: Yup, breathing dust can be really bad for you, beside wood dust being proven
: cancerous for workers constantly esposed to it there are woods that can
: give not only all sort of respiratory problems but even skin irritations
: and conjunctivitis, and walnut is one of those.
: Having a dust collecting setup on the tablesaw would be a good thing and a
: respirator its sure a good idea.

It’s always good to not breath wood dust anymore then you have to but in my experience of 45 years of working with over 100 patternmakers, all died well after they retired and were out of the profession except for a couple of car accidents. We also worked with epoxies. In contrast to this, the engineering department that worked in a white shirt environment had many with cancer and heart problems while they were still working. I always attributed this to the ammonia used with their blue prints. Nothing else made any sense. The foundry, which you would think would have lots of lung cancers, had much more heart problems. At the time the only guess I had was the high noise had something to do with it. I think science confirmed this in later years.

The woods we used were Pine, Mahogany, Birch, Cherry, Jelatong and Birch backed plywood’s. These didn’t seem to cause any problems but other woods might. I also work and sand mostly outside.

John