sanding stain - airborne dust

[Michael]

My wife and I just refinished a piano - the parts we could do outside we did, but obviously we had to do some work inside. We used stripper to remove most of the existing stain and then sanded the rest off.

This resulted in ALOT of red dust everywhere. My question - although we did wear dust masks, what kind of health hazards are we looking at? We hung up plastic to prevent the dust from going through the house, but it still managed to get everywhere.

I'm just concerned that we're ingesting it on a daily basis now because it seems to be in places we hadn't expected. Perhaps I am overreacting? Anything I can do for us or is the damage done?

Thanks, Michael

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Once a modern finish (modern being no lead) is cured, it is not considered toxic. If by ingestion, you meat it is getting in your mouth, I'd not be concerned about it. If you mean inhaling, it is probably no more (or no less) toxic than breathing sawdust with no finish.

[Duane Bozarth]

...

Think? Sue the bastards!

You're dead! (Of course it may take 70 yrs but what the hell...I'm sure you'll find a litigator somewhere...)

Sheesh! Let's talk something useful like ID. :(

[barry]

One thing is to learn from what happened. Sanding dust will migrate everywhere, period. You have to collect it at the source, like with shop-vac and gore-tex filter connected to sander.

A vac with that sort of filter will help collect the debris now, but it's a much bigger project, obviously. Back when, I noticed such fine dust settling 15-20 feet from the source, indoors, in "still" air.

Dust particles above about 1 micron don't make it to your lungs; smaller than that down to about .25 micron get there and stay, according to USCG studies.

J