"Vaughn" wrote in
:

Sorry, but that is old information. Low percentage beryllium
alloys are
indeed dangerous.

Not wrong I just should have elaborated a little more. Around 2%, give or
take and depending on who to believe, of the population is succeptible to
Chronic Beryllium Disease or CBD. CBD can be fatal over the long term,
and even if it's not a fatal case it's a serious condition that you don't
want. CBD is caused by inhaling Beryllium dust. So welding, melting,
casting, abrasive cutting of any type ie grinding, buffing, polishing,
sanding, light milling, etc are not advised without proper ventilation
and filtering. I have read where people who show sensitivity to it when
handling it (skin rash, dermititus, pneumonia type symptoms) may be more
susceptible to CBD. I've mainly turned it under flood coolant on Swiss
screw machines. At one company I worked at there were a couple of Levin
Lathes that were used to turn it dry. I avoided that area like the
plague. Beryllium is a known carcinogen. The woman that ran that Levin
lathe for 30+ years got cancer. You could see the BeCu dust in the light
from the work light sparkling in the air. Also makes me wonder if someone
bought that lathe used over the years and took it home and cleaned all
that dust out of it.

In the case of my wife, she was working with tiny
castings, a few of which contained beryllium up to a maximum of 3%.
Her lungs are ruined for life. There has been lost of misinformation
on this in the past because: 1) There can be decades between exposure
and symptoms. ("Been using the stuff all my life and never a problem")

True.

2) Most of the population is immune. (are you feeling lucky?)

With a name like Murphy? Never.

3) Overoptimistic spin by the alloy manufacturers. (you can guess why)
4) Disinformation from the government (Lots of beryllium in nuclear
weapons and they needed workers during the cold war.)

They were working with nearly pure Beryllium. Most got cancer.


To be on the
safe side it's best not to do any machining that creates dust such as
grinding and buffing.

Good advice, the amount of dust that is dangerous is invisible to
the eye,
and it tends to hang in the air. It will go right through a paper
filter mask.

I'm sorry to hear about you wife. All in all I'm more worried about the
carcinogenic effects of it than the CBD though. Overall my exposure as
far as I know has been fairly low. It seems a lot more people that work
with Beryllium get cancer than CBD. Neither one is a picnic. Anyway, you
wouldn't find me grinding or abrading the stuff. I doubt that I would
ever bring a bar of BeCu home and machine it either. Grinding carbide is
also fairly dangerous to your health. As I've gotten older Carbide dust
will make my heart pound. Probably the Cobalt. The dust from carbide
grinding is carcinogenic as well.

--

Dan