Clean Air advice

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Chasper

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After reading the discussion about "Dangerous Dust" and the links referenced there (as well as some other discusssions), I'm appropriately alarmed about the dust I'm currently filtering with my lungs, I'm also totally coufused about where to go from here.

I turn 3-4 pens a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. My workshop is the most distant bay of an attached three car garage. I have a Jet lathe, cheap drill press, and an old band saw. I only use my belt/disk sander and table saw when I can set them up outside. My current dust collection system is a broom and dustpan which I use often, sweeping the floor is getting old. My air circulation system is an 18" box fan. I'm 60 years old and healthier than anybody deserves to be at this age.

What I have in mind to do is:
1. Take an old squirrel cage blower I already have and run an exhaust outside the garage. Run it while I'm working and an hour or so after I stop to create negative pressure for when the door to the house is opened.
2. Wear a cap and clothes I can change out of before going into the house.
3. Position the lathe and fan so it is behind me and blowing toward the garage door that is usally open while I'm working.
4. Tape a furnace filter to the intake side of the box fan.

The primary points of confusion for me:
1. Should I be looking for an air filtration system? That seems like overkill to me.
2. Are there cannister type shop-vacs that I could use to suck the turning/sanding dust away from the lathe? I'd want something with low noise and good filtering.
3. Do I really need to invest in one of those helmet air filtration systems? I can't imagine being dressed up like a space traveler in my hot garage on a day like this when the temp at 6:00 pm is still 95 degrees. Do you wear the helmet systems when turning or just when sanding? (or, god forbid, all the time?)

A $1000 investment in dust collection systems adds up to about $5 more for every pen I turn over the next year, that is daunting...but then, dragging around an oxygen tank and having a tube stuck up my nose is not all that desirable either.

Thanks in advance, all advice, brand names and sources will be appreciated.

Gerry in Indiana
 
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Gerry, your shop set up sounds not too different than mine. And, I'm about 10 years your senior and in great health also. For wood dusts that bother me, I wear a Dust-Bee-Gone mask, it does a great job. Doesn't look like the $35.00 to $40.00 price tag that comes with it but I'm glad I made the investment. I just handwash when it gets dirty. For the lathe, I have a small fan (about 2 1/2" diameter) taped to the top of my headstock that blows down on the work. That keeps (most) dust away from me. When I'm doing a lot of shop work on larger stuff, the air can get bad. Yesterday I was sneezing a lot after using the table saw, miter saw, sanders, etc. But I had the big door closed to keep cool. It was about 99 degrees outside. I shoulda worn my mask. OTOH, on the woodworking forum I belong to
http://familywoodworking.org/forums/index.php
when guys there begin building a shop, a big (and big $$$) dust collection system often comes before the tools. That's probably wise. There are different kinds of 'costs'.
 
I use a dust collector. They've got pretty decent ones through PSI (which is what I bought) Even a little dust can eventually cause BIG problems. I might of gotten away without such a big dust collector, but then again I'm emptying the bag pretty regularly. My husband has pulmonary fibrosis, and I KNOW I don't want lung problems down the road. He can't even walk into my shop without gasping for air. And that's with it cleaned up good. So, invest in saving your lungs! You can buy a unit that works with a shopvac. Also buy a respirator instead of a mask. The masks work to a degree, if you value your health, get a respirator.
 
gerry, here's a few things i'd suggest:

1) take your squirrel cage fan and turn that into an air filter. just build a box around it, cut a hole where it can blow exhaust and leave one side open to fit a good furnace filter. You can get really nice, $15-$20 filters for it. i did this same thing and it clean the air in my shop really quickly. since you've already got the fan, all you'll have to invest is some plywood to build the box and some money for whatever filters you choose to use. i use one premium one and two kinda cheap ones and layer all 3 of them on the intake side of my box. i usually just run it for about 10 minutes before i enter the shop and 10 minutes after i'm done.

2) i think you can usually beat most of the dust that is harmful to you with a respirator or the dust-b-gone mask that frank suggested. my respirator is from A/O safety and that seems to work very well. it's a good $40 investment.

3) the clothes idea is good, or you can just wash them right away when you get inside.

4) dust collection is good, but from what I've studied and understand, unless you're willing to spend fairly big bucks on a .3 micron filter for your DC system, it's mainly just helping you keep your shop clean. the really harmful dust is the really fine particulates that won't get filtered by your average DC system.

5) get a good shop vac with a HEPA filter on it that you can run as a DC system when you're sanding and maybe when your turning too. or, just run it to clean up afterwards if you wear a respirator while turning. depends on how long you can handle the noise. a pair of harbor freight headphones might be good to have for this. the HEPA filters aren't cheap either, but it's really frustrating to see a bunch of dust flying out the exhaust of your vac when you're trying to keep the harmful stuff in it.

6) definitely keep your garage doors open and run whatever you can outside. this is a great way to avoide harmful particulates. keep that fan running toward the door, if you decide to built the air filter, you don't need to have the furnace filter on the fan, but i know a lot of guys who have done that with good results.

7) don't worry about it too much! with a few simple steps, you'll be good to go.

hope this helps.
 
As an add on, I'll give you a price it could cost to take care of damaged lungs.... Figure a minimum of $700 a month for oxygen. Then they'll usually have you using a nebulizer, machine costs plus about $500 in medication. That doesn't take into account of all the other 'lung' functioning medications needed. So even if you put out $1,000 now to set things up, it's a heck of a lot cheaper. Or if you 'just' got a case of pneumonia, figure how much THAT would cost....... Quality of life drops pretty fast when you have a hard time breathing [:(]
 
I'll soon be 63 and I use a Triton Powered Respirator. I love it although it took me a few days to get used to wearing it. I get no nasty CA fumes in my eyes with it either.
 
Originally posted by ahoiberg
the HEPA filters aren't cheap either, but it's really frustrating to see a bunch of dust flying out the exhaust of your vac when you're trying to keep the harmful stuff in it.
Click to expand...

I don't have a dust system yet, but on my shop vac I hooked up a hose to the exhaust and ran it outside.
 
While I'm "only" 56 and my wife 3 years my junior, our shop has an air filter and dust collection and I think most importantly, we both wear 3M 7500 series dust masks. They are comfortable enough to wear all day long since they are silicone, have replaceable organic vapor cartridges as well as particulate filters. Search for R-7512ES - We paid about $40 each and they come in small (for her), medium (for me) as well as large sizes.

Mark
 
Great information, thank you, all of you.

I think I'll start with a Dust-Bee-Gone, 3M filters or other respirator instead of a Triton for now, maybe reconsider later.

I love the idea of turning the squirrel cage into a dust filter/air exchanger, just my kind of make-do project and it seems like it should work unless it sucks so much air out of the garage that the door to the house won't open and my eardrums pop, I may have to think about an air intake source. I shouldn't be going off on designing this dust filter yet, but..... since I need to build a box to put it in I might as well include some insulation to lessen the noise. And as long as it is taking up floor space I might as well build some sort of cabinet/shelf system on top of it...maybe some drawers to hold pen blanks and pen kits, some small parts storage area, built in electrical outlet, lights....so many possibilities.

A shop-vac with HEPA filter and/or hose running outside sounds like a great idea too.

We put in a top quality built in vaccuum system in the house when we built is 12 years ago. One of the kids was having some asthma like symptoms at the time so we have a .03 micron filter system in the internal house vac which vents to the outside. There is an outlet for it in the garage and I used it with the lathe for about 5 minutes once. It does a great job, but it was never designed for workshop dust.

bkc, I get the point, and of course you are correct. If I'm going to keep turning then several hundred to a few thousand dollars of clean air expenditures is required; spend a little now or spend a lot later, plus the quality of life issues.

ahoiberg, that is a great list of ideas. I rigged up a furnace filter on the back side of a box fan last night. Now I'll move on to a bigger set of solutions.

Gerry
 
You may want to check this thread. We briefly discussed the Oneida DustDeputy and the ClearVue CV06 minicyclones, both of which you can connect inline to a basic shopvac or small DC.

http://www.penturners.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24959
 
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