brick saftey

[eseemann]

Does anyone know about the dust from soft firebrick? I have a one brick forge that I use on the back porch and I noticed some sparkling dust in the air. I have never heard about needing to cover the brick in ITC or such but I did not stop smoking to risk my heath with brick dust. Any information would be great. 

thanks

Ernest

What does this have to do with Inswool?  We will separate it out to its own place.

[DSW]

Does anyone know about the dust from soft firebrick? I have a one brick forge that I use on the back porch and I noticed some sparkling dust in the air. I have never heard about needing to cover the brick in ITC or such but I did not stop smoking to risk my heath with brick dust. Any information would be great. 

thanks

 

Ernest

 

Most dust, whether it's from coal, asbestos, silica sand from sand blasting, grinding steel/concrete etc isn't "good" for you. As mentioned the biggest issues come from prolonged exposure and large quantities of dust. I'm sure smoking has done way more damage to your lungs than a small amount of brick dust will. However common sense says when you have previous damage, doing what you can to limit additional damage that may aggravate existing conditions is probably a good idea. In general if you do a lot of grinding, you probably have more to worry about that then you do the brick dust that's coming from the forge.

 

 

One other generic comment on respirators. Guys with facial hair will usually not get a good seal. That's why the military has restrictions on beards and so on, so your gas mask will seal well. A lot of guys with beards don't realize that they really aren't getting the protection they think they are when they simply put on a respirator.