Comment by amluto
2 years ago
I’ve watched a contractor cut holes in a countertop in the field. They did it wet. I’d still wear safety glasses if I were doing this, but IIRC there was no dust.
I’ve never seen someone cut a countertop on site. They do it in a shop. (Why didn’t Australia instead ban all countertop cutting in shops that doesn’t use dustless tools?)
Hmm, I just looked it up. Home Depot sells the tool for under $30.
I made an at home modification to our stone counter top when replacing the stove/oven. The new unit was 1/4" too wide. I did the whole tenting and wet cutting, but not nearly wet enough for the obvious reason. I was in full spaceman suit though, as I was sure the amount of water wasn't going to cut it.
I would NOT recommend this to anyone though. At the time, the turn time and expense of having the counter removed, altered at a proper shop, redelivered and installed was prohibitively expensive.
Just because you can’t see the dust doesn’t mean there isn’t dust. Often it’s the tiniest particles that are the most dangerous because they can attach to the walls of the lungs but are too small to then actually be dislodged by, a say, coughing.
I haven’t looked for lab data, but certainly what appears to happen is that the swarf ends up suspended in the water. Some water will spray, which will be a bit messy, but mostly it will be in droplets that don’t stay in the air. (And presumably aren’t going to get to one’s lungs either.) And the majority of the swarf just stays in a puddle.
This is in contrast to cutting dry, which causes all the swarf to fly into the air.
So the exposure isn’t zero, but it’s low. It would be interesting to see if it registers on a particle counter (Plantower, etc).