Dust Collection Systems

[Ether]

Originally Posted by kramarczyk

Dust collection can get serious if you are going to spend a lot of time in the shop. Dust is not just a nuisance, it can also be a health hazard.

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 ?

[joek]

dust collection really isn't that big of an issue if you clean up at the end of each day. it only is really necessary for planers, unless you are using a large wood shop. the only tool other than planers that really need collectors are sanders and maybe band saws.

[kramarczyk]

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 ?

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

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.

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.