sometimes, you guys look for problems in the oddest places.
I work with the same kinds of wood that good pianos are made of, SHonduras Mahogany, Oak, r
osewood,etc. Steinway used Brazilian rosewoods in their pianosd, but it isn't toxic. HONDURAS MAHOGANY IS TOXIC, BUT ONLY TO THE PERSON SANDING IT, or persons being in the area when someone else is sandinmg.
To my knowledge, except for sHonduras mahogany, no wood used in musical instrument construction is toxic. Furthermore, once the sawdust has been put into the trash ssthe danger is past.
In any commercial woodworking operation, vacuum collectors, and good ventilating equipment is installed. Any wood sanding, sawing, etc operation that isn't equipped to collect sawdust is counter productive for the boss, owner, the guy whod does the hiring, etc. quickly runs out of qualified employees.
I found out about swadust the hard way.
Barclay Warburton III, owner of the Black Pearl Tavern as well as the half brig, Black Pearl, needed a display for Rhode Island's entry at the National Bi-centennial exhibition
He wanted to use the foremast of my little Full Roigged Ship,. "Willaiam K Cove4ll", with it's three mast sections, doublings, yards complete standing and running rigging with deadeye blocks and lanyards properly rigged onto a big plywood replica of the forward section of my little ship. with pin rails, belaying pins, cleats and bits all in their proper locatrions.
"Fud" Benson had designed the "Tall Ships, ASTA logo, which I'm sure you're all familiar with, and wanted to paint this design on my fore tops'l. All of this was very flattering sto me, so I agreed to the project, and, as I was in the process of doing the rigging on the William K. Covell for the coming season's sailing. I took the fore mast rigging spars and doublings to my apartments, which fortunately had a lot of rooms we weren't using.
I was not satisfied with the Mast and yard sections, for such an illustrious undertaking. They were certainly good enough to use on the ship, but maybe the foremast wasn't perfectly round, and the yeards werent perfectly quartered, ie: straight along the trailing edge and top for the entire length, and tapering to the yardarms forward and down from the first quarter, which is octagonal in shape. (look it up)
I can make varnish (or lacquer) look like glass, which isn't at all hard to do. and the white on the doublings, fighting top, , cross trees yardarms, first quarters, likewise look like glass.
The sails were prefect as were the standing and running rigging (of necessity)
The wood sections were Douglas Fir, absolutely clear with vertical grain This is a very benign type of wood, so I didn't bother with proper ventilation or respirator. I rounded, proportioned, and sanded my poor little artistic heart out.
I had a week to finish the masts, yards, etc, while Barclay had someone else do the deck, rails bits and pins. We used my Deadeyes, which were made from baseball bats, and casting wax. Also used my bronze "iron-work", which didn't need fine tunings, and I let someone else polish them. I only took time for about 4 hours of sleep, when I needed it. Captain Warburton bought food, all prepared., up to the workshop at regular intervals, also to inspect th progress being made. I was in heaven, doing the stuff that I really like doing.
At the time deadline, I was completely satisfied with the result. Capt. W. was extatic. WE dismantled the entire thing, wrapped everything in padding to take on the airplane with us.

I was suppoosed to sit on my foredeck, with guitar and banjo and sing and play to my hearts content. I'd used a bood grade of gloss varnish and latex high gloss exterior trim paint. None of those things are toxic, but, I had inhaled considerable quantitie4 of sawdust, varnish dust and latex