Ted--

You mentioned that "boat building woods are toxic". Are you referring to the formaldahyde in the glue used to laminate marine grade plywood? I've heard phenol type glues tend to tie up the formaldahyde while urea and melamines will out-gas formaldahyde.

I built my Tern 14 in my living room. I was leary of dust to begin with, so I'd vacuum every day. Turns out I didn't sand the plywood much (only at butt joints), and scrapping the epoxy produced discrete-sized chunks that could be easily cleaned up. After getting the boat together, I completely cleaned and dusted, at which point I found a very fine layer of dust on everything, probably epoxy dust. Closing the doors to the living room helped.

Getting the boat into perfect alignment in a tight room maybe impossible--I'm going to build a Tern 17 soon, and my living room is 18' x 12'---I may have to take the stitched hull outside to check alignment. Oh well. Beats buying tupperware...

Is that you in the Pygmy catalog? Nice boats!

Jay, Savannah, GA.

: Niklas,

: Well, at the risk of being blunt, I suggest keeping food out of the shop
: (including coffee, etc.) and keeping the shop out of the food. One never
: knows how much exposure it will take before you get sensitized to the wood
: dust or chemicals. For some it takes only one boat. In case you don't
: know, many of the boat building woods are relatively toxic. Once a person
: becomes sensitized, the boat building game is pretty much over. The
: sensitivitly is a life lasting condition for most.

: Working in a kitchen might make it hard to provide enough ventilation. It
: depends on the configuration of the room. Also it's pretty hard to keep
: dust out of the rest of the house when working in an adjoining room. I
: think it would take an extraordinary effort to do it well, not to mention
: good dust removal/collection gear.

: Ted Henry