Now Playing: On Getting Really Stoned¿¿..Dude
So yesterday there was just something in the air. You could get really stoned just by breathing in.
Ok, enough of the funny stuff. I mean real stone, down in your lungs. Which is real, real bad for you. So …WARNING…… when working with stone in the shop, always, always wear a particle filtering mask.
Last night I was cutting and grinding soapstone. This is for use in making soapstone molds for casting. My wife will be carving two molds in the next week and a half. We will be seeing how much detail a flat casting with bronze can take.
First I sawed the soapstone into 1” thick slabs with my band saw. The soapstone cuts pretty nice. Much better then the jet, which was last stone I cut on it. Then I ground the face smooth on the cut slabs. This was what created the stone dust in the air. I don’t have a water cooled grinder for stone. The water, on one of these rigs, also helps keep down dust. So now there is a thin layer of very fine stone dust all over the shop. The soapstone is extremely fine and very light for stone. So it stays suspended in the air for some time. And this is a major hazard to anything that breathes.
Once again I can’t say this enough. Wear a micro particle filtration mask when grinding just about anything. The suspended particles of even the most harmless material, still present a major inhalation hazard. Call it miner's asthma, silicosis, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, coal workers' pneumoconiosis, or black lung—they are all dust diseases with the same symptoms. And they aren’t any fun.
Scott B. Jaqua
Hagerson Forge.
