Respirator or no respirator, that is the question… (part 2)

S2nd said:
I use the half-face 3M mask shown here: 3M LINK

It was about $27+tax at Home Depot. My lungs thanked me.
Click to expand...

So this'll do (with #6005 cartridges, plus the adapters, and cotton prefilters) for amateur low-intensity stock removal, belt-sanding assorted handles/scales, and the odd convex grinding project? I'll be stopping by Home Depot on the way home...

My lungs and family thank you folks...
 
After reading the dangers of metal working I've become afraid of this bussiness.
Thats what i'll do:
I use a gas mask used by painters and will modify it a bit. I will make an air-tight socket attached to a hose and mask, and the hose will be connected to a polen filter on the roof of my shop. The hose lenght will be adjustable (the mechanism similar to some vacuum cleaner cable adjusters). The air I will breathe while grinding, etching, mixing epoxy components etc. will be 99% from out of the shop and polen&dust free (I am also Asthmatic).
If I think what I do is less dangerous I can easily switch to normal filtering.
Opinions ? I'm going to build it tomorrow.
 
Any Crap you can keep out of your lungs is a good thing.

Little rusty spots of steel and grit, and fiberglass don't break down in the lungs very quickly.
All MFG. areas have their lung problems, platers breath acid, inulation workers breath fiberglass or silicates, sand blaster, painters. POPCORN poppers get popcorn lung.

KEEP all the crap you can out of those lungs. That includes keeping the shop relatively dust free. Proper ventialtion and breathing are a very good thing.
 
Sweany said:
Any Crap you can keep out of your lungs is a good thing.

Little rusty spots of steel and grit, and fiberglass don't break down in the lungs very quickly.
All MFG. areas have their lung problems, platers breath acid, inulation workers breath fiberglass or silicates, sand blaster, painters. POPCORN poppers get popcorn lung.

KEEP all the crap you can out of those lungs. That includes keeping the shop relatively dust free. Proper ventialtion and breathing are a very good thing.
Click to expand...

Darn good advice, Mike. I'm having a problem similar in my shop right now. I have vacuums and filters and gas masks and now I am thinking of making a room just for grinding. The room would have positive airflow across AND AWAY from me as I grind, and right out of the building. My heating bill will suffer when I am grinding, but it's a small price to pay for the freedom and luxury of grinding maskless. Its the only thing I believe will work under the circumstances. There is still airborne particles for a long time after grinding. All that goes in your lungs. Better to evacuate it out into the atmosphere imo.
 
Don't forget fumes from thinners, glues, etc.

Much of the stuff we breath while working my no t kill you today or tomorrow - many are cumulative taking many years to reach a level of toxicity that is dangerous to ones health - but at that time it's usually way to late (I have a serious liver disease and one cause is most likely years of breathing fumes from glues, thinners, etc along with dust from all kinds of wood and metal - no cure but death)

Here's a list of some woods and their toxicities.....
http://www.mendelu.cz/~horacek/toxic.htm

Finally don't be scared - just get smart...
 
When using my grinder, I use a dust collector...this helps a lot. I also wear a single filter dust/paint respirator when grinding steel and a dual cartridge respirator with organic cartridges when grinding handle material...

I can't stand the black boogers syndrome or coughing up steel dust at the end of the day...call me silly...

:)

-Darren
 
Ok, on the same note--what kind of dust collectors do you guys use ?
I've looked at some of the larger ones.....but it seems a bit silly to use a cloth bag with sparks, and forcing air into it !! :eek:
What about noise levels--are the dust collectors loud ?
 
I am new to knife making, but I work in the Hospital as a Respiratory Therapist. Listen to the warnings once you have lung damage it is to late.
I see people die every day from this and it is not the way you want to go!!! It is very long slow expensive death not to mention it hurts like &^%$#@!!.
A little bit MAY not harm you but how do you know when you are over the line and it will catch up to you. Yes it might be a few years down the road and you think you have beat it but I can not over state that once damage occurs it never reverses itself belive me as I said I see peole die from lung damage it is my job.
Cheers Ron
 
S.Shepherd said:
Ok, on the same note--what kind of dust collectors do you guys use ?
I've looked at some of the larger ones.....but it seems a bit silly to use a cloth bag with sparks, and forcing air into it !! :eek:
What about noise levels--are the dust collectors loud ?
Click to expand...


Probably the safest way is to build a water trap for your dust collector. I use a regular dust collector with the cloth bags, but have it first go through a cyclone separator that is set on top of a trashcan with water in the bottom of it. YMMV.

-Darren
 
Being allergic to many things, I have to avoid dust other scraps...
Before, I had problems with a half-mask and safeties glasses...

But I bought a full face mask and never I would return behind !
No more dust in eyes and it is very comfortable!

mask.jpg


I also bought the flexible pipes (see second picture) which allow me
to put the cartridges in the back. Like that, the cartridge
work much more long time because it are less exposed
to the dust...

mask2.jpg


Alain Miville-Deschênes
http://www.miville-deschenes.com/amd_anglais/index.html
 
Alain M-D said:
Being allergic to many things, I have to avoid dust other scraps...
Before, I had problems with a half-mask and safeties glasses...

But I bought a full face mask and never I would return behind !
No more dust in eyes and it is very comfortable!

mask.jpg


I also bought the flexible pipes (see second picture) which allow me
to put the cartridges in the back. Like that, the cartridge
work much more long time because it are less exposed
to the dust...

mask2.jpg


Alain Miville-Deschênes
http://www.miville-deschenes.com/amd_anglais/index.html
Click to expand...


Who makes those masks ??
 
S.Shepherd said:
Ok, on the same note--what kind of dust collectors do you guys use ?
I've looked at some of the larger ones.....but it seems a bit silly to use a cloth bag with sparks, and forcing air into it !! :eek:
What about noise levels--are the dust collectors loud ?
Click to expand...
Another way from what was told you above is, call John Mallett at Tru Grit and ask him about the vacuum system he sells. It's not on his website(at least it didn't used to be), so you'll have to talk to him about it.
It's high zoot capri, and is made for metal grinding, and has the spark/fire retard boxes in the line and all. It's fairly quiet, and it's also very expensive, at least compared to the dust collectors we are used to seeing from Harbor Freight, etc., but it really works.
This thing is the real deal.

http://www.trugrit.com/


You can get air purifiers for your shop also. They hang from the ceiling, and trap particles in the filters. They can clean a shop of floating micarta dust pretty quick. They are not very expensive either.:eek: ;)

This is just something extra to go along with all the rest of the stuff.:D
 
Mike Hull said:
Another way from what was told you above is, call John Mallett at Tru Grit and ask him about the vacuum system he sells. It's not on his website(at least it didn't used to be), so you'll have to talk to him about it.
It's high zoot capri, and is made for metal grinding, and has the spark/fire retard boxes in the line and all. It's fairly quiet, and it's also very expensive, at least compared to the dust collectors we are used to seeing from Harbor Freight, etc., but it really works.
This thing is the real deal.

http://www.trugrit.com/


You can also get air purifiers for your shop also. They hang from the ceiling, and trap particles in the filters. They can clean a shop of floating micarta dust pretty quick. They are not very expensive either.:eek: ;)

This is just something extra to go along with all the rest of the stuff.:D
Click to expand...

I have one of the air purifier boxes...still doesn't keep dust from going everywhere...especially when grinding stabalised wood.
Whats the one from tru grit run?
 
Something that We have found to help in our little shop (12x12)
is an exhaust fan, it freezes you in the winter, but it's supposed to exchange
all the air in the shop in 1 minute. We also use respirators and a dust collector.
A long time knifemaker in georgia that invited us to his shop, actually had
a huge chicken house fan on the wall behind his grinders, when he turned that
thing on with his doors open, it felt like you were in a wind tunnel.
I dont know what he does in the winter, but in the summer his shop was dustless.
 
Another related topic... I'm using what looks to be an older version of Jet's 1HP dust collection system. It has a two bags, one I assume is the collection bag, and above it is what I assume is the filter bag (it sort of inflates when I turn the unit on). When I get a grinder I'll probably rely on a water catch system underneath it, then clean up the rest afterward (while wearing a respirator). But, for doing handles and that kind of stuff, what size bags should i run on this thing? The ones on there are the stock woodworking bags, and I have a feeling the dust I make when doing handles is a lot smaller size than woodworking stuff. Should I get a 5 micron bag, or something smaller or larger? Is there a preferred supplier? Does the collection bag need to be different, too, or just the filter bag?
 
S.Shepherd said:
I have one of the air purifier boxes...still doesn't keep dust from going everywhere...especially when grinding stabalised wood.
Whats the one from tru grit run?
Click to expand...
IIRC, it's $11-1200.00. Nothing to sneeze at, but it's made just for these tasks, not some wood dust sucker that will catch on fire with the first spark, and still put toxic particles, and gases back into your shop.

This one will trap the particles, and vent the gases only, outside, high up, and unlike an exhaust fan, won't put the toxic stuff outside to harm animals, or humans using the area, or killing the soil(I've actually seen that from an exhaust fan), so nothing will ever grow on it.

I would talk to John on this though, as I'm not totally sure of that price.
First time I ever saw one was in Bob Loveless' shop, years ago, and it was really nice. He was grinding some micarta handles, and not a bit of dust was floating. You could barely even smell it.
 
if you have problems with your safetyglasses fogging up wear a fullface shield...!! also comes in handy if you fall asleep at the grinder...!


this is a old pic but same stuff I use today......noise is another thing you need to think about...sure it wont have you die early but those ears are good for ya....I wear safety shoes as well.....probably a good thing since I always try to catch stuff with my feet to avoid them getting dinged by the concreete floor....

safety.jpg
 
OK You've scared me into it!

FWIW I use the grizzly shop vac with the 5 micron bag. My test is grinding antler. If I can smell it, then fumes are making it to my nose. And my collector is directly under the grinder.

Happily I can barely smell the burning antler. To me it means the bag is filtering pretty darn well.

I have a half mask, but the goggles don't fit right and the nose part doesn't seat well on my wierd shaped head. The weight of the setup pulls on the neck hard. Needless to say I don't use it.

But if Alain's setup is workable, I think I'll add that protection too.

Steve
 
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