into the body through a series of branching air tubes (Figure 1) and exchanging it for carbon dioxide that is released back into the atmosphere.
www.ccohs.ca www.ccohs.ca
 
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