Hi All

after reading the recent article in a hse magazine, reading the article about the employee at Rolls Royce being diagnose with white finger after sandblasting . I was of concern for me with a sand blaster onsite but cannot find any information on this . Could anybody help me source this ?

I posted a copy of that story onto linked-in, the biggest point was that the vibration came from the operator actually holding the metal that was being blasted. If the metal had been put into a clamped vice or jig, the vibration would not have happened.

Also, the other big thing about the story was, nobody asked any questions of the people doing the actual job - nobody asked 'Is there a vibration?' 'When you stop, do your fingers tingle?'

So personally, I would ask questions first. Is there a problem with vibration? What can we do to stop it? (Collective measures). Can we change the way the work is done or change from shot blasting to water blasting? Can we adapt the tool so that there is no vibration imparted to the worker?

Only then, would I start to look at finding some legal case for getting the money to make the changes, but that's just me. S.2.(1) works in the courts.