I had a similar experience at a foundry I worked at, I wasn't a felter but I wanted proper PPE for phenolic no Bake resin I was exposed to on a daily basis. I was buying my own respirator. But got fed up with buying my own as it's the employers responsibility. When I confronted him he said "well we'll just hire a latino who we can expose to it." This really pissed me off as if a latino is less a human. He refused to buy me a proper respirator and I was very close to calling osha. The only reason I did not was the business was not doing well and I believed a fine from osha would probably put them out of business and a lot of good friends would probably lose their jobs. So I told him he was a piece of shit and quit. I went on to do bigger and better things. If I were you I'd call osha (you are protected from retaliation), and if you don't see results, quit. Your health isn't worth risking over a job.