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Originally Posted by Ether
I've seen teams use shop air to clean drill presses, milling machines, band saws, and bench grinders. This always concerned me as a lung hazard, but I don't have any authoritative info. Does any have any links they could post ?
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I was speaking more to the wood dust as a health hazard as I don't typically speak of metal by products as dust. According OSHA...
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/wooddust/index.html
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Wood dust becomes a potential health problem when wood particles from processes such as sanding and cutting become airborne. Breathing these particles may cause allergic respiratory symptoms, mucosal and non-allergic respiratory symptoms, and cancer.
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Additionally, certain engineered wood products contain additional hazards. An example is MDF and plywood both contain formaldehyde.
http://www.flakeboard.com/msds/Flake...r_MDF_MSDS.pdf
http://www.timberproducts.com/.docs/..._MSDS_2005.pdf
As far as using shop air to clean metal cutting tools, I have always been told that this created a airborne eye hazard and that a brush and pan were a better practice. In my experience, metal chips don't hang in the air as readily as wood does. I doubt putting cutting fluid airborne as a mist does ones lungs any favors though. OSHA is a little more vague here...
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/metalworkingfluids/index.html
Your milage will of course vary based upon the amount of time and intensity of exposure. Personally I don't spend a lot of time worried about it, but if I am going to cut MDF in my garage with the door closed (winter) then I do put on a resperator.