How critical is (metal) dust collection in a shop? Alec Steele has a dedicated room for metal grinding. On his channel, Neil Pask has started wearing one of the masks with respirator mounted on his back. He has a dedicated room for metalworking, compared to his woodworking / craft room.
Excellent question. I wear a passive respirator any time that I’m abrading metal or sweeping up and try to keep my grinding confined to one corner of my small hobbyist shop, but have wondered if I should be doing more.
I recently picked up a used 3M Speedglass G5-01 PAPR (Portable Air Purifying Respirator), it has the flip up lense for welding and grinding. Since using I have noticed a big difference in how I feel after a full day of welding and grinding. If you are doing a ton of grinding it may be worth having a dedicated space to do it. However if you have a large open space the nice thing about meta dust is that it will not float. it goes directly to the ground were as wood is so light that it remains in the air and floats everywhere. while doing construction in the shop Jason and I have noticed that the sawdust end up in places you wouldn’t think possible were as when we fabricate its just run a broom around and no more mess. So short answer in no unless you have a heavy grinding application like bladesmithing, ect…
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More questions need to be answered like.
- Are you working in a large or small workspace/shop?
- Are you working alone in the shop? Will the grinding dust affect others nearby?
- Does the shop have ventilation? Or can the doors be opened.
- Can the grinding be done on a downdraft table instead of a room?
- Can portable ventilation be brought in like a fan or sucker filter?
With that being said a dust mask is recommended but for small projects sometimes I don’t use one, but I probably should.
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It’s better to have it than not have it as a general rule. Jason gives lots of things to consider. Also look at how often you need to do this. What kind of grinding are you doing and by what method. An angle grinder with an abrasive wheel is not the same as a belt grinder with a ceramic belt. These mostly about protecting yourself.
As a general rule most people like being in a clean shop.
My rule of thumb. If I blow out dark chunks of muck from my nose in the shower after a day in the shop, a dust mask should have been implemented.
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Wonder how it ends up in my nose when not wearing a particle mask?
It may not float in the air like would dust but it still floats. I grind in the same spot in a 25x30 room and that whole room will get grinding dust everywhere, so it has to float in the air somewhat
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I’d be particularly careful with stainless steels, given that such alloys contain chromium and nickle, both quite toxic and/or carcinogenic, as well as other metals. Unalloyed steel/iron has significantly lower risks. There are MDS sheets available online; these are worth reading.
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I used to not wear anything when welding in my garage but after a few years I was starting to slowly affect me. Thing is you don’t notice till the effects are already happening. Now I wear a papr system when welding in there usually and feel a lot better. I think I caught it early enough that I don’t have any serious problems myself but some of these older guys pretty much give themselves all sorts of issues and don’t relate welding with the issues they’ve developed.
While there are a number of toxic ingredients in various stainless, titanium, inconel, and aluminum that are known to be detrimental to physical and neurological health, don’t underestimate mild and alloy steels. For nearly 20 years the damaging effects of Manganese have been known in the occupational health sciences. Unfortunately for a number of reasons it hasn’t been well communicated in the manufacturing/fabrication industries.
Manganese is an incredibly small particle. Those particles are able to pass through the blood/brain barrier and essentially “clog” the brain. They’re also so small that when they are disturbed or created (grinding, sweeping, vacuuming, etc), they’ve been known to stay suspended in the air for days.
Niosh’s recommended manganese exposure levels are so tiny, that if you put that amount in a test tube, it’s very difficult to even see with the naked eye. Recommended exposure levels for things like Aluminum, Antimony, Arsenic, Beryllium, Cadmium, Chromium, Cobalt, Copper, Iron, Lead, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silver, Tin,
Titanium, Vanadium, Zinc (all toxic to biological/neurolgical health and are things that occur in welding fumes/grinding dust) are magnitudes higher than manganese, simply because they’re larger and easier for our bodies/engineering controls to filter. Don’t even get me going on the “binding agents” used to hold together just about everything from grinding wheels to degreasers or even shielding gasses when the ionizing energy from the weld arc interacts with them. Phosgene gas being just the tip of the iceberg:
Some “light” reading for those that care about their health, and more importantly their families health. This stuff finds its way back into your homes on your clothes and footwear. Similar to how for years, people were coming down with mesothelioma with no known or direct exposure. Come to find out, workers with direct exposure were bringing the asbestos home on their clothes. Hug your wife and kids, stomp around the house in your work boots, Toss em in the washing machine, and spread it to everyone else’s belongings.
Welding Fumes and Manganese | Welding | CDC.
If you don’t care about yourself, at least give some thought to your families well being. Positive ventilation PAPR, coveralls and a change of boots/shoes, be aware of how mixing things that by themselves might be innocuous but when mixed or exposed to other things we work with can become serious health risks. Most of us that think the government handles this stuff or the companies would never for fear of lawsuits…are wrong. They’ve just learned how to keep it quiet better. Give a F$CK about yourself. No one loves you more than you.