Respirator drops and sweat

[Dave Norris]

Howdy,
Does anyone else have trouble with water dripping out of their respirator after a while? I use my respirator a lot, and after about 45 minutes, I start to see drops of water on the tool beds, the wood, the floor... etc. For that matter, how does everyone handle just plain old sweating? Again, I get drops all over the place, and even with wax, it makes the tables of my tools look really rough.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Dave...the respirator I use, the Trend Air Shield, I don't have a sweating problem. In fact, it keeps my glasses from fogging up even in the heat of summer. Of course, I don't think it's meant for gases or fumes either....just dust.:o

[James Adinaro]

I wear a respirator mainly when finishing. Drops of sweat/condensation on a freshly sprayed finish - Ugh.
So far, the only thing I've figured out is to take it off every so often and mop it out. But even that's not very convenient.

[Larry Fox]

My approach is basically the same as Jim's. I also tend to wear a hat when finishing so that helps a bit.

I can recommend one thing about using a respirator and that is to not sneeze in one if you can avoid it. My respirator makes a pretty good seal and I did once and the "back-pressure" gave me an instant headache to the point where I had to stop.

[J. Z. Guest]

Mine does that too.

The ones that seal to my face properly get condensation from my breath in there. It usually isn't sweat.

If you can find one of the simpler, disposable dust mask types that actually does a good job filtering the air, that will probably solve the problem.

3M and Wilson Safety make them. You might have a look on their sites and ebay.

[Christof Grohs]

I stain about 30K sq ft of hardwood flooring a year, always wearing 3m respirator and I too wish there was a solution. A drop of sweat on bare wood right before wiping it with stain looks great:rolleyes:

[Eric DeSilva]

Reminds me of one of the worst experiences of my life...

I was working for a small contractor one summer when I was in high school, and we spent a week or so installing insulation in an old attic in a house under renovation. It had to be 120 degrees up there... we're wearing long sleeves and long pants because of the glass fibers, and were helpfully provided little paper dusk masks. Well, after about 5 minutes, the masks were so impregnated with sweat that air didn't go in/out, so the thing just stuck on your face and got annoying... so, we took 'em off... until we could hear the glass fibers cracking when we gritted our teeth.

Hate to think what kind of damage I did to myself that one week...

[Julian Wong]

Howdy,
Does anyone else have trouble with water dripping out of their respirator after a while? I use my respirator a lot, and after about 45 minutes, I start to see drops of water on the tool beds, the wood, the floor... etc. For that matter, how does everyone handle just plain old sweating? Again, I get drops all over the place, and even with wax, it makes the tables of my tools look really rough.

Dave,
What I do is udually take a piece of tissue or partial piece of kitchen towen, fold in several times till it is small enough to line the bottom of the respirator. Depending on how long I use the respirator, i may have to change it once or twice during an afternoon of use.