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Safety First - Protect your lungs

I've just started getting into woodworking, I missed out on doing it in high school and my Dad can make just about anything from metal but has limited woodworking skills. As a result I'm fairly good with my hands and quite proficient with metal work, but I know about as much as Jon Snow when it comes to woodworking.

I've started my first project and one thing that has become clear is the need for good dust management. I also read an interesting article[1] on the Fine Wood Work Association (WA) website on the dangers of wood dust and efficacy of the various management options. It's made me quite conscious of it and at the moment I'm wearing disposable dust masks that I'm sure do close to nothing except be annoying, especially on top of my beard.

If I get right into woodworking I'll likely look into a proper dust extraction system, but that's a rather expensive option to jump into straight off the bat. At the moment in addition to the fairly useless dust mask, I'm using a fan and opening the garage door when using power tools(and for a while after I've finished), hand tools don't tend to make much fine dust, I do also have a shop vac that I connect up to the power tools and it does help, but it doesn't prevent the air becoming dangerous to breathe.

I've collected a few tools for my woodwork and the next one I'm getting is a good dust mask. After doing a bit of research, I've found that there are two solutions when it comes to using dust masks with a beard; get a full face positive pressure mask or shave your beard. Unfortunately, due to price(and not wanting to scare people walking past my garage), full face is not really an option and neither is the second choice for now. My beard is fairly transitory but at the moment it's staying.

Settling with doing the best I can, I've decided on the 3M 7000 series half face mask. There are a lot out there and I'm sure there are plenty that are just as good but this one is reasonably priced and I know 3M make good quality products.

For those looking into this, some info I came across that took a bit of searching:
  • There are 3 sizes, they're all the same except for the seal between the mask and the face. 80% of people will wear a medium and if you need a large you'll know because you(and probably all your friends) already know that you have a big head because you need wide glasses and big hats like my friend Kai. The small is mainly for children.[2]
  • For woodworking you'll need a particulate filter, there are two or three options, but the 2125 is all you really need. After looking a bit further into it, there appears to be a US equivalent to the 2135(slightly better filtering than the 2125) which is 2091 and you can get those on eBay for about $2 rather than the $20+ for the 2125/2135 all 3M brand.
  • As far as the life of the filters goes, they recommend 6 months after opening or just when airflow becomes restricted.[3]
As far as price goes, if you're in Australia, the best price from a reputable store I found was on RS for $57.80AUD although looking on eBay there are some for around $15AUD with filters. I suppose they are just silicone with some straps, they appear to be genuine from what I can tell so I decided to order one and see.



References:
[1] Wood Dust by Bob Loss http://www.fwwa.org.au/Art005_WoodDust_c1.pdf
[2] Choosing the Proper Size of Respirator Mask https://www.envirosafetyproducts.com/resources/respirators-choosing-the-size.html
[3] Respiratory Protection Guide http://multimedia.3m.com/mws/media/794269O/3m-reusable-respiratory-protection-guide.pdf
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Location: Perth WA, Australia

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