Tuesday 18 October 2011

Dust

On numerous occasions when I have demonstrated at various venues I talk about stopping the lathe regularly to remove the shaving/dust from the inside. At a demo I will stop the lathe and hook out the small amount of shavings with my fingers or a bent spoon. Nearly every time I do this some one says with a wise tone " you wanna get an air hose in there, save you loads of time" or words to the effect of.

I never use an air hose to blow down the dust from my work surfaces or to blow out dust/shavings from the inside of a form not since I went to a Health and safety workshop free of charge by the HSE here in the UK. Basically an air hose for this sort of process is shunned upon as it blows all of the settled dust into the air.

The best method to adopt is the use of a vacumm cleaner. A simple attachment can be mase to fit into the end of the hose to go into any hollow form. 


Any way I found this small video on the HSE web site and thought I would post.

Happy turning

3 comments:

George Foweraker said...

Very interesting.This certainly opens your eyes to the risks.I will be taking extra care.

Lee Robert Sneddon said...

Hi Mark,

I really appreciate you posting this video. Along with Phillips posts I have begun to really appreciate the need for some basic, but fundamental, H&S control in my workshop.

I am always wearing my faceshield, even when sanding along with my dust extractor and ear muffs. I will at some point get an ambient air filter for the shop as well as an improved form of presonal respiration.

I'll keep my compressor but will stop using it to blow out the settled dust, my nose gets full of shit and my throat gets sore. It may not bother me now but in the long term who knows, lesson learnt.

Cheers,

Lee.

Mark said...

Hi George and Lee

I thought this may be of interest to people especially with the scale that changes and which shows the effects of the two methods. The thing with dust is that we can not see the harmful bits.

take care

Mark