this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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I'll admit that's a much higher standard than what I had in mind lol
Ha! Fair enough. I really don't have a good idea what the real risk is for a reasonably cautious hobbyist. For me, it was trying to address the dust hazard that made me realize just what a pain dust has been for me. The shop is so much easier to keep clean. My bright finishes come out so much better. It's just all over nicer.
(Wall of text warning!)
When I decided to turn occasionally working with wood, mostly outside, into more of a regular activity in my retirement that would be mostly inside I did a bit of research and concluded that dust was the probably the biggest unaddressed hazard in most hobby shops. We all know to not stick our fingers into the blades and to not breathe the fumes from most finishes, but dust is generally treated as an annoyance rather than a hazard.
So, when I was building my shop, I put dust control at the top of my list. It quickly became clear that I couldn't afford to handle dust the way I wanted and still have tools and equipment and lumber, so I figured out how to work around the problem. That's when I decided to go with a shopvac with a HEPA filter and a cyclonic add-on and to build an outdoor workstation for the worst of the power equipment.
Those cyclonic add-ons to a shopvac are an amazing convenience. If you have a HEPA filter, opening up the intake to the shop air after finishing with the tool and directing the vac output out to the room for good circulation will clear virtually all remaining hanging dust in just a few minutes. If you have the space and a bit of spare cash, a box fan running in an enclosure of good furnace filters mostly takes care of hanging dust as you're working. Those techniques might not meet OHSA, but it'll be darn close, especially given you're probably not producing dust 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. Slap on a decent mask for a few minutes and that will get you to OHSA, so that's what I do.
As I said up top, I don't actually know that dust collection needs to get OHSA levels to manage the risk associated with a hobby shop, but it's the route I took. Not knowing means I also don't criticize the choices others make. I'm just happy to see that most people are creating much safer environments by doing something more than opening a window, even if they're doing it for reasons of convenience, not safety.
When I first started woodworking, I was in an uninsulated shed in Alaska and didn't bother with anything more than a crappy dust mask. After my first project, I was coughing dust and blowing sawdust out of my nose for a few days. Fuuuuuuuck that.
Since then, I've moved a few times, upgraded my dust collection setup, and I still just wear a respirator with P100 cartridges (unless I'm finishing, in which case I'll use the VOC cartridges).
Even with proper dust collection, I'd rather just wear PPE. At this point, I view having good dust collection as more of a time saver for cleaning than actual protection.
That's pretty close to my own view. I've moved the tough to manage stuff outside and leave the easy to manage stuff inside. I still wear PPE in both cases, because that is the simplest, cheapest, and, most importantly, reliably does the job.
Some of my equipment pretty much has to be outside anyway, because my shop is just too small for both boat building and a bunch of dust makers.
I'm also doing more of my work with just hand tools. I find it pleasurable and being just a hobby, it's not like there are any time pressures. And now I'm retired, so I've got even more time.