alergic reaction

started building my brother a new cabinet for his new bathroom, it is a fairly small project so i decided to use some old maple bed rails i have to make it. I spent saturday making the pieces ( planer jointer table saw some sanding). On saturday nite i felt like my face was on fire! I shrouged it off as maybe something i ate and slept with no covers on. Today (sunday) it happened again after working on the cabinet. It must be the wood because I felt fine this morning until after being in the shop.

I have been woodworking for 20 years and never had this happen before, could there have been something in the old wooden rails or maybe it is not maple but some exotic wood i cannot identify. Has this ever happened before to anyone here with a certain wood ?

jimmy ( or itchy and scratchy as my kids are calling me)

Reply to
Jim & Sharon
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On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 20:12:27 -0500, "Jim & Sharon" wrote: [snip]

My dad is extremely allergic to pine. He worked in a window & millwork shop for 5 years about 60 years ago. The funny part is he became allergic to pine only 10 years back. Just smelling it will get him scratching. Touching raw pine will bring on a rash. Unfortunately a head injury caused him to lose his sense of smell so he doesn't always know what's happening unless someone tells him he near pine. He's very careful where he goes during the Christmas season. Benadrel (s?) will calm him down.

-- John, in Minnesota

Reply to
John, in MN

On Sat 03 Jan 2004 07:12:27p, "Jim & Sharon" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Are those rails unfinished, or is it possible they're treated with something that's giving you a chemical reaction? Since you've never had this happen until you worked on those particular pieces, my first thought is to suspect something peculiar about them. But I ain't no expert.

Dan

Reply to
Dan

I was building some cherry speaker cabinets at a friends place once, and his eyes the next day were nearly swoollen shut. He as well thought it may have been a food thing, so we proceded to finish the cabinets at a later date. (When he could see :-p) As it turns out it was the cherry sawdust because it happened all over again. I was fine, so it was definitely an allergy thing.

Paul

Reply to
Paul

It's happened to me with cocobolo. I had to make a midnight run to the pharmacy for antihistamines.

djb

Reply to
Dave Balderstone

Just happened to me with what I think is cherry. It's some piece of firewood left over from my parents' wood burning days. Looks like it's cherry. I was roughing some cylinders out of it on my new lathe and I started getting a really unpleasant itchy/crawly sensation. Felt like a reaction coming on to me, so I found something else to do.

I guess this means I won't be making anything out of cherry.

Reply to
Silvan

CVut down a dead cherry tree one time witha chain saw. It had been dead for about a year and my chain was dull; the dust almost put me in the hospital with an asthma attack. I have NEVER been so demobilized in such a short time as I was then. Now I wear hearing protection and a serious respirator or dust mask when I cut down trees.

Reply to
Lawrence A. Ramsey

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