Taking Wood Dust More Seriously (Long)

[lloyd morris]

The unfortunate accidents Shelley and Matt experienced recently have certainly have gotten my attention about power tools. Not that I am using any of mine lately. Their accidents prompted me to post about the problems I have been having from exposure to wood dust in my shop over the past six months.

Before setting up my workshop about a year and a half ago I read everything I could find on working safety in a woodworking shop. This included Bill Pentz's excellent information on how to avoid the dangers of wood dust found on his website.

While I followed much of Bill's advice, I did not invest in a cyclone. My dust collection system seemed appropriate and used bags which filtered down to 1.0 micron. I could have been better about changing out of my shop clothes after working on a project. I always wore a disposable dust mask but usually took it off when I turned off a power tool. In hind sight, I should have done a better job of collecting wood dust at the source especially on my contractors saw and sanding center.

I was in very good health and at 50 years old was training for a marathon and riding my bike 30 to 40 miles a week. Also no breathing problems at all for the first year of woodworking. I was the last person I thought would have any problems with a reaction to wood dust.

After working on a project for about six hours last spring, I began to have some wheezing and shortness of breath. I took a break and walked out side and felt better. This had happened once before after several hours in the shop and resolved itself within a few minutes of stopping work. A few of days later I went back in the shop. The symptoms reappeared in about an hour and were worse this time. They barely got better when I stopped working.

By that afternoon I was breathing better but was really tired and having flu-like symptoms including fever and chills, an unproductive cough and what felt like burning in my throat and chest. I thought I was coming down with a virus made worse by being in the shop that day. I just could not believe (absent any prior history) working in the shop for such a short time could make me so sick so fast.

My wife (who is a physician) came home for dinner took one look at me and said "we are going to the emergency room". Six hours of tests, breathing treatments, IV steroids and other medications later we were on our way home with a diagnosis of bronchus and asthma. Three days later I was not any better and running a fever of 103. The bronchus turns into pneumonia with more tests and medications. It is two weeks before I can walk to the top of the stairs without stopping to rest and a month of medications and breathing treatments at home.

I take five months off and try woodworking again. This time with hand tools. I use the best respirator I can find and change my clothes and shower after being in the shop and limit my work to two hours at a time. No problems in the past month. The big lesson for me is taking the first incident of shortness of breath and wheezing more seriously. Given what I know now I would have significantly improved dust collection at the source on each power tool, used a real respirator and been more careful about wood dust in general.

Hope this helps anyone who is having any symptoms of allergies from working in the shop.

Lloyd Morris

[Paul B. Cresti]

Lloyd,
You are very correct in your concerns. I like many of us have always seemed to put the DC portion of the shop as the last thing to purchase. After some very long deliberation and not wanted to spend the money I finally decided on the RL160 that I just took delivery of. As I tuned pro I found out all my new machines severely taxed my current DC system to the point that it was no longer functioning the way it should be. I had to shift some machine locations just in order to have sufficient chip removal. The problem with that is, as we have become more educated on, that chip removal alone is not the problem. We mainly need the fine stuff gone. How many times have you guys/gals gone to blow your nose and seen all the fine stuff. Sounds kind of sick, but remember some of that stuff can & will get into your lungs.
I can not give a full report on my new system yet as it is too new but I can say it has tremendous suction considering the size and the space it fits in. I also believe the clean air filtration standards it was designed for are much higher than what we have here in the USA.
Like I have said in some of my posts about European equipment, you can not put a price on your safety and HEALTH. Do not go after something just because it is cheap. Buy quality, well designed equipment and you will benefit in many ways.

[Jim Becker]

Lloyd, one of the things to also examine is what species you were working with when the problem started. Sometimes one can develope an extreme sensitivity to one or more species which then can escallate into general intollerance for wood dust. This happened to my locksmith many years ago...he had to give up all woodworking, including simple carving. He now wears gloves and a mask when mortising in a wood door even...

So if you can identify any particular trigger, avoid it totally if and when you try to restart woodworking. And invest in a pro respirator hood no matter what at this point.

[Steve Stube]

Jim is absolutely right about sensitivity to a given/particular species. Red Oak, my favorite wood, gives me real problems. If I let the chips from sawing it land on my bare arms or hit me in the face I turn red and blochy pretty quickly. I have to wrap up like a mommy to work with it. I have shortness of breath and wheezing anyway (heart condition and cigars) but I'm thinking that the Red Oak dust may be doing on the inside of me what I know it does on the outside. I need better dust control.

[lloyd morris]

Jim,

Many thanks for pointing out something missed in this whole episode. That it might be just one species of wood that triggered the initial allergic reaction and not wood dust in general just never occurred to any of us.

Weeks after the event the allergy tests indicated a strong positive reaction to several things I had never been allergic to before or since and the best medical advice was to stay away from all wood dust as a general precaution.

The Allergist (and my wife) suggested I go back for a repeat of the tests in six months which is coming up and I will ask them to test for specific wood types and we will see what turns up.

Lloyd Morris

[John Hart]

Great Thread Lloyd. Seems that Blake McCulley suffered similar symptoms caused by Cocobolo. Now he doesn't work with it at all...regretfully so.

[Gary Curtis]

I am curious. While completing purchase of an entire new shop, I left safety equipment to the very end. I puchased a 1200 cfm General DC unit with a 1 micron bag.

Today, I was compiling my personal safety equipment. Why is it that the face masks sold by Lee Valley, Highland Hardware and a few others don't list the micron screening size?

I'm thinking of getting a Tyvek suit, like those worn by spray painters, for the really dusty jobs. But I recall reading the Bill Pentz essay, and he said the .5 micron particles are the bad ones.

If I eliminate 1 micron at the DC unit, how do I filter down to 1/2 micron?

Gary Curtis:confused:

[Frank Hagan]

Some of the cartridge filters that can be added to your DC will filter to the sub-micron level. Bill mentions Wynn Engineering on his site. See http://www.wynnenv.com/35A_series_cartridge_kit.htm for info on a cartridge filter for the HF unit ... and links to others.

[Jim Bell]

Just rebuilt my shop and the dust collector is OUTSIDE. It is soooo much quieter and absolutely NO dust. That stuff will kill you. Sat afternoon. I attended the fineral of my very best and oldest friend. Iam 58 and he had just turned 60. I have a 750cfm air filter hangimg from (hepa) my shop ceiling. Two 2500 cfm exhaust fans and a Fein turbo 3 w/ a hepa filter. The hepa is the only safe way to filter air. I live in Fl and my shop is a/c. My friend was a carpenter his entire adult life and I'm sure the wood dust was at least a contributing factor. He died of cancer. He was eaten up inside but the Drs felt it probably started in his lungs. Food for thoughtt,

Jim

[Gary Curtis]

What about masks? Which are the best?

I'm not interested in over the head hoods or positive pressure systems. If it's cumbersome, human nature is such that it won't get used.

Gary Curtis

[Noel Hegan]

Llloyd, makes good sense.
Paul - " finally decided on the RL160", excuse my ignorance but what is a RL160?

Noel

[Travis Porter]

It is scary. I empathize with you and I am in the process of getting my act together. I had squeezed the LOML to agree to let me buy a new stationary tool, and she was even going to buy me a nice Minimax or Agazzani bandsaw for Christmas, but all the information I have read on dust has scared me so I have ordered a Oneida Cyclone and I am upgrading all of my sanders to use vacuum/dust collection hookups. I have a collector already, but it does not filter as well or as fine as I would like not to mention not using the right fittings and joints has reduced its performance. I as well have been trying to get into the hand tools more, and although it has taken a long long time, I can finally halfway use a handplane and understand how to tune one up and how to sharpen them as well as a chisel.

Hopefully, you will be able to get back into it, but taking it slow and doing it right the first time is the only way to go.

Your email strikes home to me. I am 41 and I am beginning to realize that it isn't always someone else things happen to, it can be you if you take too many shortcuts. Pay me now or pay me later is a very true saying.

[Don Baer]

I happen to work as a product manager for a safety house and spend a great deal of my time working with Industrial Hygenists selecting instrumentation to measure partiulate matter. any particles less the PM 10 (10 microns in size) can get into you lungs. an example of these typse of particles is asbestose which is between 6 and 8 microns. PM-1 (1 micron is so small that it can be absorbed into you blood.

Like many have stated there is no better solution then elimatring the source of partiulate. The problem as I see it is even the best cyclones don't always get the airborn stuff out of the air. I don't have a very good DC system so it would do me little good to do any measurements of airborn dust either size or concentration but when I set up my new shop next years I plan on doing just that. Air filtration system are a good way to cut down on the airborn dust that doesn't get into the DC but again I haven't realy seen any good data colected to determine the effeciencies of these systems.

NIOSH rates resperator under the NIOSH standard 42 part 84

The next best solution is a positive air system where you keep a positive pressure inside the mask. If you are going to get one of these then look for one that is rated at N100 for non oil based and P100 for Oil based aerosoles

Passive systems such asface masks are good only is they fit properly, That mean no facial hair (sorry Jim Becker and a few others) and if they have the proper filters installed. there are filters avaible but I am quite sure that the borgs don't carry them. Look for filters that have an N95 rating. Thats about as good as you going to get. These are rated down to .3 microns and are 95% effecient.

OK now I'll get off of my pulpet.

[Paul B. Cresti]

Llloyd, makes good sense.
Paul - " finally decided on the RL160", excuse my ignorance but what is a RL160?

Noel
Noel,
The RL160 is a dust collector made by Felder. It is not cheap but here are the reasons I decided on it: easily fit my space (I have 9ft ceilings but still have issues with the bigger cyclones + ducting), it offers a total of 106gl capacity for chip holding in two separate bagged compartments, It offers a tremendous amount of suction, and its fitration system is based upon a very stringent Austrian/German standard that I believe surpasses what we have here in the USA.

[Frank Hagan]

Passive systems such asface masks are good only is they fit properly, That mean no facial hair (sorry Jim Becker and a few others) and if they have the proper filters installed.

Its been a problem for me, with my moustache and beard. I did find a mask of sorts that works like a snorkle ... you put the mouthpiece in your mouth so the facial hair doesn't interfere. Its called the Resp-O-Rator and is available from places like Woodcraft and Hartville Tool.

I have the "Jr." version because it was only $10; I'm thinking of getting the full version to prevent the "woodworker slobber" from getting inside the thing. It is rated at 99% for down to .03 microns with NIOSH approval pending.

[Noel Hegan]

Thanks Paul.

Noel

[Mike Monroe]

Is the scene safe?

When in the shop and making alot of dust I wear a 3M half-face mask, I think the model number is 7500. It's very comfortable, easy to adjust and seals to my face very well. This model allows one to choose different filtration cartridges based upon the application. My typical PPE when operating a power tool is 3M half-mask with P-100 filters, Peltor ear muffs, and saftey glasses or goggles.

[Jerry Olexa]

Certain woods will bother u more than others. Last year, while working on a Cherry project I developed coughing, sneezing, etc. As I walked in my Drs. Office (also a WWer), he said: You're working w Cherry aren't you?. I got a respirator and since, all is well. Be careful. Respirators are cheap protection..

[George Matthews]

What about masks? Which are the best?

I'm not interested in over the head hoods or positive pressure systems. If it's cumbersome, human nature is such that it won't get used.

Gary Curtis
I used the 'disposable' variety for a few months and was totally unsatisfied with the fit and seal.

I then found a recommendation for North CFR-1 N95 silicone rubber mask. Excellent fit, and is comfortable even after four hours of use.

North makes other 'Cartridge' models with a similar N95 rating made of the same silicone rubber.

http://www.northsafety.com/can/en/bs_home.html

[Helen Gee]

That is a good posting for all of us! I recently had a few major allergy attacks after being negligent about sanding and the fine dust coming out(skin allergies, hives, breathing problems).

I have the same respirator that Mike has (3m 7500) and we always wear it going into the shop. It's comfortable and we can wear it for hours at a time with no problems. I haven't had anymore attacks and I really don't want to go through that again. And when funds permit, will be investing in a cyclone as well.

[Bill Pentz]

Helen,

Thank you for bringing back this thread.

Lloyd,

Thank you for sharing and I hope your health has improved.

All,

Although the following may well sound like a broken record, I still think it is well worth repeating on this thread. Following chronic sinus and respiratory problems I landed in the hospital in 1995 with near terminal pneumonia. My doctors blamed scaring from a Vietnam War injury that had not bothered or slowed me down for more than twenty years. They still said no more woodworking until I addressed the fine dust.

I upgraded to a powered respirator that I grew to hate, plus put on fine filters on my dust collectors and shop vacuums. With my respiratory problems getting worse, my wife spoiled me with a new collector that we upgraded to a new big cyclone. That cyclone was a piece of junk that moved about half the air as my 2 hp dust collector, so it went back and I threw money at the problem buying the “best” magazine rated cyclone with ducting. It seemed to move a lot of air and was obviously a very well built unit, but within a few weeks I grew to hate it also. It clogged the filter every fifteen to twenty minutes of use when routing MDF or using my wide belt sander, plus unlike my dust collector with the fine bags, my tools stayed covered in a fine layer of dust. I upgraded to the “best” recommended finer filter that left my shop cleaner. I still soon after landed back in the hospital with a severe asthma attack that triggered double pneumonia and congestive heart failure from my heart not getting enough oxygen.

Given my "best" cyclone and filter that cost so much, I could not believe my new pulmonary specialist when he blamed my woodworking, so I had a medical air quality test run on my shop and home. That test showed all clean and clear as was expected because I had not turned on a power tool for months. Before doing any woodworking just turning on my cyclone launched enough fine airborne dust that my shop failed a commercial OSHA inspection. My inspector’s particle counter showed my cyclone’s so called “best” fine 1-micron filter pumped previously made dust right through. Worse, that particle counter showed the air my cyclone stirred up launched huge amounts of near invisible dust.

With only a little woodworking while running this cyclone and my ceiling mounted air cleaner, my very clean looking shop tested with more than double the OSHA allowed airborne dust levels with fine particle counts 12,000 times higher than considered medically safe. My inspector shared that OSHA has tested thousands of small shops and almost all have dangerously high airborne dust levels. He said at these levels all eventually get ill, with about one in eight becoming debilitated.

He explained that many things contribute to this problem. Our tools have hoods that spray fine dust all over. Our dust collection systems move less than half the air needed to collect the fine dust as it is made. Our dust collectors and cyclones come with miss-rated filters that freely pass most of the fine dust. Like me many use an outdoor cyclone inside. These outdoor cyclones that almost all vendors still sell were never designed to separate off the fine airborne dust amply to be used with fine filters. My cyclone pumped so much dust into the filter that the filter self destructed from too much cleaning and the fine sharp dust particles cutting and tearing their way through the filter pores. He said what really makes the fine dust levels so unhealthy even in small shops that do little woodworking is we trap this fine dust inside where it builds to dangerously unhealthy levels unless we regularly blow out our shops. It takes six months or more for the fine dust to break down and dissipate, so it just keeps building. Airflow from our tools, dust collection, vacuums, and air compressors launch this dust airborne again and again. It so rapidly spreads in any shared air and is so easily carried on our clothes, hair, and skin, it contaminates anywhere we go. Even those of us who do little woodworking end up exposing ourselves and all close to us with dangerously unhealthy fine airborne dust levels 24 x 7. Sure enough, just passing through the sealed connection door between my home and shop was enough to contaminate my home. It was no wonder I developed problems because I was not able to get away from that fine dust exposure.

Instead of whining about this leaving me unable to climb a single flight of stairs without at least one pause, I put my thirty plus years of experience as a senior engineer and university engineering instructor to work. During my recovery time I verified and learned far more about what my inspector shared. I also learned there was not one affordable dust collector or cyclone that was safe to vent inside. Not one single hobbyist vendor, regardless of advertising claims, actually sold anything except “chip collectors”, some with finer filters that soon self-destruct. By “chip collection” I mean collecting the same sawdust and chips that we would otherwise sweep up with a broom. By fine dust collection I mean meeting at least the OSHA airborne dust standard of 5 mg per cubic meter of air averaged over an 8 hour period, or better yet the medical recommended standard already adopted in Europe which is fifty times more stringent.

I spent a lot of time gathering together all the suggested fixes and engineering far more of my own changes to try and make my cyclone suitable as a fine dust collector that would separate more of the fine dust. Although almost every vendor now uses some if not most of these suggestions, the result still overloaded and quickly wipes out fine filters. I then started from scratch designing my own far better separating cyclone, blowers, and down draft table.

My doctors were very pleased and pushed me hard to share what I learned and my cyclone design. I shared on a few forum posts. Sharing generated overwhelming email volumes forcing me to move my articles and designs to my Cyclone and Dust Collection (http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm)web pages along with my answers to the most frequently asked questions (FAQs). The more I shared the more people wanted. Soon, the interest overloaded my small local ISP’s available bandwidth requiring me to move my pages to a commercial provider. Meanwhile, many of the top air engineering firms and doctors voluntarily began helping to better educate me and share their information. I began sharing their dust collection information, hood designs, CFM requirements ducting designs, filter trees, etc. To help with the prohibitively expensive equipment it took to put in good fine dust collection, I also talked a few really great people and firms to make more affordable parts available. When we ran out of replacement blower impellers I also paid to get more viable impellers designed and tested, then made available.

Frankly, after now seven plus years of sharing and work almost every hobbyist cyclone uses one or more of the enhancements my friends and I developed, but I still will not recommend any of the popular dust collectors or cyclones unless you vent them outside. I likewise strongly recommend whenever you need a mask that you take your woodworking outside and use a good mask. I like and use a 3M 7500 series half mask sized to fit me and equipped with their N100 cartridges.

The reason for jumping in here is I am still getting a couple of emails every day from very upset people. Most end up writing me after doing just like me buying cyclones based upon magazine and fellow woodworker recommendations, then finding out the “hard way” with themselves or someone close getting ill, that they need to replace these units. The only way to help most of them requires changing to a bigger blower and blowing the fine dust away outside. I cannot help most of these people without their buying a new cyclone because they have concerns that keep them from blowing the air out of their cyclones outside.

[lloyd morris]

Bill,

Thanks for your post today and sharing your story. All of us who have visited your website and read your research and recommendations owe you a huge debt for all you have done to inform us about safe air quality environments in our shops.

Also, thanks for asking about my health following the problems from airborne wood dust last year. I ended up selling all my power tools a few months ago. As long as I just use hand tools, wear a good mask and have plenty of ventilation in the shop I'm fine.

Being exposed to very small amounts of airborne wood dust even for brief periods causes asthma like symptoms one year after all this began. Someday I hope to have power tools and a fully equipped shop again. When that time comes you can bet I will be implementing every one of your recommendations.

Thanks again for all you do to educate us on this issue.

Lloyd

[Bill Pentz]

LLoyd,

Thank you for the kind words and sharing.

Like you, I am in the same predicament where even a little wood dust exposure does bad things setting off asthma attacks. I gave away my cyclone and ducting, loaned out my second table saw, and gave away my workbench along with most of the shop cabinetry. Unlike you I am either far more foolish or perhaps greedy as I refuse to let go of the rest of my tools that I spent so many years acquiring hoping someday to eventually be able to return to woodworking. Other than a little use from my woodworking daughter who mostly works outside or inside with mask and fine filter on my dust collector, my tools are now working on their PhD (piled higher and deeper). *smile*

[James Duxbury]

Its been a problem for me, with my moustache and beard. I did find a mask of sorts that works like a snorkle ... you put the mouthpiece in your mouth so the facial hair doesn't interfere. Its called the Resp-O-Rator and is available from places like Woodcraft and Hartville Tool.

I have the "Jr." version because it was only $10; I'm thinking of getting the full version to prevent the "woodworker slobber" from getting inside the thing. It is rated at 99% for down to .03 microns with NIOSH approval pending.


Frank, I just found this site and hope I am doing this right.

I am the inventor of the Resp-O-Rator. Two things. If you are having saliva problems be sure the mouthpiece flange is between your teeth and lips--not between your teeth. Close your mouth all the way and swallow. Then forget it. You can not swallow with your teeth parted. That is part of my patent and the reason these Resp-O-Rators work.

And last, The Resp-O-Rator™ is a particulate dust filter. The new model is 99.97% at 0.3 microns. This is a HEPA filter with over 45 square inches of filter media. Right now, the product is far superior to the packaging. The packaging currently says 99% at 0.3 microns. The product has been upgraded for over a year so all of the back stock is actually HEPA filters. New packaging will be out this week -- I hope!

I would be glad to answer any questions if you like and am familiar with the other models.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Allergies can be weird. I had one year of hyper allergic reaction to Timothy Grass. Never before or after was I alergic to any grasses. Yet during that year I'd walk into a field of timothy and somewhere in the middle of a few acres I'd end up fighting to stay on my feet and off my knees trying to get out before I collapsed. Years later I kept horses in northern maine and had no issues with grasses at all.

Lately I have begun to respond negatively to black mold spores and tree pollen. Never did react to it before, but now I'm in a constant battle. I'm going to get real HVAC with sterilization and filtration for this 250 year old house.

As a young man I worked for a few years making custom hand made furniture for a little company named American Reproductions in Boston. The pay was miserable. There was no DC, no fans, no AC, no nothing. In the summer we'd open the windows unless it rained. In the winter we'd close everything as heat cost money. The place was always thick with airborne dust. When sanding a bunch of casework we'd be covered with the dust looking like huge wooly caterpillars. It didn't bother me then but it was only a few years.

[Jim Becker]

Cliff, I'm not surprised in reading what you wrote. It's apparently not uncommon for allergies to change over time. My mother had that happen where after a life with little or no problems, she developed allergies to a few things that had never bothered her before.

Relative to wood sensitivity, my locksmith used to be a carver. At some point he developed an extreme sensitivity to black walnut, which he apparently worked with a lot. And then he became sensitive to all wood dust...so much so, that he had to give up working with wood entirely. (Very sad!) His story was the one that originally prompted me to put in a cyclone system and pay attention to fine dust control in my shop when we moved to this property.

My own allergies and sensitivities have been pretty consistent over the years, but I'm always watching out for something new, given my mother's experience. With poor luck, it will be poison ivy...something I can currently dance practically naked in without effect...and something we have a lot of on our property. (Dr. SWMBO just has to look at it from a 100 feet away and can get a rash...well, maybe not that bad, but...)

[John Hart]

.....With poor luck, it will be poison ivy...something I can currently dance practically naked in without effect...and something we have a lot of on our property......

And when do these rituals take place Jim???:eek: :D