The first thing you will notice when bone carving is the wonderful dust that the equipment makes! Nearly everything you do creates a fine dust. From cutting the bone on the bandsaw, grinding it with a high-speed drill, sanding, and even buffing. This dust is excellent for the veggie garden so because veggies are healthy, logically it must be healthy for my body too. (I am being sarcastic, see if you spot this weird sense of humor elsewhere).

Therefore, don’t wear a dust mask. An excellent dust mask with proper filters and prefilters really blocks out the dust, therefore causes you to miss out on all the health benefits obtained through breathing it in.

Medical experts tell me that long term exposure to breathing the dust is really bad for my lungs. I just don’t believe them, after all, what would they know!

I reckon that it must make my lungs stronger because they have to work harder to get that precious oxygen into those blocked up capillaries. I understand that they can easily replace lungs these days with the cool stuff they do in surgery, so she’ll be right anyway. I decided that it is not trendy to live in fear regarding lung diseases like Pneumoconiosis. If someone complains to me about a bit of fibrosis, I say suck it in and harden up.

Even though I’m told there are two concerns about inhaling dust. The size of the dust particle and the chemical composition of the particle. But I’ve always been told we shouldn’t sweat the small stuff right?

To make up for wearing masks all those years, I recommend that burn any masks you possess and do some serious hyperventilating, yawning and deep yoga breathing in your workshop to ensure the particles reach deep into your lungs. It might take a few years to notice the effects, but the wait is worthwhile.

It you can’t bring yourself to remove and burn your high-quality mask, don’t worry, just use one of those disposable masks. It will feel like you’re safe, but you’ll still get a good dose of dust over time. If you can smell it, you’re getting it. Dust masks are for pussys anyway.

I always make sure to place food and a good cup of coffee right next to the best dust emitting sources in the workshop to make the most of their nutritional benefits. A good layer of dust on your pie and coffee adds taste too. Much better then salt and sugar which are gradually killing us every day!

Having a dusty workshop is a must if you want to rebel against the system. Don’t worry about the fire risk either. She’ll be right. It also makes it a great environment for the kids to play, but more on that later…

Disclaimer: I’m not really serious about not wearing a dust mask ok? Just in case you thought I was actually insane…