"OFWW" wrote in message
...
http://www.woodshopnews.com/news/fea...s-of-wood-dust

Nice article.

How OSHA currently judges with a paper clip.

"So is the sawdust in my facility a hazard? It depends, Scott says.
The really dangerous stuff is so-called "wood flour" - fine particles
500 microns or smaller."

It appears to be a very small chance.

However as far as I am concerned the breathing of the "wood flour" is
my concern, so I will be paying attention, to this for my sake.

Steel wool catches fire easily, just so as you are aware of it. I like
to bet that I can set steel on fire. Haven't lost yet.

When I was an 8th grader, a buddy of mine and I were hired by the local
CO-OP to broom out the corn dust in the head houses of the grain elevators
in my home town. They wanted it done because they feared a buildup of the
dust might cause an explosion given the right conditions. We liked the job
because no one came to look in on us because it was such a dirty job: after
about five minutes of pushing brooms the headhouses would have so much
powder in the air you couldn't see across the room. We also liked it
because we could stand outside the headhouse and smoke cigarettes without
fear of being caught.
An additional elevator was built when I was a sophomore. It was about 60
feet taller than the old one so the design was to build a 24" diameter auger
up to the head house on the new structure from the old one. One Saturday
after the new elevator had been slipped and had been cured enough to drill
concrete anchors into it, the engineers came up to the top of the old
elevator where we had started cleaning. Of course we were smoking. It was
cold outside so we were inside. They got off the man lift just as my buddy
took a deep drag on his cig. They saw the glowing coals through the corn
dust cloud and nearly trampled each other getting the hell back on the man
lift to escape what they were sure to be a huge explosion.
They apparently didn't squeal on us. But a few minutes later the elevator
operator came up and said to stay up there until the dust cleared then come
down.

When I was a Junior I told the story to my science teacher. Without
profanity he called my buddy and I a couple of dumb asses and then explained
spontaneous combustion. For the class he made an example. He took a 2
pound coffee can. He drilled a hole on the side near the bottom where he
attached a length of tubing. He put a votive candle inside near the center
of the bottom. Then he poured a ring of cornstarch around the candle. He lit
the candle and put a lid on the can. He blew a short puff of air in the
tube. The ball of fire was big enough to scorch the ceiling tiles!

Stupid is as stupid does.

Steve