Bought a Router

[Yorkie]

Wise advice Nick.

As to air filters, those daft paper jobbies that look like a bra cup have only one puprose in life - to con our wives into beleiving that we're taking sensible precautions when we're not. They're not even P1 rated - the lowest filtering standards and are described as 'comfort masks'. European standard EN 143 defines the following classes of particle filters that can be attached to a face mask:

P1 Filters at least 80% of airborne particles
P2 Filters at least 94% of airborne particles
P3 Filters at least 99.95% of airborne particles

I'm reminded of what was said to me about motorbike crash helmets many years ago - 'if you're got a ten quid head, buy a ten quid helmet'. A typical P2 mask which gives protection against fine dust and fibres, including MDF, costs less than £20. Hardly a big outlay. As to toxic timbers, most woodturners would put yew, laburnum and iroko at the top of their list. All of them turn well and take a nice finish but the dust from them is the very devil, and if anyone tries to sand these timbers without face protection they soon feel the effects. As well as a mask, I have a powered microfilter suspended from the ceiling of my workshop which comes on each evening for a couple of hours to keep the dust down, and a woodturning drum type dust extractor which is in use when I'm sanding.

I've always worn ear defenders for as long as I can remember when using any power tools and even when mowing the lawn.

I think Rob's first task will be to find some decent 'birch through and through' plywood to make his radio cradle as you can't 'make a silk purse out of a sow's ear'. The plywood sold by large DIY stores is mostly construction grade ply for flooring and shuttering - good enough for such tasks but useless for such things as furniture, jigs, etc. The wood used is course grained, often has thick plies in the core, sandwiched between two thinner surface plies. It has many volds and defects, and poorly patched holes on the surface, which is usually a red wood rather than birch, and wouldn't cope well with being routed. 'Birch through and through' is what it says - thin layers of tight grained birch - the sort of stuff we always used to think of as 'plywood'.

I've attached two pics of construction grade ply (ex B&Q) showing the end grain, voids, and surface defects, and in contrast, a pic of 'birch through and through' ply. The thinner closer grained even plies of the birch plywood should be evident.

Hope that's of interest.