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Funny you should mention silicosis...
I started getting a sore throat Saturday night, after I had
sandblasted a little. The night before I had visited a
friend in the evening, and thought I was getting a cold from
being in the COLD night air. Sunday I did the majority of
the sandblasting. After visiting the OSHA page on silicosis,
I am nervous. I only used the flimsy blast hood supplied
with the blaster. There was a perfectly good 3M paint
respirator in my toolbox, but I didn't think I'd need it. My
plan is to visit my doctor, tell him/her what happened with
the sandblasting, and get a lung scan as a baseline. Living
in the desert with the dust storms here isn't good for the
lungs anyway, so I figure it couldn't hurt. From now on, I
wear a decent hood with the respirator, and a suit that I
can take off and put in the wash. Luckily I am blasting in
open space which allows the dust to dissapate. The OSHA site
was very informative, except I can't tell the particulate
concentration to be able to determine the best respirator to
use. I will continue to use sand only because it can't be
determined it the alternatives are any better. I also wonder
if the old paint I blasted away contained lead. Oh, well, if
it isn't one thing, it's another. I would rather have fun
working on mil vehs than worrying about the danger in
everything.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 02 2000 - 22:30:40 PST