Drywall dust guide

What is in the dust

NIOSH's hazard control note on drywall sanding lists the ingredients of joint compound: talc, calcite, mica, gypsum and silica, some of which irritate the eyes, nose, throat and the respiratory tract. The same note reports a health hazard evaluation in which drywall sanders were exposed to as much as ten times the OSHA permissible exposure limit of 15 mg/m³ for total dust, and in which the 5 mg/m³ limit for respirable dust was also exceeded. Those are numbers for workers sanding by hand with a pole sander and no extraction, day after day; a weekend ceiling is a smaller dose of the same dust.

Taking the dust at the head

The control NIOSH describes is the one the Bluebow sander is built around: a sanding head connected by hose to a vacuum, so the dust is drawn off where the paper makes it rather than swept off the wall into the room. The sander's 6.5 foot hose runs to its own dust bag or, through one of three adapters, to a shop vacuum; a vacuum with a fine filter keeps more of the dust than the bag, and the bag is for the job where no vacuum is on site.

Extraction works best when the head stays flat on the wall and the speed matches the compound: a skim coat at the low end of the 800 to 2,100 rpm range, a ridge at the top. Lifting the head off the wall mid-stroke lets a plume out from under it, which is the dust that ends up on the floor and in the next room.

What still goes on your face

Extraction lowers the dust in the air; it does not remove it. The sander ships with goggles, earplugs and a mask for that reason. Eye protection matters twice here: OSHA's eye and face rule asks for it wherever particles fly, and compound dust is an irritant on its own. A mask rated for fine particulate, fitted to the face, is the second half. Open a window, keep the door to the rest of the house shut, and wipe the dust down wet rather than sweeping it back into the air.

Sheets and grits

The bag holds thirty hook-and-loop sheets, four each of 80, 100, 120, 150, 180 and 240 grit and six non-porous sheets, and the replacement discs on the drywall shelf keep the head fed. A sheet loaded with compound stops cutting and starts polishing, which also means it throws more dust for the same work: change sheets before the surface goes shiny, and change them with the sander unplugged.

The dust figures on this page are the ones the Bluebow favorites holds every drywall page to; the sander and its discs are on the drywall shelf.