LETTERS

Clearing the air

I found your editorial informative and humorous regarding the trade show incident ["There's something in the air," March, pg 9].

One other trade show occurrence is the cost of dry cleaning your clothes. I am a frequent trade show exhibitor and I can attest to the air quality from my shirt collars and odors from my suits. At one recent show, an entire exhibit hall was in a fog by noon.

Terry Werner
Marketing Manager
Airflow Systems Inc.
Dallas, TX
 

Skills shortage

In response to "Brass tacks of skills shortage" [Last Cut, March, pg 168], we need to understand the pressures that the machine shops and tool and die shops are experiencing.

We are competing in a global economy today. Global competitors may not live according to our standard of living but they do have the technology to compete with us. So it isn't really a question of industries sticking "all that money into their pockets." The industry is more dependent on what the customer is willing to pay for a particular service, while still generating a profit.

Secondly, one must keep things in perspective about construction wages. My dad and brother were both bricklayers. They made a lot more money per hour than I did, but at the end of the year I, being a tool & die maker, always came out ahead of them. They were fortunate to work nine months per year.

Also, I am not familiar with a 10-year apprentice program. Ours is a four-year/8000 hour program including 576 hours of related classroom studies. The program is not subsidized by any government tax credit--our company pays for it all. As an added incentive, we give the apprentice a starter set of hand tools worth $1000 which are his to keep, providing he successfully completes the program and stays with us for one year. The apprentice may not be a top toolmaker at the end of our program, but he will have a solid foundation to build on.

I realize not all apprentice programs are created equal, but education through this type of program, and awareness of these skilled positions at the high school level, offer individuals the opportunity to learn a trade that will continue to be needed in the future.
 
Ed Stengel
Tool Engineering Manager
Ochs
Vandalia, OH
 

Take a breath

Frankly, the perspective you offered in your March editorial ["There's something in the air," pg 9] left many users of metalworking fluids wheezing and gasping for air!

Fortunately for machinists, there's plenty of evidence that your conclusion of a causal relationship between metalworking fluid exposure and respiratory illness was misplaced. Unfortunately for your colleague, her physician probably jumped the gun by attributing her wheezing to a chemical reaction without performing any additional medical evaluation.

Much of the population is sensitive to metalworking fluids and some experts estimate that nearly 15% of the population may experience a mild reaction to these mixtures on occasion. But, 15% of the population occasionally reacts to hairspray, perfumes, and other household irritants, too.

For the record, current studies show that machinists have very low exposure levels to these mixtures. Current exposure levels are nearly 10 times less than the levels permitted by law.

One of these studies even concluded that the risk of acquiring a respiratory illness through exposure to metalworking fluids was roughly 1 in 45,928. You're seven times more likely to acquire a respiratory infection using toilet bowl cleaner in your bathroom.

If this doesn't convince you, maybe actual illness data might. The Bureau of Labor statistics reports that chemically-induced illnesses among machinists account for only 0.0001016% of all illnesses reported by machinists--metalworking-fluid-induced injuries are only a very small subset of that.

Your editorial sends a shocking message, but I suspect it's not the one you intended to send. Different people react differently to chemicals. It's dangerous to take an isolated, unstudied incident and report it as a potential health epidemic.
 
Sincerely,
 
Laura Nakoneczny
Regulatory Issues Manager
Precision Metalforming Association
Independence, OH
 

From the Editor:

We apologize if we implied that all coolant exposure is a health epidemic. However, the article specifically addressed improperly managed coolant (ie - untreated mist).

Since shop safety is a major concern of Metlfax readers, we used a real-life example to illustrate potential hazards. Based a doctor's diagnosis, it is likely that our editor may be one of the unlucky 15% of the population with coolant sensitivity.

We welcome further comments on this topic.

Drop us a line

Departments

Editorial

Advance Products

Editor's Notebook

Letters

Industry Insights:
Selecting short-hole drills

Websightings:
With a little help from the Net

FundaMetls:
Set up shop for presetting success

IMF Update

Latest Literature

Late Breaking Products

The Last Cut

Cutting Tools
Mag-In-A-Mag