Carving Marble and other stone - CAUTION

[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.