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Don't know how relevant it is but these links are more food for thought.
Wood particles seem to be well covered in this conversation but............

4+ yrs later, my home made charcoal filters seem to still be keeping fumes at bay. Including the one drawing from the spray booth where lacquer and curing instruments are stored.
[url]https://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=47776&p=632013&hilit=charcoal#p632013/url]


And apparently more than just particles might be at work in things released from wood? Check out the #2 section.

[url]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7599736//url]

I put this air purifier into the main shop and ran it over night last night.



Prior to running the filter the lowest reading I could get was in the 350 range when the shop was not in use and it would hover between 350 - 550 while I was walking around working. I noticed that the count increase was 100-200 just after running cutting tools.

After running all night I went to check this AM and the count was 150. What was interesting to me was that I looked at the history and the count had been in the 40-50 range for the previous 7 hours. This was during the night when we were sleeping and no-one was walking around upstairs.

I guess this means there is a lot of dust on the ceiling surfaces. It’s an unfinished basement area with open ceiling and walls. Lots of areas for dust to settle.

I’ve been wearing the PAPR during shop work and showering every night. The symptoms are not gone but reduced. I’ll keep at it.


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I have a sensitivity to spruce and cedar. The spruce symptoms show up as a rash on my forearm, but only after I've reached into the soundhole of a new guitar. With cedar, it's sinus congestion when sanding, even with a mask and all my filters running. Last time I built with cocobolo, about 12 years ago, I got a rash on my forearms, but I wasn't as cautious then as I am now. It was the first reaction I had to wood in the shop, so I'm feeling really gunshy about using it again, which is a shame since I have one really nice set. I think my sensitivities to these woods is increasing, so in my old age, wisdom and fear reign.

I have an old Nilfisk clean room vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter that's probably my most prized shop tool. I vacuum the floor with it regularly which really helps.

My Dylos often reads under 100, and I use a formula that I got from Bill Penz's site to convert the Dylos readings to AQI.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I noticed with cocobolo that my breathing became labored as from a constricted airway. I still have one of the two I made and play it a lot. Exposure to the coco fretboard/bridge does not cause me any problems.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I get sinus congestion when sanding or cutting pretty much any wood species in the shop anymore but as I've gotten older my normal allergies to pollen and such have also gotten worse so I think it's an age thing, at least with me.

Because of this thread I finally broke down and bought a Dylos. On monitor mode with no activity in the shop other than the dehumidifier running (which does circulate the air), my reading is under 50 for the small particles and single digits for the big particles. Based on the scale on the back I suppose this is ok? Will be interesting to see how it reads when I start cutting and sanding.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That’s awesome, Steve!

Something that scared me was the reading when I used compressed air to blow out the pores on the back of my latest build.

I have a box fan with a filter taped to it that I use when I’m dusting things off with compressed air. I put the fan on high, move the object over near it, and then try to direct the air “into” the filter as best as possible. I did this the other night and then walked over to where the Dylos was sitting and was greeted with this:



Holy smokes!!

Also, a side note, I picked up the backpack accessory for the PAPR. Here is me styling in it.



Always makes me think of E.T. for some reason.


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Note: the Dylos is not covered in dust there, that’s how it looks because I accidentally spritzed it with acetone.


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I don't know Brad, I think maybe you're looking like the guy from 2001, A Space Odyssey

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Ha! Given what Brad does for a living, that is a richer than normal reference. Someday, he may hear one of his creations say back to him: "I'm sorry, Brad. I'm afraid I can't do that."

Brad, your high reading is pretty common in my shop when I’m sanding even though I try to collect all of the dust with both a filtered fan (like your filter on the box fan but with more cfm) and the dust collector running with a down draft box. I don’t use the dust collector bag on the sander because I found it actually makes the dust count higher than not using it. But, when I stop sanding, the filtered fan takes the count down very quickly—usually within 20 minutes.

Can you tell us about what appears to be in your picture a circular fan on the floor with a vertical airflow? Is that and air cleaner?

Thanks, Bob! That helps to know it’s expected. It did come back down to baseline over time.

The device in the background is an Axiom Stratus - https://www.axiomstratus.com

I have an Axiom Precision CNC and this is their air scrubber. I bought it because it has a charcoal filter and I run it when using the laser on the CNC to filter out some of the smell. It works reasonably well at that. Also because it’s a tower like that it pulls the smoke from the laser down and filters it rather than it going up and hovering at the ceiling. I have a dust boot for the CNC connected to a Laguna P-Flux that is HEPA rated for dust, so this guy is mostly for the charcoal filter aspect.

Also, the Stratus only filters to 1 micron.

I ran the Stratus in my main shop (it’s normally in the CNC room) and it did bring the count down on the Dylos to ~300 but that was as low as it could get it. Running the Honeywell HEPA filter brought the Dylos down to sub 100.

Any questions let me know.

Brad


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Thank you for the Stratus summary. I’m always looking for something better than my filter box. It works well and relatively quickly, but it is noisy. So far, volume rules, but I haven’t found a way to get volume without noise. I bought a Powermatic PM 1250 filter. It’s quiet and gets the .5 micron number down to the low tens, but it takes a long time to do it, so when I’m making a lot of dust, I usually run the noisy box filter to get the numbers down more quickly. Maybe I should buy another of the Powermatic devices? Together, they would give me 1500 cfm, the capacity of my box filter, but with much less noise.

As an update - I have symptoms largely under control at the moment by following the protocol below:

- Wearing the PAPR for any sanding operations.

- Wear disposable gloves when working with ziricote.

- Wash hands up to elbow in the shop sink after sanding any ziricote.

- Shower at the end of shop days.

- Zyrtec before bed.

I will most likely sell off any remaining sets of ziricote.

Questions:

1) Once I purge the shop inventory of ziricote, should I do anything more? For example, change all the filters out?

2) My shop is open walls and ceiling joists. There is a lot of area for dust to settle. I’ve noticed when people are walking around upstairs the Dylos count goes up. Should I drywall the walls and ceiling and clear out stockpiled old stuff (cutoffs, etc…)?

3) I was considering removing the paint arrestor from the spray booth fan, turning it on, and just going around the room with compressed air to stir everything up and suck it out to the neighbors yard. Thoughts?

4) Should I do anything to blow out the dust collector piping in the inside?

Other ideas? I want to try to eliminate as much as possible so I can go back to a somewhat normal routine afterward.

Thanks!
Brad


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In spite of my HEPA filtered dust collector and my two filtered fans, I still have dust settling on any surfaces in my shop. Every now and then, I pick an area and clean it up—today was one of those “nows” and I cleaned my dust collector filter, one of my box filters and one corner of the shop. It was an amazing amount of dust and I work clean.

Here’s what I think would be ideal (assuming you have no money or effort limitations): set up all of the fans you can to blow dust outside. Where you don’t have windows, use filters on all of the others you have to catch dust. Then, have someone else (not you, not someone so sensitive to dust, but someone using all of the dust protection he or she can use) use compressed air to blow out your ceiling joists and all of the surfaces and crannies where dust has collected. He/she might have to repeat as dust settles from the first blow. Then, after every thing settles, vacuum the horizontal surfaces and maybe even the walls. The best deal would be to get someone who’s not sensitized yet to ziricote to hand all of this dust raising part. It’s pretty risky for you to do it even with all of your protections. Get your cleaner to use all of your protective gear so that he/she doesn’t get sensitized.

Drywalling all of the walls and ceiling areas that could capture dust would sure make it easier to keep the shop clean. My shop is drywalled—I still have to vacuum the walls occasionally and I consider my dust collection good. Drywalling will make its own dust that will need to be cleaned. (Before you drywall, wire in as many outlets as you think you’ll ever need and then add one in between each of the ones you just put in. Then add at least one 220 circuit if you didn’t already have it.) The drywall will have to be painted. I recommend semigloss paint because it is easier to keep clean and lasts longer than flat paint, At this point, you can clean or replace your filters and start clean.

I would like to have my wood storage in a separate climate controlled room so that it wouldn’t collect dust (and so that I’d have more room in my shop) but I don’t have such a space.

If your dust collector has a good HEPA filter and doesn’t leak, I wouldn’t worry about the inside of the pipes. But, I would have someone else empty it for you this time (and clean the filter) and maybe the first time it needs it after you get everything cleaned up.

I think Barry Daniels might be an air quality expert, so you need to get his take on this project, too.

I tend to get anal about health things, so my recommendations might be too much, or based on my meager knowledge, might not be enough. Please be careful and good luck.

Brad—

Given that you have the kind of space where dust can hang on to floor joists above your head, I would favor vacuuming everything with serious filters instead of the “stir it up and blow it out” plan. You could stir it up, but can you really blow it all out? I think you are more likely to catch the bad dust by vacuuming it up where it has already landed, and that doesn’t send as much of it into the air in the process. This plan depends on having great filtration for the shop vac, of course.

In terms of more substantial changes, like drywall installation, you might want to see how well your cleaning works before you spend the money and effort. Plus, to what extent are there things like pipes or wiring that you may regret covering up with drywall? Dust control is easier if the ceiling and walls are finished, but other things can be harder because of it. Maybe a drop ceiling is an option, although mine is pretty ugly. I would be inclined to monitor your symptoms a bit before making such improvements.

I had mentioned at some point the idea of also using a Tyvek suit when you are doing some heavy sanding for long periods. I think it is worth the hassle in order to keep the dust off you and your clothes.

I hope you are able to rid yourself of the worst irritants! It stinks when something you love is bad for you. The good news is you know which woods set you off. Good luck with the purge!

Two things I like about my drywalled shop. It is easier to keep clean and the light is a lot better.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Good going and great pics Major Tom

I too have become very sensitive to ziricote, coocoblo, madrose etc. I made the mistake of not taking the symptoms seriously enough; the swollen, red, itchy and teary eyes, the fever, rashes, you name it. I still continued to work, under less than ideal conditions. Big mistake! It just got worse of course, and I was forced to quit building for a while.

I have since rebuilt my workshop into two rooms separated with an air-lock; one room contains all dust producing machines and procedures and contains a pretty hefty DC system, the other room is for assembly and hand tool work. In the machine room I wear long sleeves and a Sandstøm full face mask powered air-system, in the assembly room I can work unprotected. It works OK, but its certainly a hassle I’d prefer to do without. Heed the warning signs!

The Sundstøm sure is stylish, though…

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

The dog fooled me for a minute...

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I don't know if I'm sensitive or not but I remember back in 2002 or so when I was building mandolins. I would stop building in the summer most of the time. Seemed like shortly after I started up again that I ended up with pneumonia. That happened twice, same scenario. I did like using coco for headstocks and such. If I were to work with it today, I'll be sure to have better dust collection then I did then and also try to use hand planes as much as possible. I don't plan to make coco back and side guitars anyway. Too expensive for my taste, but I do have some scraps.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!