Sawdust removal

[handwerker]

I do my knive-related work in my fathers workroom and thats the problem.


First pic shows our workbench and the second shows a turn to the left with all the instruments my father has.
He is an electro technician and therefore less than happy about me producing fine dust all over the room.
I tried an extra vaccuum cleaner with a large funnel attatched to it. Neither suspended over the vice nor under it did it successfully remove the fine dust.
separating the room is not an option and working outside in the cold neither, so some kind of exhaust is necessary.
Has anyone faced the same problem and found a homemade solution?

[spamel]

Dunno, but that is a fine looking workshop. Look at all of those tools!

[ANDYLASER]

I'd like to play in both sides of that workshop.

[a6cjn]

There's loads of stuff here but it is pricy.
I'd try to figure out what process or machine creates the most dust.
A belt sander or sanding disc would be the obvious ones but a band saw kicks up quite a bit as well.
I would make some attachments (if they haven't got them already) and fix them to the offending machines.
Then you can plug your vac hose into the machine you're working on.
Hand sanding shouldn't be too much od a problem, as long as you clean up afterwards.
And if I had a workshop like that, I wouldn't let my lad anywhere near it, I've seen his bedroom

Chris

[thomas]

Thats pretty much like my dads workshop

The only thing you can do is open windows, use your vacume cleaner the way you have been, and if your in there working yourself, throw a few dust sheets over the tables and equipment. Your dad might have tins of air spray which are handy to blow dust out of equipment. But other than that, there is not much more you can do that i can think of.

[patricweill]

Have you thought about a plastic curtain ( as around hospital beds ) to separate the room in two when you are working. a rail on the ceiling abd some shower curtains can do the trick

[handwerker]

Thank you for the suggestions1
Its only hand-sanding, but I hadnt expected the fine ( I go up to 1200 grid) dust to travel across the whole room.
I think I will try a removable shower-curtain around the vice.
A merry christmas to all of you.

[rapidboy]

I bought a small dust extractor from axminster and it's probably the best piece of equipment i own, i do a lot of sanding, wood / micarta / leather and it works very well.
A bit of a boring thing to buy i must admit, it doesn't earn as much shop cred as new drill press or a grinder but in my opinion it's a very import piece of kit both for keeping the shed clean and tidy and more importantly it prevents you inhaling all the crap that is floating around so it should be a priority in any workshop.

[Chopper]

Change the locks and don't let dad in anymore.

[Dave Budd]

The first workshop that I used when I moved to Devon was shared with a woodworker. We had the problem that the dust and fumes from the forge were rusting everything in the place (sulphuric acid in the condesation basically). In the end we put a partition wall with a fire blanket curtain up between the more woodworking end and my forging end. It didn't stop the problem but it really cut it down

Could you put up a rail and a curtain around the clean part of the workroom?

[Mike Blue]

Eventually working around an electronics wizard you'll be divorced.

"Smithing is the most efficient means to take perfectly good materials and turn them into dirt." Howard Clark 1988. Then Howard measures the quality of work by how much dirt has accumulated in someone's shop.

I found this site and the cute little kit on the upper right of the page will work on a five gallon plastic bucket. http://store.oneida-air.com/sub-category.asp?CID=161 Suction comes from a typical shop vacuum. Okay that's for the heavy largish particulates.

Even a shop vac is not sufficient for the HEPA quality fines. You'll need a filtered air cleaner for those. The little JET units are okay but find the most efficient filters you can.

[Jon]

Since you are sanding by hand try keeping the sandpaper damp.

Damp dust does not go very far. It doesn't do that magical float-about and get everywhere trick.

A little water spray bottle works well.

Jon.

[Mungo Park]

Try one of those big square fans that people put in there windows. You can sometimes find them second hand for cheap, tape a furnace filter to it and you are good to go. Even if you buy new it is not expensive.
Cheers Ron.

[ZDP-189]

I used to use an industrial vacuum cleaner which has a stainless steel collecting bin as a dust collector attached to my appliances, but the motor burned out and the warranty department told me not to use it that way. It still has a place in the shop for catching water spills and clean up.



One supplier: http://www.sylvane.com/minuteman-lead-vacuum.html

I now have one of these.



One supplier: http://www.tradequip.co.nz/productlist.asp

I guess £40 should do for a set.

I use it for extracting everything from dust to mini-forge fumes. It's portable. The tube goes out the window. You can attach a simple bag to the exhaust end of the ducted fan instead. I find that this system plus a bin under the grinder is sufficient for my purposes, but my shop does still get dusty.

You're not supposed to use a window extractor. They aren't very effective, won't keep dust off the other shop equipment and just dump dust outside the window.

You're supposed to use one of these:



One supplier: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006K005?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

It's only £90, assuming you have the space. It does the business.

The best solution of course, is to move out into your own shop.

[jhobson]

You could try a recycling filter like this, sounds ideal:
http://www.axminster.co.uk/s rc/froogle/product-Axminster-MTM-Air-Filter-22779.htm

I don't know how well they work - I'd be really interested to know
My be "only suitable for non metallic dust particles"