this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Wear hearing protection. Often. I work and talk to a lot of handyman type people and almost all of them have somewhat poor hearing. Even some close to my age (20's). The one thing in common? No hearing protection.
Even though hand tool woodwork is much quieter I still always wear earplugs. Even when running the vacuum I wear hearing protection. I also take it easy with the music, with a great pair of headphones you don't need to crank it up.
Also wear respirators often when dealing with almost any particulate. If you are working on something that produces a lot of dust, you probably want to wear a respirator. Doesn't matter if it's natural, even wood dust can mess you up. Especially during grinding or sanding.
A lot of shitty people will give you flak, but NEVER let people dictate your safety, specifically when they tell you to use less.
Decades back there was a letter to the editor in Fine Woodworking complaining about a similar thing, writer had been sanding some lacquerware furniture and got a monstrous rash – lacquer comes from the lacquer tree and contains urishiol (poison sumac, poison oak, poison ivy) …
To add onto this - always wear gloves when painting / don't get paint on your hands. Stuff is mostly toxic - even acrylic paint. Boat paint is incredibly bad for you (polyurethane 2 part for instance). Wear a mask when painting
This. I worked with polyurethane glue a couple of weeks ago. The tube says to use gloves. I thought "meh, I'll just be careful not to get it on my hands". Hello tiny itchy blisters. The fumes are an irritant too.
I spoke with a guy that has a small boat and painted boats a lot. He said he met so many people that don't use gloves, respirators, etc, and they all feel like they lost intelligence over the years and have huge respiratory issues. Getting 2 part paint on your skin builds up in the system and caused long time illnesses.