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For those who developed sensitivity to specific woods, what were the symptoms?

I deal with fairly severe rheumatoid arthritis and take meds that suppress immune response. I’m not sure how this factors in exactly.

I think I’m starting to develop a sensitivity to ziricote. When I’m in the shop I leave with an odd acidic taste in my mouth and lips are tingly. I’m not kissing the wood if that’s what your thinking.

I may need to go to wearing the PAPR full time until I’m done with this current build.

Brad


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I get a rash on my forearm from the dust from cocobolo so I don’t use it anymore. I assume my symptoms could get worse if I continued using it.

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Consider seeing an allergist.

My yew allergy started with tingling lips and itchy patches around mouth and eyes. Can't use it now.

So I'd say you have warning signs.

Cocobolo is one of the worst for many of us. I call it poison ivy wood. When sanding it I wear long sleeves and a dust mask and shower afterward. It can cause a histamine reaction and sometimes makes you feel like you have the flu. I try to avoid the dust as much as I can and "scrape" rather than sand whenever possible. It is a beautiful wood and can make a fine instrument.
I get the bad taste in my mouth when working with Spanish cedar and a friend of mine developed a sensitivity to it after doing a large project with it that required a great deal of milling of the wood. He won't allow it in his shop anymore.
The wood database has a chart that rates the relative toxicity of woods. As with anything YMMV:
https://www.wood-database.com/wood-arti ... -toxicity/
It is interesting what they say about ziricote.

I get a poison oak like rash from Cocobolo. It typically shows up in between my fingers and where my fingers meet the hand. Really annoying location. Which is a shame as I have some really rice Cocobolo guitar and Uke sets and bridges and Fretboards.

Another friend gets a pretty extreme rash from Australian Myall.

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In reads to this I recently asked a question about air monitors for the shop and ended getting a nice monster so I know the quality of the shop air. As I get older Im getting more and more concerned about being exposed to the dust of the woods we use.

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I get hives and congestion from cocobolo and from WRC. I can live with with the WRC but the allergic reaction to cocobolo is pretty sever now.

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In about 2011 I started to develop a rash around my eyes and nose especially when working with the tropical hardwoods (IRW, Mahog, Coco, etc) Went to an allergist and he diagnosed it as dermatitis. Started using prescribed Rx steroid creams to ease the rash and itching. As time progressed and I did also; progressing from mask-type charcoal respirator to full-blown helmet with internal filters & fan, the rash and symptoms did also. I jokingly refer to it as my "time of suffering" ... It finally got to a point that I began to experience some respiratory issues and decided at that point it was time to find another creative outlet. I quit building in late 2012 but out of stuborness kept all of the tonewood, parts and pieces I had. Gave all of my power tools to my son for his shop.

To this day I still miss it a lot. Every so often I will break out a piece of stock and attempt to do something creative. I immediately begin to pay for it in terms of the dermatitis coming back and being very uncomfortable for a week or two. Having to break out the anti-itch cream once again....

My advice to to closely monitor your symptoms, contact an allergist and be careful.....

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Peter

As an update - my symptoms have gotten worse over time. I’ve stopped taking the RA medication to see if the severity would change. It did not change.

For the past 6 weeks or so I’ve had itching skin and what occasionally feels like pin pricks. The pin prick feeling is not constant, but the itching is. I thought for a short while it might be bugs biting me, that’s how it feels. It’s not scabies, the doctor ruled that out along with a few other possibilities based on blood work.

I have a rash on my cheeks, nose and back that comes and goes.

It’s hard to sleep. I have the same itchy symptoms during the day, but they are easier to ignore because I’m distracted.

I went on a week long vacation and by day 3 the symptoms were gone. I was also taking a steroid prescribed by my doctor so it’s hard to know if the symptoms would have held on longer or not.

I’m going to do a deep clean of the shop while wearing the PAPR and see how it goes after that. Any other suggestions? Should I get new filters for the dust collector. I have a Wynn filter on the main dust collector and a Laguna HEPA filter on the upstairs collector.

Very frustrating.

Brad


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Brad—

Sorry to hear you are going through this! I do have one suggestion: wearing a Tyvek suit while doing any significant sanding. I just wrapped up a session of heavy sanding tonight, and due to some rosewood staining on some shirts in the past (no allergies, thank goodness), I decided to suit up and wear the PAPR, too. I got a little sweaty, but at least my clothes and I stayed pretty clean. Maybe this will help you, too.

You might want to stay away from oily tropical hardwoods for awhile. The wood database lists the relative noxiousness of the wood, so you might consult it to pick some that people generally don't react to.
https://www.wood-database.com/

For a while I was having real problems being in the shop at all. Spruce was the trigger, hard to work without it. Instant itchy face, runny nose and eyes, face felt like sunburned immediately on entry.

I bought a simple home Honeywell HEPA filter and run it 24/7 and it was immediate relief, in a 10x12 shop with ~7’ ceilings.

So I would take a hard look at how effective your dust control is. The problem is that the stuff that kills us is not the stuff we can sweep up at the end of the day. It’s invisible and hangs in the air like a vapour.

Getting a laser air monitor would probably be most wise.

Dofthesea will you tell us about your nice monster?

I’m asking about your air monitor, just to be perfectly clear…

Brad, sorry to hear you are dealing with these unpleasant symptoms.

I suffered from some respiratory symptoms a few years ago when doing a lot of building on a hobby basis.

When i refocused the shop on commercial repair work the symptoms disappeared, even though I’m now in the shop 50+ hours a week. There’s just much less sawdust involved in this kind of work and much of the wooden component manufacture (replacement bridges, backstrapping busted peg heads etc) can be accomplished with hand planes, scrapers and so on that produce little or no fine dust.

I hope air cleaners, good dust control, respirators, avoiding problem species and so on works for you. But if those measures don’t you could consider the repair/restoration path as another way to practice and enjoy the craft.


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Like Ed, I also think it is worth considering how well your shop’s air gets filtered on a regular basis, not just as part of your dust collection. I know your shop is in your basement, so you probably have it heated and cooled as part of the whole house HVAC system. Is there an HVAC air intake down there? In my basement shop, not only is there a regular intake, but I also have the intake for the whole house dehumidifier down there. My point is that my shop air gets circulated through the HVAC system pretty well, such that my air quality monitor gives me very clean readings, despite having the normal amount of nuisance dust (normal for a woodworking shop) lying around on surfaces from time to time. Maybe an ambient air filter, outfitted with HEPA filtration and run much more frequently, could help in your shop if the air is not moving through the HVAC enough. Just a thought.

Thanks for all the good ideas.

Ed, I’m glad you mentioned spruce because on Monday night I was bracing a top and at bedtime I was miserable. I was just sanding the bracing in the dish to fit it before glue up and gluing them in. I thought to myself that if that’s going to set things off I’m hosed. I wasn’t wearing a respirator though.

Don, I ordered the backpack kit for the PAPR. If I’m going to be wearing that thing more I want to have it off my waist.

I do actually have a Dylos although I don’t run it consistently. When I first got it I ran it for about 6 months and the numbers were always fairly consistent. Problem is, I didn’t record any of them back then so I have nothing to compare it to.

Here is where it is today. The readings were all in the mid-fair range except one. Nothing approaching “good” quality though, so I have some work to do.



Main shop area (10x16) near the dehumidifier (which vents straight up):



Main shop area (10x16) opposite end:



Climate controlled room where I store wood and brace plates:



You can see there is also a dehumidifier behind the Dylos in the last shot. It also vents straight up.

Anyone else have a Dylos? Is it reasonable that I should be able to get to the “Good” or even “Very Good” range?

Brad


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I noticed yesterday,that my Jet filter by the benches in the basement was getting redder, and I haven't been making anything from Padauk since last Thursday, and that wasn't even very much. I don't have a whole house circulation system, so the air quality down there is local; and maybe easier to control.

Maybe I should just run it on low full time?

Most of the times dust has bothered me is just sneezing. Spruce and other top woods as much or more than anything else. No rash or itching. One time about 6-7 years ago I had an itchy rash that just got worse and worse, eventually covering my whole body. Never found out what it was. Lasted a few weeks. A big steroid treatment knocked it out in a couple days. It started on my elbows and side, so I don't think it had anything shop related. What a relief when it went away. So I feel for you there.

I sounds like your symptoms are do to air quality. My shop is relatively isolated from the house, since there is no air ducts. If the air is the same throughout the house, maybe there is a low level vector all the time? Maybe the steroid treatment will set your body straight for a while? I have to mop the basement once in a while, and it gets filthy with very fine dust. I sweep and vacuum, but only about a third of it.

Yeah, I should just leave it on low.

Wish I had an answer.

That monitor thing is pretty cool.

I think that continually running a whole shop filter might do wonders. Do you do that? I did replace the filters that came with mine with the higher rated ones, and I made sure that the edges were sealed up.

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Why be normal?

Thanks, Ken!

I do not have a full shop filter in either space other than kicking on the spray booth fan and exchanging the whole area.

Seriously though, I’m shopping for air purifiers as we speak.


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I used to kiss my wood before turning it into a guitar, took it dancing too. I thought it was expected!

One of the hallmarks of a sensitivity to wood or something is it get worse and it can get worse very fast like in only several exposures.

So pay attention to those little signs Brad and others I think you may very well have a sensitivity and ziricote is a very well known offender so much so that I avoided it completely. I believe I once read one out of ten will develop a sensitivity to it but take that with a grain of salt I read this 18 years ago.

Brad,

I have and use the Dylos monitor. My trigger for masking up and turning on the filters is 300 on the left readout (.5 micron). I have a HEPA filter on my dust collector. I use 3M 1900mpr (merv13) filters on my shop air filter (and in my house HVAC which does not share air with the shop). My shop air filter is a box sized to fit the 20x25 filter housing a squirrel cage fan rated for 1500 cfm. It will turn over my shop air several times in an hour. Going from 5000 on the Dylos to less than 300 usually takes 20 minutes. In spite of this, I still have to vacuum dust from the shop surfaces frequently. I do clean up the work area after every dust or shaving producing operation (I like to work clean).

After any significant sanding operation, I change my clothes when I leave the shop. After rosewood, I shower. I’m sensitive to rosewood, but any wood dust will make me cough, so I stay clean to avoid that.

I’m happy when my Dylos has a left reading less than 100, but mask when it’s over 300. The meter readings during the Canadian wildfire smoke were quite interesting: 23,000 outside, 5,000 inside with the house closed. I started run the HVAC fan full time when I noticed that. It took overnight to get the reading down to 300. During the day, the reading would go up to 400 inside even with the fan running constantly. The reading in the shop was similarly elevated even though the shop was sealed from the outside and from the rest of the house. Those efficient windows weren’t nearly as tight as I expected. My box filter in the shop cleaned up that air much faster than the HVAC in the house (similar size fan, much smaller space in the shop).

The MERV 13 filter only claims 97% effectiveness on the small particles rather than the 99+% promised by the HEPA filter, but 2 or more passes through the filter ought to get the air to the same place for less money and with less back pressure.

Let me add that I decided on 300 as the trigger level by checking my house at normal activity and when the grandchildren were playing on the rug. The normal house was less than 300. The activity on the went to 700. I figured the 300 was what I lived on all of the time so it ought to be safe.

A couple of other strategies might be to scrape rather than sand the wood and to move dust making operations outdoors (wearing a simple n95 mask rather than a space suit). Getting a nice scraped finish is more difficult (I haven't done it) but that is how it was done before the days of sandpaper.
If you put your machines on wheels where they can be wheeled outside or put a tarp over them and park them next to the gas grill you may find working al fresco to be an enjoyable activity (just don't work in the rain with power tools) My brother gave me some med carts with large casters and 2'X2' work tops. They are great - I put my small Ryobi drum sander on one and a "portable" 12 inch planer on another (a third one I modified and installed a small electric range for Baking outdoors when I don't want to heat up the house). One of my table saws is on wheels and I can wheel it out or cover it with a tarp. A couple of folding sawhorses and an old metal door makes a sturdy work bench that can be erected and taken down quickly as needed, A light weight folding table can also work but not take as much pounding. Workmates are also very useful.
The person who introduced me to building musical instruments had to quit the hobby because his wife became sensitive to wood dust. His shop was in the basement of their home and no matter what he tried the dust would find it's way into their living space.

Brad--

Just for perspective, my Dylos readings are almost always in the Excellent range, sometimes in the Very Good range. I move a lot of shop air through my HVAC system, as described above. I think those two things are connected. If you can filter your shop air more aggressively through HEPA or similar filters, you will probably see improvement in air quality as measured by the Dylos. Whether that clears up the physical symptoms is something to be determined, but the fact that your symptoms got better while you were on vacation with your family, including your dog, makes me think you are on the right track. Air filtration, along with trying to keep the sawdust off your skin, might make a big difference. Fingers crossed.

Brad - I'm sorry to hear about the troubles you are having. I monitor my shop with a Dylos. I also have a Jet air handler mounted on the ceiling that has a Wynn main filter in it. I run it whenever I'm doing any sanding, even with small stuff or woods not normally considered to be suspect. With the air handler running, the particle counts can be kept in the Excellent range with brief excursions into the Very Good range, or into the Good range while using the drum sander.

If you have room in your shop, you might consider getting an air handler with a Wynn filter to run whenever doing sanding.



Here are two old posts in which I used the Dylos to see how effective my Jet air filtration unit was at reducing particle numbers:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=51479&p=677671&hilit=dylos#p677671



In this one, I tested how effective the Jet unit was while sanding with my drum sander:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=51532&hilit=dylos

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