On Mon, 15 Nov 2004 23:03:20 GMT, T i m wrote:

Hi All,

My 14 year old daughter came home the other day with a little wooden
'project' she had made at school in DT.

It looks like it was made from 6mm thick MDF and I asked her if anyone
was required to wear a face mask whilst cutting it and apparently no
one was?

Now I don't *think* this was a real safety issue but should they have
worn masks (officially?).

MDF dust is certainly not good for the health and there are maximum
exposure limits defined in the COSHH rules.

There are supposed to be risk assessments and exposure is supposed to
be minimised and certainly below MEL.

Certainly if you were sanding MDF or cutting it with power tools in a
confined space with no form of dust extraction, then a face mask is
important. You have dust and formaldehyde fumes to contend with.

However, for cutting small pieces very occasionally using hand tools
is not likely to create that much of a problem.

You might want to ask the craft teacher whether a risk assessment has
been done or which guidelines they are following. I don't that this
is worth making a big fuss about, but it may be worth raising the
issue just in case they haven't considered it.




All the best ..

T i m

And is a "Hegna Saw" any good? (never heard of it till my daughter
mentioned using one)

I believe that these are a small scroll saw.



--

..andy

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