As an emphysema sufferer, caused primarily through inhaling wood dust during my time as a wheelwright and carriage builder, I would urge the utmost precautions are taken when working with wood in situations that can cause dust. Vacuuming afterwards is no good, the fine dust is what causes the problems, and that usually can't be seen. Dust extraction during work is the only way. I'm sure that ingenious chaps such as we all are on this list, can jury rig a vac cleaner to sanders etc. I now use flexible plastic conduit piping from my sander to a vac several feet outside my shed. It's light and doesn't offer much drag when working, though the corrugations do make a bit of a whistle. Len Smith ----- Original Message ----- From: john.burridge@xxxxxxxxxx To: modeleng@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 12:51 PM Subject: [modeleng] Dust from hard woods-workshop projects Hi to all, I am told that most hard woods that we work that produce dust are bad for us, i surpose when woodworking was done at slower speeds with shavings instead as now with routers at high spindle speeds. I surpose that metal machining that we do at work with very high spindle speeds and large feed rates(15,000 to 30,000RPM) and flooded with coolant/cutting lubricants we get a mist which we need special collectors/Vacumn cleaners so that the workshop does not end up in a haze. I would think that with Health and Safety that this has been looked into and we are protected againist harm(I hope). Not the kind of thing that we encounter in our home workshops except for wood, and a vacumn can take care of that. On another subject what is everyone making at the moment in their workshops. yours for now. John Burridge Raining in Oxford -- MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.