How to Avoid Woodworking Accidents: Potential Hazards and Safety Tips

Be aware of the hazards associated with woodworking. Wood is one of the most versatile and most utilized mediums in the world because of its inherent flexibility and abundance in nature. The craft of woodworking has developed a number of techniques to produce a wide variety of products such as furniture, sculptures and more. You should also give priority to the hazards involved in this type of activity.

Working with hardwoods can pose a hazard to health mainly because of exposure to its dust that is known to render woodworkers not only skin and nasal allergic reactions but as well as make them more susceptible to a specific kind of cancer.

The exterior of newly cut hardwood have saps that can trigger allergies on the skin if there is direct contact. Even hardwood dust can cause the same allergic reactions. A good example of this is rosewood, which is commonly utilized in musical instruments.

Other effects of contact with dust can bring about a number of respiratory diseases such as asthma, hypersensitive pneumonia and lung scarring caused by repeated respiratory attacks. Examples would be cork, oak and redwood. Prolonged exposure to hardwood dust is now connected with a specific kind of nasal/sinus cancer called Aden carcinoma. The latency period of this type of disease is between 40 and 45 years. Studies have shown that 7 of 10,000 woodworkers are more likely to develop this disease.

Certain pesticides and preservatives can also be a hazard in woodworking. Although it is now impossible to determine which specific chemical is dangerous in processed wood, the United States and Canada have taken an active action against banning imported woods that have been treated with pentachlorophenol and its salts, creosote and chromated copper arsenate (CCA).

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