fine dust is the worst

[la Huerta]

although i have a good DC, the other day after some woodworking i switched on a set of floodlights in the workshop and it showed up this super fine dust that could not be seen in normal daylight...bad stuff...so i am inviting all those who may have ideas or solutions to help solve this very serious problem associated with ( i would think) almost every workshop...

[Grunt]

Everything you want to know about dust collection but were afraid to ask is on Bill Pentz site. Hours of family fun.

http://billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm


Grunt

[la Huerta]

ok , been there done that, i'v read Bill site a long time ago, but what he recommends and what people are capable of doing and can afford is two different things, how many guy's on this forum have read Bill's site but have not got the fundings to do what Bill recommends, cyclones , ducting systems, all sounds good but even at the end of the day when you pick up a piece of sandpaper and give your piece a little rub still creates airbourne dust ...this is what i'm talking about, has anyone solved this problem...

[Gumby]

...this is what i'm talking about, has anyone solved this problem...

Certainly have. Take up chess. :rolleyes:

[Stuart]

Certainly have. Take up chess. :rolleyes:

Hey Gumby, where ya been hiding?

[Gumby]

Hey Gumby, where ya been hiding?

I tried lurking for a while but other lurkers thought I was crowding them so i got kicked out. :(

[zenwood]

... when you pick up a piece of sandpaper and give your piece a little rub still creates airbourne dust ... has anyone solved this problem...
I've got one of those whirlygig vents on the shed roof: the theory is to generate a continuous upflow of fresh air coming in through the windows and the gaps in the sliding garage doors, and then up through the vent. If I know I'll be generating lots of dust, I open the windows on two sides of the shed for extra ventilation. (This is all in addition to my small portable DC

http://www.timbecon.com.au/assets/images/products/fm-150.jpg)

I've never tried the floodlight test: it's a good idea. But I'd suggest that you do a control test: switch on the floodlights after a day of non-woodworking to see what the ambient dust level is like.

[Grunt]

Get a powered respirator.

[Waldo]

G'day la Huerta,

Don't use wood :D

With the rubbish that my dad-in-law has to go through with OHS on his beef farm they'll probably tell him he can't use wood because of some political mumbo jumbo. He can't even collect all the water that falls on his property in his damns, he can only collect 10% of it.

Nah, we'll be using ecowood soon, until the next boffin behind a desk says no to that one too.

[silentC]

I hold my breath. It means I can only do my woodworking in short bursts but it solves the problem.

[JackoH]

Get a Dustmaster (cheaper than a new pair of lungs!)

Silent, Does your breath come in short pants?

Harold's got another new shovel?

[Studley 2436]

I have been going through Bill Pentz's site to see what I can learn about making a cyclone fitting for my DC. I learned a few good things regarding the dimensions of a Cyclone. To make it catch the fine dust there are several important factors which he goes into really well. After I looked through his drawings and measurements I condenced it down to this.

D = the diameter of the top. Then make the height of the cone top to bottom measured along the centre line 1.64D. The Diameter at the bottom is D/3

The smaller it is at the bottom the faster the dust spins around and the more is captured, however the smaller it is the more it restricts the air flow. The reason for the height is so that the air reaches it's "reversal point" and starts going up and out while the dust is spinning around furiously so that it just falls into the bin underneath.

I am going to put one together this afternoon so I will tell you how it goes.

Studley

[silentC]

Too cold for short pants at the moment. It's raining too...

[Grunt]

I hold my breath. It means I can only do my woodworking in short bursts but it solves the problem.


Does this mean you do woodwork until you are blue in the face?

[silentC]

It's the only way to fly....;)

[echnidna]

.............. i switched on a set of floodlights in the workshop and it showed up this super fine dust that could not be seen in normal daylight.................. very serious problem associated with ( i would think) almost every workshop...

The Fine dust problem is widespread.
Have a look at any industrial cyclone with hoppers, they are covered with wood flour dust.

Even wood work factories have that problem even though they use massive dust extractors and cyclones that meet modern worksafe criteria.

Cyclones DO NOT solve the problem they merely reduce it a bit.
The only way to remove all of the dust from a cyclone exhaust is to add filters and wet scrubbers after the filters. (which function on the same principles as the waterwall scrubber in a good spray booth)

My workshop dusty is located outside so none ofl the dust is circulated through the workshop. Its in a leanto on the side of my shed with a tarp hanging down the front. The tarp keeps weather out and lets dust settle in the leanto and lets the air freely leave the dusty's leanto.

I don't have a fine dust problem in my shed

I had planned to fit kitchen type exhaust fans about 18" from the floor inside my shed to ensure dusty air is removed constantly.

Wood dust being heaver than air will settle so its obvious that the vents ought be low instead of high if the problem was fumes as in a kitchen.

But there is virtually no fine dust in my shed unless I use a handheld sander etc that I haven't got around to fitting the exhaust fans.

[Ianab]

I think Echnida has the idea, move or exhaust the dust collector outside. The Yanks dont go for this as it's often -20C outside and they dont want to pump all their warm air outside. In a sensible climate using a DC to collect 99% of the dust and blowing the rest outside makes sense.


Ian

[Grunt]

If you have close neighbours or kids playing outside it isn't such a good idea to vent the dust outside.

[echnidna]

When I built the leanto I felt there might have been a problem as Grunt suggests.
But after using it I found that I do not have great clouds of dust (or piles of settled dust) outside my leanto despite it being on a footpath. The minute amount outside my leanto just dissapears with normal rain. Every 2 or 3 months I clean up inside the dusty shed and only get 1 dustpan or so of settled dust.

From experience if the dusty shed was in a garden or even a lawn area there wont be any problem with it as most of the dust is caught by my drop bins, or a bit in the dusty leanto itself, the ultra fines are so small in actual volume they dont have much chance to build up. However I do keep an eye on it.

[la Huerta]

ok , thanks for the humour...

i was thinking of something like a fume extractor, if it can suck fumes then it should suck the fine dust, i saw one the other day on the web and it was similar to what you see in the fish n chips shop to suck the smoke from the cookers,something like this may work , connected to a DC or an exaust fan, sanding can be done infront of it and the dust would be sucked away before it gets airbourne...

[outback]

Wotabout a down draft table? I'm gonna make me one, that's if I ever find anyone willing to sell me a DC.

[echnidna]

A kitchen exhaust fan would work in a downdraft table

[AlexS]

I hold my breath.

Big breaths?

[echnidna]

No - she's in the golf thread

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Big breaths?

What's Doug got to do with this? :confused:

[la Huerta]

OUTBACK...check out your loacl trading post, that's whrere i got my DC , for a about half price...

[outback]

Thanks la huerta, (wot this name mean?) I hadn't thought of the trading post, I'll check it out.

BOB, if I use a kitchen extractor fan, where do I extract to?
I wouldn't have thought it would be able to blow the dust too far. Not a bad idea though, certainly thinking outside the square, well my square anyway. :)

[echnidna]

Either blow it outside the building or through a filter

[la Huerta]

outback...'la huerta' is spanish for 'the orchard' and is a name given to a villa in costa careyes mexico, one of many beautiful buildings in that area...





perhaps just a big wopper of an industrial fan could blow all the dust out the window...

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Oh. I thought it may've related to a workshop incident.

You know the "I was hodding my dongue jutht tho ath I thtarted howwowing la bowl when la chizel caught anb 'it me in da chin. I ended in la world of la huerta" type thing. :D

[la Huerta]

i knew i was asking for trouble when i gave away the meaning..., so what does skew chidamn!! mean , wait let me guess, it's a magic trick with a BBQ skewer

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Trouble? No trouble, mate. I can upset anyone, just by walking past... ;)

Skew ChiDAMN!!? 'Tis a sad, pathetic story. Got a kleenex ready?

I'm teaching a young teen with degenerative hip disease how to use a lathe. He was on my micro-lathe and I was turning a nasty, punky bit of wood on the beast. He must've wondered why I was muttering "damn!" every few mins or so as he came over and noticed me using a skew chisel.

I haven't taught him to use one for various reasons, so he asked me what it was. Even though it was taking all my concentration and I was still having trouble, did I ignore him? No. Did I stop working? No. I split my attention and said: "It's a... damn! ...special chisel. Damn! It's called... Damn! ...a skew chiDAMN!" At that point the wood I was working on decided it had had enough and left the vicinity of the lathe at high velocity.

My so-called apprentice was rolling about the floor in fits of laughter at this point. Worse, since then when he turns up at week-ends he greets me with "how's it going, skoochie?"

I thought the name appropriate; it reminds me that no matter how much I think I know, there's always some young newbie out there who can come along and make me look a fool. Well... more of one, anyway. ;)

[la Huerta]

skew, i'm sitting here drinking my extra strong cup of java, not in a very good mood as usuall, and this is the funiest thing i'v heard of for some time....i am hopping be a filmmaker or script writer one day, and this story is going in one of my films, it's a classic...

[Moo73]

Skew ChiDAMN!! - I just spat a mouthful of tea out on the monitor, very funny

[Oldblock]

Dust collection or in this case dust removal, using a centrifugal fan works very well in certain circumstances. (A warm climate being one of them)
Having observed the very fine layer of dust lying around shops with bag DCs and the hassles of emptying I tried using a cage blower and dumping the fine dust straight through the wall and out of the shop.
I quickly learned that ducting and trapping chips and sawdust wasn’t an option due to the low pressure and after trying out several set-ups I have finished up with a blower out of an old roof mounted evaporative air conditioner installed in the end wall of my shop at floor level. It discharges through the wall into the garden. It blows a veritable gale – the motor is about half horse.

There is no ducting. My machines – saw, jointer, thicknesser, router table, disc and belt sander etc are all located in the vicinity. Fresh air comes in through a door at the other end of my shop.

Fine airborne dust is non existent. Depending on its size, dust and chips from the machines create a trail toward the blower. Jointer shavings likewise grade themselves by size, the small bits disappear completely and heavy chips fall on the floor. I have incorporated a chip collector under my thicknesser that gathers most of the chips that I empty on the garden.

The blower is enclosed in a good-sized cabinet with lots of space to minimise backpressure. Air is drawn in from one side via a kind of bunker that serves as a collection point for heavy particles and any other junk that gets swept up. It also functions as a trap for anything large enough to clog the blades of the blower.

My mitre saw is backed onto this cabinet and the sawdust goes straight though a 150square hole in the front of the cabinet. When I’m cutting mitres I swivel the mitre saw bench a little so that most stuff still heads for the hole. From time to time I clean the whole shop floor with compressed air. Again, fine dust disappears into the blower and the chips and anything else I blow away gathers in the bunker. I have learned where I can use hand power tools so that fine dust goes straight to the blower but sometimes when I’m working on a large work piece I need to hook up my vacuum. I do a limited amount of spraying and the set up works well for this too. I set up my work and just spray toward the blower.

I have a desk and computer in the shop, fortunately the airflow pattern from the shop door to the blower directs clean air past it and only, after several weeks can I can draw a line in fine dust on the desk.

Interestingly there is very little evidence out in the garden of all the stuff that gets blown out.

That's my five cents worth. Reading it over methinks I'm a bit too serious. I'm not a serious guy - seriously.