Getting rid of dust in one's workshop

R

rashid11

Joined
Dec 8, 2005
Messages
707
Mine's a garage. Over last few years I've had accumulation of
some dust on the shelves, walls . It was tolerable.

And then I built my own workbench with 12 full-sized, full-extension
(22"!) drawers and used particle board for some parts. I routed those
so that bottoms of the drawers slide in and this is where the amt of dust
in the garage simply went through the roof. It was really bad.

So this past weekend, when it was raining hard outside, I opened
garage door, moved the car outta way, fired up my trusted HF 8 gallon
to full 115PSI and started blasting the dust off the shelves, walls, ceiling
with the blow gun. I also fired up shop vac, opened the air exhaust cap
to where it was blowing a strong stream of air from the middle of the garage
and out, I figured if some dust comes down to floor, it will be picked up
and blown out too.

Was wearing a breathing mask.

About an hour later it was all done. I am nice and clean now. The amt of dust
was simply unbeleivable. As planned, the rain took care of the dust when it
got outside and safely washed it all away. I had to repeatedly blow the dust
away from the same spots, may be 3 or 4 times, as some of it settled back.
I stopped when I saw no dust being kicked into the air when I blasted it with
compressed air.

On a side, but important node: the compressor was going almost non-stop for over 1 hr and worked just fine . It is on sale now for $110 or so, and then
you can get the 20% off. If you dont have an air compressor yet, GET IT : 90385 !!! It is kind of lound, being a single stage oil-lubricated unit, but it works great. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=90385
 
Sometimes I wonder is its really knifemaking or is is dustmaking. If you are a stock removal knifemaker, then everything you grind off that piece of steel, the wood for the handle etc. all goes up in the air and settles on everything. :thumbdn: Its a constant battle to keep the dust down. My weapons of dust control include a dust collection system for the grinder and the buffing wheel. The buffing wheel is the worst offender, with all the crap flying off the wheel for the effort of that mirror polish. This stuff is lethal so its good to suck up as much as you can before it gets into your lungs. I also use a fine pore shop air cleaner suspended from the ceiling, this thing collects that really fine stuff that drifts around forever. Finally I have a big exhaust fan on the wall. This works well in warm weather but it can suck all the heat out of the house during cold weather. I try to do work like hand work or band sawing during cold weather and leave dusty operations like buffing and handle grinds when its warm enough to run the exhaust fan. Using the blow gun from the aircompressor does a nice job getting the bench and the machines clean but it sends it all back up into the air again so I turn on all the dust collection equipment before I blow anything around. One bit of caution about dust. It has a really low flash point and burns readily, so dont let it accumulate in your dust collection system. :thumbup: I have had sparks from steel grinding get inside the dust collection bags and smolder. As a rule of thumb once I shut off the grinder I stay around the house for an hour just to make sure that there is nothing burning in there. :thumbup: I was given this advice by a knifemaker years ago who lost his home and shop to a fire from this.:cool:
 
I use a water trap/spark arrestor I made using a 5 gallon plastic paint bucket with an 4" elbow sticking about 6 inches in from the top, and another 4" aluminum duct that's sticking down into the bucket about 5 inches from the bottom (with 3 inches of water in the bucket) and a floor register flare about 5 inches from the bottom of the contact wheel/platen... connected to my 1HP dust collector, it eliminates 97% of the dust and stuff that comes off the belts. Works like a champ, and almost all of the dust as well as the sparking metal fragments stay in the bucket. So far, I've had to dump the bucket out twice, but I've never had to empty the dustbags on the collector!
 
I have heard other knifemakers talk about the water trap for hot sparks. It seems to be a pretty good solution. Another is a 2 stage dust collector. Grizzly has a lid you place on a steel garbage can with and inlet and outlet for hoses on top. The heavy stuff travels through the duct to the can and the light dust continues to the filter bag.
 
I built one like that a while back, and put legs on it. Works okay to filter out the small stuff floating in the air.
For cleaning up the dust everywhere I cannot reach, I use a leaf blower, and start at one end, and blow everything out the door.
I bring the stuff I want to keep back in...:D
 
Thanks for the input here Mr Purple, I am going to give your water pail system a try since the way my dust collection system is plumbed it would be easy to incorporate into the system. Dust is the biggest problem with this kind of craft.:thumbup:
 
Harbor freight has a thing called an "Ash cleaner vacuum attachment". It is a 5gal can with a seal on lid.It has a built in spark trap and you put your vacuum hose in one hole and use the provided hose and metal nozzle to suck up the sparks and grit. You could just put some water directly in it,but I cut off a dry wall bucket and put it inside as a rustproof liner.Works great. I paid $19.95.The only other modification I added was a small metal baffle between the in and out ports.This makes the sparks and grit go down into the water trap better.
Stacy
 
I just roll my grinder outside on a microwave cart and cut the sprinkler on!
Can you believe they said I was slow in grade school...shucks!

pills11.com ;))
 
The compressor works great for cleaning things out, I have even used it to clean the inside of computers out with no ill affects.
 
If any one can make it to a Grizzly tool tent sale do it. They sell off their tent scratch stuff and the one I went to had lots of dust collectors and air filters cheap. I got a ceiling mount air cleaner with a remote control for $50 and only needed to rebalance the fan. I also got a 1hp dust collector for $50 and it just needed a good starting capacitor on the motor ($11). My dust problems took a big hit. I do like the spark arrestor idea and that is going to get added
 
If any one can make it to a Grizzly tool tent sale do it. They sell off their dent scratch stuff and the one I went to had lots of dust collectors and air filters cheap. I got a ceiling mount air cleaner with a remote control for $50 and only needed to rebalance the fan. I also got a 1hp dust collector for $50 and it just needed a good starting capacitor on the motor ($11). My dust problems took a big hit. I do like the spark arrestor idea and that is going to get added
 
That's a blast from the past. I built that American Woodworker/Jerry Busse air cleaner many years ago. I didn't hang mine from the ceiling though, I built mine with casters so I could use it in other places if I needed to. That proved to be a smart thing a couple of times (we did some drywalling at one point and it was a lifesaver!!!!) although now I mostly use it as a workstation base for my compound miter saw. Mine uses 2 16" x 25" hepa furnace filters and a garage sale 1/2 hp motor. It clears the air like nobody's business. My only complaint is that it is a little noisy. When I get home I'll take a couple of pics.

I recently installed a ceiling dust collector/air cleaner in my garage workshop and I'm pretty happy with that too. It's a Jet3 speed with a timer and a remote, hums instead of howls, only weighs about 60 pounds and went up without a hitch. Welllllllllll okay it took 2 of us to hang it. Me lifting and friend connecting.

I have asthma and dust is not something I tolerate well. My wife on the other hand doesn't tolerate chemical smells at all and I seem to have dealt with most of my airborne contaminant issues with the above measures. The fire hazard of metal filings in a container with wood or other flammables is one I hadn't worried about too much until one day a grinding spark landed in small mound of metal dust on my rest and began to glow fiercely. I then recalled how, as a Boy Scout, we'd used steel wool as tinder to win a flint and steel fire making contest (our Scoutmaster was an engineer and the rules only specified tinder not tinder made of wood shavings ). Drop a spark into 0000 steel wool and blow on it. You'll see what I mean in seconds. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yeah drop the steel wool before the glow gets to your fingers. Who'da though steel could burn so fast?

Syn
 
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