Surface Treatment, Blasting and Coating risk assessment (NSW)
35 hazards and 294 controls for commercial blasting booths and industrial protective coating yards, already identified and rated. Answer Yes, No or N/A online and download a finished Word report.
Tier 3 · Toxic metallurgy and confined work. 15 activities, 35 hazards, 294 controls.
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The 15 activities in this assessment
Every activity is assessed in three parts — Safety (13 hazards), Process Safety (3) and Occupational Hygiene (19). Untick any activity you do not carry out and it drops out of your assessment.
✓Access to the Blasting and coating online calculator, tied to the email address used at checkout. Untick any activity you do not carry out and it drops out of your checklist, results and report.
✓A finished Word report (.docx) with every hazard, your answers, the residual risk and your Action Plan already in it — to print, sign and keep with your safety records.
✓The inherent hazard register in Word: every hazard here with what could go wrong, the possible consequence and its starting risk rating, to read before the walk and share with the people you consult.
✓A printable walkthrough checklist for marking by hand on the workshop floor.
What this pack is
Blast nozzle recoil and static, toxic abrasive dusts, isocyanate polyurethane coatings and breathing air quality.
Each industry here is a complete risk assessment for one kind of workshop, with the hazards and their starting ratings already identified by a Certified Industrial Hygienist. You answer Yes, No or N/A to the controls, and the calculator works out your residual risk, builds the Action Plan and produces the finished report.
Surface Treatment, Blasting and Coating
Workplace risk assessment for commercial blasting booths and industrial protective coating yards in New South Wales: 15 activities, 35 hazards and 294 controls across safety, process safety and occupational hygiene. Completed in the online calculator, which works out control scores, residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan and produces a finished Word report to print and sign.
- ✓35 hazards across 15 activities, each with its consequences and starting risk already rated
- ✓294 controls listed for you, ranked by the hierarchy of control — you answer Yes, No or N/A
- ✓Colour-coded residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan, worked out for you
- ✓A finished Word report to print and sign
- ✓The inherent hazard register in Word and a printable walkthrough checklist for the workshop floor
Tier 3 · Toxic metallurgy and confined work. 15 activities, 35 hazards, 294 controls.
Secure checkout via Stripe. Sign in and start as soon as the payment goes through.
Run more than one kind of work? See every industry
The most serious hazards in blasting and coating
A sample of the 35 hazards in this assessment, each shown with its consequence and the starting risk rating given by a Certified Industrial Hygienist before any controls are counted. The controls themselves are in the calculator.
Silicosis, progressive and irreversible, including accelerated silicosis from high exposures over a few years; lung cancer; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; autoimmune disease. Respirable crystalline silica is a Schedule 14 substance, so health monitoring is required where there is a significant risk of exposure. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 5C.
Lead exposure, which is lead process work under the WHS Regulation and carries notification, blood lead monitoring and removal level duties. Hexavalent chromium, a carcinogen with no safe level from 1 December 2026. Cadmium and zinc from plated and galvanised surfaces. None of this is controlled by arrangements designed for clean steel. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 5C.
Carbon monoxide delivered directly into the helmet, causing unconsciousness inside an enclosure where the person cannot be seen or easily reached; oil mist and particulate inhaled; in the worst case, death from a supply that was believed to be protective. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 5B.
Abrasive at blasting pressure penetrates skin and destroys tissue, and can amputate or kill at close range. A whipping hose under pressure causes severe blunt injury. Air forced into the body through skin causes fatal air embolism. Safety · inherent risk 5B.
A collapse from heat, carbon monoxide in the air supply, or an injury inside the enclosure goes unnoticed until it is too late. The conditions that cause the emergency are the same ones that prevent anyone noticing it. Safety · inherent risk 5B.
Crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Vehicle and mobile plant incidents are consistently among the leading mechanisms of work-related fatality in Australia. Safety · inherent risk 4C.
Flash fire or vapour explosion, severe burns, fatality, loss of the booth and the building. Solvent-contaminated rags self-heat and can ignite hours after work has finished. Process Safety · inherent risk 4B.
Duct and filter fire spreading through the building, frequently starting after the shift has ended. Extraction systems are a well-recognised ignition path in fabrication workshops and are commonly excluded from both the fire risk assessment and the cleaning schedule. Process Safety · inherent risk 4B.
How one hazard is rated
Hazard S1.1 — manual handling of sections, plate and offcuts — starts at 2D, rated before any controls are counted. The calculator lists 8 controls for it, from elimination and extraction at the source down to PPE, monitoring and emergency arrangements. You answer Yes, No or N/A for each on the floor. Once the last one is answered it works out the control score, applies any severity reduction earned by physical controls, and shows the residual risk as RED, YELLOW or GREEN. Every control you answered No to goes into your Action Plan, most urgent and most effective first, ready for a responsible person and a due date.
Silica, old paint and isocyanate: the air inside a blast and coating yard
A blasting and protective coating business handles two very different exposures in the same shed. At the blast end, abrasive striking steel throws up respirable crystalline silica wherever a silica-bearing abrasive is used or a silica-containing surface is removed, and the dust escapes at the door, on the operator and through the recovery and recycling system. At the coating end, two-pack polyurethane hardener is sprayed as mist and vapour, then released again during curing, mixing and gun cleaning.
Both carry lasting health liability. Silica causes silicosis, including accelerated silicosis after only a few years of heavy exposure, along with lung cancer and chronic lung disease. Isocyanates are potent respiratory sensitisers, and once a painter is sensitised any later exposure can trigger asthma for life. Both are Schedule 14 substances, so health monitoring is required where there is a significant risk of exposure. The third liability arrives on the job itself: old structures, tanks and bridges coated in red oxide, chromate or pre-1997 paint systems that commonly contain lead and hexavalent chromium, which blasting releases without anyone having identified it.
What sets this trade apart from a general fabrication shop is that the protection is life-support equipment. The blaster breathes through an air-fed helmet, works in near-zero visibility and noise that commonly exceeds 110 dB(A), and relies on a dead-man control and a compressor intake that someone else looks after. When any of those fail, the injury is sudden rather than chronic.
What SafeWork NSW looks for at the blast pot and the spray booth
The assessment starts where an inspector would: at the nozzle. You confirm the dead-man control is fitted, function-tested before each use and never restrained open, that hose couplings are pinned or locked with whip checks across every joint, and that the pot and hoses are inspected before each shift with defective items removed. A dead-man taped or wired open is a prohibited practice in the calculator, not a scored control.
Next is the enclosure. You check that a second person is continuously outside while blasting is in progress with a means of communication, that there is an emergency stop inside and doors openable from inside at all times, and that a practised rescue plan exists. Breathing air quality for the helmets, including where the compressor draws its air and whether it has been tested, sits alongside this.
Then the chemical side: whether existing coatings are identified before blasting, whether isocyanate and silica exposure is measured and health monitoring arranged, how the booth and mixing room are ventilated, and whether solvent and coating stores are controlled.
Typical first answers from a coating yard, and where they fall short
Most yards score well on personal protective equipment: blast suits, hoods and air-fed spray helmets are usually on hand. The No answers cluster around what sits behind the equipment. The compressor feeding the helmets shares the general workshop supply with no dedicated filtration, its intake is near the forklift or the blast room exhaust, and air quality has never been tested. Paint on incoming structures is assumed to be ordinary, so lead and chromate never enter the conversation. Air monitoring for silica and isocyanate has not been done.
Getting from yellow to green depends on engineering and substitution rather than rules. Choosing a non-silica abrasive, capturing dust inside a properly ventilated enclosure instead of relying on open doors, and separating the spray booth from the fitting bays all move the result.
NOT RATED looks like this on a busy afternoon. The blaster is alone in the room, the dead-man handle is cable-tied so their hand does not cramp, and the supervisor is loading the truck out the front. Continuous attendance and an unrestrained dead-man are unconditional gates, so the blast hose and lone-work hazards cannot receive a rating until those answers become Yes.
How your controls are scored
Not generic advice — the specific, hierarchy-of-controls measures written into the pack, matched to how these assets actually fail.
Built for the people who do this work
If you operate, maintain or contract to these assets in NSW, this pack is written for your duties.
- ✓Commercial blasting booths and industrial protective coating yards
- ✓Owners and managers who need a risk assessment that stands up to a SafeWork NSW visit
- ✓Safety coordinators covering several workshops or several trades
- ✓Workshops whose insurer, principal contractor or client has asked for a documented assessment
- ✓Trainers and supervisors inducting apprentices onto workshop hazards
Authored to the codes and the law
The Codes of Practice and Australian Standards these documents are measured against, and the legislation behind them.
- §Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)
- §Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW)
- §Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants (Safe Work Australia)
- §AS 1674.1 and AS 1674.2 — Safety in welding and allied processes
- §AS/NZS 1715 and AS/NZS 1716 — Selection, use and maintenance of respiratory protective equipment
Frequently asked questions
Add an in-house CIH risk assessment review
Complete your risk assessment using our digital engine, then have our in-house Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) and Full Member of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists (MAIOH) review your specific results to ensure bulletproof compliance.
Post-completion expert review
Not sure if you categorised your site’s controls correctly? Complete your online assessment and send us the generated report. Our in-house experts will review your residual risk scores, validate your “N/A” selections, and ensure your action plan adequately addresses your highest liabilities (like hexavalent chromium or LEL environments) before you sign off.
- Scope
- Remote CIH and MAIOH review of your completed calculator report and hazard register.
- Turnaround
- 3–5 business days.
- Pricing
- Remote review is billed at an hourly rate of $250 AUD/hour (total quote based on the number of sections reviewed).
Walk it, answer it, sign it.
The calculator generates a finished, fully formatted .docx record with your Action Plan already inside it. Print it, sign it off, and you are audit-ready for this workshop.
Price in AUD, no GST charged · Jurisdiction: New South Wales — WHS Act 2011, WHS Regulation 2025 and SafeWork NSW Codes of Practice applied
This is a generic risk assessment for a typical workshop of this kind, to support your due diligence — completing it is not compliance in itself. You must answer it for your own site, consult your workers, put the missing controls in place, and get competent advice where it says so — exposure monitoring, for example, is work for an occupational hygienist. The limits are set out at the front of every report.