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A good dust collector is at the top of my list now. I am having a sensitivity issue and I need help identifying the culprit. Yesterday, I worked on an ebony fretboard-- installed side position markers in ivoriod binding, installed abalone dots, both with ca. The day before, I repaired some fret slot tearout with ebony dust and ca. Yesterday evening, I sanded everything flush, and also sanded the angle of my indian rosewood peghead veneer for the nut. After dinner, I became dizzy and nauseated. I thought that maybe it was the ca. Today, I went into the shop and worked on the nut joint for just a couple of minutes and started getting dizzy. This is guitar #1 for me, and I have never worked with rosewood. The peghead is bound, so I was sanding rosewood and ivoroid at the same time. What do you think it is?

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Ebony dust gives me a migraine type headache. Most other wood dusts irritate my sinuses and give me a headache. I now wear a quality dust mask any time i am near a piece of sandpaper. I would suggest a good dust mask will solve your problem. Pals, Vic.

I wear a respirator with a 100% seal (no beard here) when making sawdust as often as possible.

Sounds like you need to wear a respirator when sanding these woods. Get a NIOSH approved respirator with cartridge filters for fumes from the glue, and P100 filters for just sanding, or wear the cartridge filters when you do both. Coco and walnut do it for me. I can't even touch the stuff without getting a rash.

(edited).

Both ebonies and rosewoods are sensitizers, but severe reactions are uncommon, unless dealing with one of the bad boys like cocobolo. Most of the time the reaction will include mild irritations pertaining to eye, skin, or respiratory.

CA glue has been reported to be extremely nasty to many people right off the bat, presenting the same scenarios as some epoxies.
Do an internet search- type in "CA glue sensitive", and you'll be bombarded with examples.

When discussing the sensitizers (and often that seems to include just about all the stuff we use!), keep in mind that sensitivity will vary from person to person due to differing tolerance levels.
I discussed this with my daughter. The other day I was doing some work, and she asked why I was wearing a respirator. So I explained to her using the example of "different-sized containers" in our bodies. When exposed to a chemical, it goes into your "container". One person might be carrying a tablespoon, and another might be carrying a paint bucket, and another might be carrying a kitchen sink. Regardless of the size of your "container", the goal is not to have it fill up.

Each repeated exposure makes it that much easier to trigger a reaction.
Some people go their whole life without experiencing any effects; these are the folks who have a 500 gallon fuel tank.
And then there are others can't even be around the material after very limited exposure; these are the people with the spoons.

Hard to say which material caused your problem, unless you go through the suffering of isolating the variables in "controlled experiments".
For now, your safest action may be to wear a respirator.

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Always have plenty of sandpaper; it's rough out there!

If the culprit is CA, then you may want to wear chemical goggles as well as a respirator. Believe it or not, vapors can be absorbed through your eyes into your bloodstream. If you are sensitive enough, it can be enough to cause a systemic reaction.

An exhaust fan is a good idea too.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

CA does it for me. Also makes my eyes water. So much that I use epoxy when I can.
I have read that shell dust is a carcinogen and the lungs have a hard time expelling it.
I always wear a mask when sanding shell.

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I think it might be the rosewood because it happened so quickly on the second day of sanding. My internet searches only revealed rashes and itching as symptoms. Have you heard of dizziness/nausea from rosewood dust? Also, my shop is very small at 6'x14' and it is adjacent to my garage. I was thinking of looking for a used jet or equivilent dust collector on craigslist and running the duct through the wall. Will this combined with wearing a dust mask or respirator suffice?

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

Shell dust is not a carcinogen. But it is a nuisance dust that should be kept to a minimum.

You gave too little information for one to know if it will suffice.

Everytime you run the collector the temperature and humidity in your shop will become the same as the air outside that you drew into your shop. Will that be acceptable to you?

The way to get around bringing in outside air is to dump the exhaust back into the
workshop. I use an oneida cyclone outside the shop, then dump the exhaust of
the cyclone back into the shop (actually, I have a big HEPA filter I dump the air
into, so the return air is filtered by both the cyclone and the HEPA filter).

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain