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Product Showcase

CGW-Camel Grinding Wheels has expanded its high performance Super Quickie-Cut line with the introduction of .075 cut/grind combo wheels. Engineered utilizing innovative manufacturing technology, the new combo wheels allow for cutting and grinding with one wheel for reduced production times and costs.

Phoenix Hydraulic Presses offers a 25 ton heavy duty H-frame shop press to assemble spring loaded cylinders. The press features an easily adjustable hand winch to change the bed height and control the amount of daylight.

PEMHEX® self-clinching fasteners incorporate a unique hexagonal nylon element providing a reusable, non-metallic prevailing torque thread lock. These self-locking fasteners can be installed permanently in steel or aluminum sheets as thin as .060 in/1.52 mm and their locking performance meets the applicable standards of NASM25027.

Misumi USA, Inc. offers a new line of angular bearings with housings, used to support heavy thrust loads in combinations with radial loads in the same application. While such bearings have been on the market for some time, Misumi engineers worked closely with various customer personnel to develop this line with integral housings.

HE&M Saw's Femi NG120 is an easily portable mitering band saw. An arm-locking pin aids in portability. The saw miters at one-way up to 60 degrees for more versatile cutting.



MANGANESE AND WELDER'S DISEASE

Mixed Bag: Can exposure to manganese fumes really put welders at higher risk for Manganism? Or is this yet another case of people looking for somebody to sue?
By Kyndall Brown


Poor air quality in welding stations can cause illnesses ranging from minor irritations to life-threatening diseases. Much attention has been paid in the past to the effects of hexavalent chromium, but more recently a new culprit has come under increased scrutiny: manganese.

 


By 2010, welding facilities must have an air filtration system in place that removes hexavalent chromium from the air. Welding operations must reduce the permissible exposure limit from 52 to 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air. .

Manganese fumes produced during welding operations has become a hot button issue in workplace safety, leading to thousands of product liability lawsuits against manufacturers of arc welding supplies because those fumes are deemed to cause "Manganism", a serious, incurable, chronic illness with symptoms resembling those of Parkinson's Disease (PD). Some even refer to Manganism as "the welder's disease" due to the alleged high incidence in welders. Those exposed to fumes from welding rods have called it the "next asbestos" or the next "hex chrome".

 

But are these claims true? The research gives mixed results.

 

 

Read the rest of the article HERE!

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Web Exclusives

False Sense of Security? A new report from Congress supposedly discovers a startling truth about workers' compensation and declines in claim frequency.

Line of Decline: Machining activity and financial strength fall off moderately in the machine tool business.

True View: New innovations in scanner and probe technologies are advancing and expanding the speed, accuracy and capabilities of sheet metal inspection.

Sink or Swim: This advanced tube bender provides versatile on-demand production for submarine building, with fast single-stage fabrication of complex part shapes that suit the dynamic nature of this production environment.