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I know of two major ones: Respiratory and skin rashes associated with two woods: Cocobolo Rosewood and Western Red Cedar

I had a six month bout with respiratory congestion, phlegm, and I was worried it could eventually cause lung cancer. I avoided going to the doctor like a fool, but it finally cleared up. That's when I adopted a policy of no dust mask/ no shop work. My lungs completely cleared. Cocobolo dust is a mean master on skin, but an unholy terror in your lungs.

Now for the second report. The guy who taught the local guitar kit construction class had a horrible reaction to dust from a top of western red cedar. He was flat of his back for six days with some sort of reaction. He walked warily around the stack on my shelf, so I know he is serious about even being near it.

I had a skin reaction to Imbuia that took 6 months to clear up. Started as a rash type thingy then kept getting worse and worse until it finally looked nothing short of leprosy. Cream from the Dr. did nothing. Nothing over the counter helped. One day I went swimming and noticed that the clorine seamed to help a bit. So I treated it with straight bleach on a cotton ball. I'm not recomending that treatment but just saying it worked for me.
Various woods send my lungs into fits. I have asthma and am very, very careful. My dust collection is an extremely overpowered cyclone, ambient air filter and respirator when making fine dust. Some woods just make thier way through it all, cocobolo, ebony come to mind right away.
Not really anything you can do but be careful and if you find something bad, stay away from it. Most woods are sensitizers meaning that each reaction will be worse than the last as your body tries to fight the allergens. I haven't touched Imbuia since. Sold the guitar as quickly as I could just to stay away from it.

never had trouble with any of them, but use a respirator alot when sanding and use downdraft table and all of that. I don't know if will hurt me or not, lacquer is what does me a job. Imbuya, well don't know if it will cause problems with skin, but the narc's might prowl around, to me and my old narc nose, smells like mj(pot whatever)My nieghbor thought reverted back to the old days of the 60's

Come on, come clean. The next thing you will say is that you use patouli oil.

Bruce,

do you know if your lungs will eventually expel wood dust over time or is it something that builds up and can't really be reversed? I've heard long term exposure can get worse and worse until there's irreversable damage. I always wear a dust mask and open the garage door, but my next shop will be much more confined and I'm already looking at dust collection systems. I look at the sample video from John Mayes where he's sanding without a mask, and I'm thinking even with that table, there's got to be a bunch of dust in the air. I hope I'm wrong because I would love to get a system that works well enough to work without a mask, but haven't seen one yet.

Cheers!

John

Bruce,

I spent about the last hour trying to find an mimf discssion in their library that I thought would be of particular interest to you. I couldn't find it - maybe I dreamed it. But from memory.. it was a discussion about a person attending the Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery, and as soon as he started working with spruce or cedar (both), he swelled up and had intense allergic reactions. So they had him make a guitar with I think an Indian Rosewood soundboard.

I think there was some explanation of the odd reaction in the discussion, but I can't find it anywhere. Maybe I did dream it...

Regards,
Joshuajfrench38412.7463078704

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Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

God gave you one set of lungs, and they're pretty important. I am a painting contractor, and I know that you can absorc chemicals through places other than your lungs, like your eyes, and skin, esp hands. So, I'm cautious.

Research and invest in dust collection, air filtration, general protection. You may not always see all the benefits, but you will see the COST if you don't. It should be a very high priority.

Each person has different sensitivities, and what may not bother you today, may bother you later. Cocobola seems to bother most.

I recently opened up an LMI shipment of spruce, grenadillo, palo escrito, & mahogany. Just looking through it started my lungs to hurt within a couple hours. I vacuumed (who knows WHAT dust got cross contaminated from the mill) and put the respirator on. I'm pretty sure it is the palo escrito that irritated me.

Same precautions for superglue, and pearl dust, etc, etc

Joshua, it's probably in the que of Twilite Zone. Once things expire there they get put into a que to be archived. That que is months and months long so that's probably why you couldn't find it.
Stan, Imbuia didn't smell like weed to me (of course I've only HEARD others talk about what weed smells like :^) I thought it smelled like Rhino Pee. And when bending, it smelled like broccoli. Very strange.

Woolson, my question: Why were you standing behind a Rhinocerous in the first place?

[QUOTE=Pwoolson] I had a skin reaction to Imbuia that took 6 months to clear up. Started as a rash type thingy then kept getting worse and worse until it finally looked nothing short of leprosy. Cream from the Dr. did nothing. Nothing over the counter helped. One day I went swimming and noticed that the clorine seamed to help a bit. So I treated it with straight bleach on a cotton ball. I'm not recomending that treatment but just saying it worked for me.
Various woods send my lungs into fits. I have asthma and am very, very careful. My dust collection is an extremely overpowered cyclone, ambient air filter and respirator when making fine dust. Some woods just make thier way through it all, cocobolo, ebony come to mind right away.
Not really anything you can do but be careful and if you find something bad, stay away from it. Most woods are sensitizers meaning that each reaction will be worse than the last as your body tries to fight the allergens. I haven't touched Imbuia since. Sold the guitar as quickly as I could just to stay away from it. [/QUOTE]

I have Asthma too so I'm pretty careful in the shop, I have both an air cleaner and a dust collection system but in my next shop I'm building a MONSTER dust collecter and hooking it up to everything. Since I have a Jet contractor saw I don't have collection on it. Rosewood makes me sneeze like crazy so I'm pretty careful around it, no serious reactions but I even have an Air Trend mask I wear when doing necks and dusty things...

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Bruce, it's a long story. But it smells like Imbuia.

Whatever ones thought of how it smells, it is a bad odor. Thing is, it is one of the easiest woods to work with for me. Saws easy, bends the as good if not better than eir. gluing no problem. Sad such an easy working and beautiful wood stinks so bad

Imbuia, is this the same as Ovankol? Ovangkol stinks like this too.

Not the same. I think BobC has some Imbuia. Amazaque is another common name for Ovangkol (Ghibourtia Ehie, same family as Bubinga. I think that's right, anyway..they both quite stink. Zebrawood's much worse, though.)

I spend a large chunk of my working life in a laboratory, and we have to do a risk assessment for every task. This can be really time consuming and annoying but means that we have to think about and take responsibility for the health and safety of the students. I tend to treat my shop the same. A lot of plants, including trees, have in-built chemical protection systems that defend against being eaten by a whole range of organisms, we derive a lot of our medicines from them, I therefore assume with a new wood that it could harm me. I know that all of the dust will harm me, I therefore never sand without both high extraction going and a mask, and I never work on new woods without surgical gloves. So far the only one that has given me any trouble is Pau Ferro (Machaerium scleroxylon) which gave me a slight rash and watering eyes. I stopped working on it and binned the wood. I always use surgical gloves with Cocobolo, as I like the wood and don't want to become sensitised to it. The only other wood I am allergic to is Sitka spruce, but that is purely aural.

I think the sensible thing to do is assume it will harm you and take steps until you know otherwise. And don't forget the hearing protection when using machinery, It's no good building a great guitar if you can't hear it!



Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Sitka is getting a bum rap. Of course I'm a Red Spruce guy, and am thinking along the lines of German and Italian lately. Sitka is so common, why don't you like it Colin? To me there is nothing more beautiful than a dark, quartered, silk-laden specimen, and the sound is pleasing.

Sorry Bruce but Sitka is just not for me. I would use it if I had to but I don't because of the existense of the various types of European, Adi, WRC & Englemann. I did use it on my first four guitars, they have now all had their tops replaced with European and the sound is so much better (to my ears). I like to play in a wide range of dynamics and with the way I build at least Sitka doesn't have the range of response I'm looking for. If I ever had a rush of blood to the head and built a Dreadnaught for flat picking then I have no doubt I'd put a sitka top on it, but as I only build small body guitars for fingerpicking there are many better alternatives.

ColinColin S38413.3908680556

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Sanding Coco give me tremendous headaches - even WITH a full respirator.
Maybe I need a bigger upchare to work with COCO- call it a pain and suffering charge

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Too, Colin, I have Sitka, and then I have Sitka. It varies all over the map. I have some that feels like rubber, then I have some that is much stronger and appropriate for acoustic guitars.

I'm not sure, but I think Kathy Wingert has that upcharge philosophy. TIme and materials adds up. Taking extra time and precautions is time. Time is money. So, if you add an upcharge and have to defend yourself, ya' just tell em we OLFers all agree that this is an industry standard, and it is now considered standard fare! I do it in my paint contracting business all the time-they really do understand when you show em what's really involved. In all seriousness, you certainly should!

So at a minimum, I should be wearing what type of mask while sanding and sawing? Or is a respirator necessary? What types and brands do you prefer? I'm an asthmatic too and don't want to exacerbate the problem. Thanks.

Eric

I would use a 3M respirator, I bought mine at Lowe's for 35 bucks. Came with an extra set of filters. I wouldn't mess around, especially if I were asmatic...

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