Metal swarf

This, combined with the small size of some chips (e.g. those of brass or bronze), allows them to disperse widely by piggy-backing on soft materials and also to penetrate the skin as deep splinters.

These flying chips present a hazard that is deflected with safety glasses, face shields, and other personal protective equipment, as well as the sheet-metal enclosures (and polycarbonate windows) that surround most commercial computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools.

Metal swarf can usually be recycled, and this is the preferred method of disposal due to the environmental concerns regarding potential contamination with cutting fluid or tramp oil.

Small bundles of stainless steel or bronze swarf are sold as excellent scourers for dishwashing or cleaning encrustations of dirt.

Recycling chips rather than putting them in the garbage stream (heading to landfilling or incineration) has various advantages: Machine shops are typically required by the scrap collector to:

Various examples of metal swarf, including a block of compressed swarf. Broken up chips are preferred over stringy drill chips. [ 1 ]
Bright sparks fly as a man grinds a piece of metal
Metal grinding produces grinding swarf .