THE IMPORTANCE OF A DUST-FREE WORKPLACE IN BODY SHOP
Precision and perfection are essential in the field of vehicle maintenance. However, getting that ideal, immaculate polish on a car’s surface can be difficult, especially in a workplace where dust and particulates are a continual presence. That’s where a dust extraction system comes in handy, playing a critical part in keeping your body shop dust-free. In this post, we’ll look at the importance of a dust-free atmosphere in your body shop, and how it may improve safety, health, and overall efficiency.
Sanding is used in car body repair to remove paint from surfaces and smooth body panels mended with body filler solutions. Airborne dusts generated during these activities may contain dangerous compounds such as lead and chromium from surface coatings and abrasives from sanding discs, which can injure workers’ lungs and nervous systems. Dust concentrations may also exceed OSHA requirements.
Auto body shop employees may be subjected to a range of physical and chemical risks. The following substances can pose a chemical risk: silica from sandblasting operations, dust from sanding, diisocyanates, polyisocyanates, and hexavalent chromium from spray painting operations, and metal fumes from welding and cutting. For this reason, a dust extraction system is crucial to the health and safety of employees in body shops.
Preventing the risks of stucco dry sanding
A vehicle’s defects can be buffered or finished using metallic stuccos, but for the repaired portions to appear smooth, they must be sanded. But powdered stucco, especially the kind used in the car sector, is hazardous and increases the risk of cancer in workers when it’s hung in the air.
The risks are obviously higher for people who are subjected to prolonged exposure, such as workshop technicians, who are frequently exposed to quantities of these compounds that surpass the critical threshold. A good dust extractor reduces to a minimum all risks of this kind, ensuring the removal of these elements resulting from the working in the same moment they’re produced by use of ventilated mechanical sanders.
Rotary/orbital and straight line/reciprocating sanders, equipped with HIGH VELOCITY, LOW VOLUME (HVLV) local exhaust ventilation as part of the tool’s design, are recommended because they have been shown to be effective in reducing total dust concentrations during the sanding of body filling compounds. HVLV ventilated sanders have cut total dust concentrations to one-tenth the levels produced using unventilated sanders.
Benefits of Dust Extraction System in Body Shop
Installing a body shop dust extraction system ensures three benefits:
Health – Fine dust might be damaging to one’s health in the long run.
Legal-administrative – there are standards that require certain types of companies to install dust extraction systems.
Organisational – A dust-free workplace increases output and enhances the caliber of product or services.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) defines a combustible dust as “a combustible particulate solid that presents a fire or deflagration hazard when suspended in air or some other oxidizing medium over a range of concentrations, regardless of particle size or shape.
References:
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/hazardcontrol/hc1.html
https://blog.worky-italy.com/en-us/automotive/dust-extractor-how-to-reduce-the-risks-of-dry-sanding