Safety for Stone Sculptors – OSHA
Pat Barton
December 24, 2023
A studio floor with heaps of stone chips entangled in tools, power cords, and air hoses is dangerous as well as uncomfortable. To minimize this clutter I have mounted a power cord and an air hose on overhead booms that pivot from the studio wall. Each boom is about four feet long providing a swing that covers the entire carving area and allows access to all sides of the workpiece. I have tightened the pivot pins so each boom swings easily but with enough friction to stay in place when pushed out of the way against the wall. Two angle grinders are suspended from the power boom by hoops made from mild steel rod. The air boom has a tee fitting for a coil hose with a nozzle and another hose with an in-line valve and coupler for air tools. The tool hose is hung from the boom by looping it over a disc-shaped drawer knob whose profile firmly wedges even a dusty hose against the boom with no slipping. Of course if my studio were always as clean as it is in these photographs I wouldn’t have any clutter, or sculpture, either.
Ron Geitgey, was a Geologist and long-time NWSSA Member, who contributed a series of four Studio Notes, which we ran in consecutive issues of Sculpture Northwest.
We need some kind of descriptive text here.