Carving Marble and other stone - CAUTION

[phd1658]

OK, I'm sure a lot of you guys already know this, and I am definitely a newby.......but I came across some disturbing info today. I went by a granite and marble distributor/installer. They were gracious enough to give me a couple of samples to work with, but cautioned that the dust generated by marble and several other types of stone material generated a lot of free silica which will lead to silicosis and lung cancer. Now I know that you need to be wearing a good respirator, but this guy said it had to be better than most people use. He said they made their people use them AND used wet cutting to keep the dust down. The forum threads that I read didn't mention this, and again, I'm sure many of you are already aware. I just wanted to pass the info along........don't want any of my fellow shopbotters getting into trouble with this stuff!

[curtiss]

I know MDF dust is not good to inhale, I stand back / outside most of the time.

What other materials top the list?

[khalid]

sandblasting or anything related to silica dust causes silicosis and lung cancer...

MDF dust is dangerous to lungs and must be avoided..

[billp]

Anything which generates fine particles is probably hazardous to your well being, and that would include almost all foam products as well as most sawdust....I'd put Extira right near the top of this list myself...!!!

[kivimagi]

What kind of precautions do you folks take to avoid the dust? I have a fantastic dust collector, but I continue to have dust build up from the kerfs, etc.

I don't want to end up on the wrong side of lung cancer cause I like to hang out in the wood shop.

[john_hartman]

My three weapons to battle air contaminants: dust collector, air scrubber and "dust be gone" washable dust mask. I avoid MDF, sheet goods filled with formaldehyde resins and only use water-borne paints, stains and clear coats.

[phd1658]

I too have a dust mask and dust collector. I'm thinking seriously about an air scrubber as well. Meantime, I've hung anti-static plastic sheet around the bot. I'm strongly considering building a "room" around it next. I'm thinking that this would not only help keep the dust from spreading through the basement, but also keep some of the noise down that my better half has graciously ignored.........so far! The biggest issue is that my work area is quite small and if I build a room, I need to make it such that I can still gain full access to the machine.

[billp]

A good rule of thumb: if you wouldn't eat it before you cut it, try not to breath it after you do.....

[terryd]

I second Bill's classification of Extira. Its the only thing in all the industrial dust I have inhaled over the years that turned me shades of green made me physically ill for days. The reaction was slow to come on but then it was full pop by the end of the day and it took about a week to recover. Wasnt my first time using it either....scary stuff.

[rb99]

http://www.extira.com/pdf/MSDS_ex.pdf

RB

[rb99]

Section 9: SPECIAL PRECAUTIONS AND COMMENTS
WOOD DUST CAN CAUSE LUNG, UPPER RESPIRATORY TRACT,
EYE AND SKIN IRRITATION. SOME WOOD SPECIES MAY CAUSE DERMATITIS AND/OR ALLERGIC RESPIRATORY EFFECTS. THE INTERNATIONAL AGENCY FOR RESEARCH ON CANCER (IARC) HAS CLASSIFIED WOOD DUST AS A NASAL CARCINOGEN IN HUMANS.

I never knew wood dust cause nose cancer!

RB

[billp]

Terry,
That seems consistent with a number of reports here on the Forum of people using the same product (Extira) and having inconsistent quality. I think it may have been Joe Crumley (who uses a lot of it) who suggested that they may not be applying their coatings the same way from batch to batch, and that could be why you were lucky for awhile before getting sick...

[carlcnc]

RE: wood dust and nasal cancer
there was an article several years ago about this
in Fine Woodworking. best I recall the highlights were ,
biggest culprit was western red cedar,
something like 90% of nasal tumors were in woodworkers,good news was 90% of those tumors were benign or non cancerous.

[cbradshaw]

I need to start waring my respirator when cutting western red cedar. Just last week I told my wife that I thought I was alergic to it.

[beacon14]

After 20+ years I have become sensitized to airborne dust. I can feel it in my sinuses within a minute of turning on the dust collector even though the particles are so small they cannot be seen in the air. If I don't put on a dust mask I will then start with dry, hacking coughs like there is something stuck in my throat. I've resigned myself to wearing a mask whenever I'm cutting anything or the dust collector is on. I've finally figured out a way to vent the dust collector to the outdoors, hopefully without bothering the neighbors. I'm hoping that will help. I try to all my cutting/machining, then blow/sweep everything down, and leave the shop for a while, then come back when the air is clear to do assembly and other quiet work.

I keep a fan in the window 24/7 to draw air through the shop, which helps but I miss the giant exhaust fan we had at our last commercial shop (we could clean the shop with a leaf blower when that fan was running).

I'm more concerned now with the formaldehyde from all the melamine I have to cut. The mask helps by keeping the dust out of the lungs but I know the fumes are still there. In a perfect world I would stay away from melamine entirely but right now it's almost all I have to pay the bills with. Exhausting the DC outside will help but I'm still struggling with the best solution (other than to find another line of work). The window fan keeps it to a low level but I know the exposure is cumulative so I guess I'm slowly pickling myself as I work. Right now I'll just keep dreaming of moving to the mountains someday and just playing with solid wood all day.