[grey_whiskers]

Clean plutonium metal does not burn at room temperature, but the higher temperatures associated with machining plutonium metal have caused numerous fires in the finely-divided plutonium metal machine scraps. Second, the decay of short-lived plutonium-241 in plutonium metal yields americium-241, which emits penetrating gamma radiation."

Great, so you have small particles laden with gamma-emitters, finely dispersed into the air, just right for inhaling.

That would suck.

Cheers!

[Southack]

"Great, so you have small particles laden with gamma-emitters, finely dispersed into the air, just right for inhaling. That would suck."

...And they're pyhrophoric...easily self-igniting in the presence of air and just a little heat...plus, plutonium (and uranium for that matter) is extremely brittle...not exactly metals that one would see machined in Joe Average's Machine Shop on Broad Street.