Hello from Cold Florida.

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Ian5713

Member
Joined
Dec 13, 2024
Messages
2
Location
Cocoa, Florida.
Hi All
I hope to return to pen turning after a long hiatus. MY plan is to purchase a mini lathe and turn in my spare bedroom now the craft room. She who must be obeyed has provisionally OK'd my idea. On the provision, I can keep the dust down to a minimum.
So is this feasible? Will a shop vacuum and a decent shroud work?
Or am I heading for a telling off?
 
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Welcome from Albuquerque.

I bought a dust collector for my shop not too long ago. It works great for the table saw. I bought an attachment for pen turning but have yet to use it for that. I currently have a piece of maple on the lathe I am turning for a lathe chisel handle and it does not work for that because it is designed to enclose the pen and is too small for the handle.
I would think a hard surface floor, not carpet would be mandatory. And a very good door mat too.
The chips can be swept and vacuumed, it's the sanding dust that is the real problem. I will be trying the dust collector when I get ready to sand the handle, maybe even today.
There are hepa filters that circulate the room air, but I have no experience with those.
I think my wife would just say no and I would understand.


Good luck,
Mike
 
My shop is in a finished basement in our house. I use a rather large shop vac with a Dust Deputy separator inline and a scoop behind the lathe. It does a pretty good job of collecting true dust, but there are still a lot of chips that escape and land on my lathe, lathe table, and on the floor around it - maybe about half of the chips. I use the same vacuum hose, an extremely flexible and long hose, to suck them up afterwards. The Dust Deputy does a really good job of separating out the chips and any fines are captured in a bag in the vacuum cleaner that is designed for drywall sanding dust. Nothing really seems to escape from the shop into our family room even though I usually keep the door open.

Good Luck, I hope you find a workable solution and can enjoy the hobby. - Dave

PS Here are some snapshots of my setup. Click on the thumbnails to zoom in.

IMG_2451 (cropped).jpg IMG_2452 (cropped).jpg IMG_3232 Cropped.jpg
 
Welcome from NC!

I think a shop vac would be excessively loud. The shop vac sucks harder than a dust collector, but doesn't move as much volume. Harbor Freight has a smaller dust collector that would probably work better for you, but upgrading the filter bag to something finer would be a really good idea. The chips can be vacuumed up, but the fine dust floating around is what is going to get you in trouble (both with the wife and the doctor).
 
I have a dust collection system I purchased from Harbor Freight. I'm pretty sure it could suck start a Harley. Works great but I did upgrade the collection bag to a Wen filter and it works great. As for noise, headphones are mandatory unless you want to go deaf. I use a Harbor Freight shop vac for smaller things with great results. Because of allergies I also use a Trend Pro helmet that keeps my breathing air pretty darn clean. And I use a jet overhead dust filtration system to scrub the air. Combine all these and my sinus infections have stopped. Good luck!

Cold... really,? We haven't hit above freezing in over two weeks. But it is a dry cold. Really, dry is dry but wet means snow...I hate plowing snow, but I love Montana.
 
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egnald said:
My shop is in a finished basement in our house. I use a rather large shop vac with a Dust Deputy separator inline and a scoop behind the lathe. It does a pretty good job of collecting true dust, but there are still a lot of chips that escape and land on my lathe, lathe table, and on the floor around it - maybe about half of the chips. I use the same vacuum hose, an extremely flexible and long hose, to suck them up afterwards. The Dust Deputy does a really good job of separating out the chips and any fines are captured in a bag in the vacuum cleaner that is designed for drywall sanding dust. Nothing really seems to escape from the shop into our family room even though I usually keep the door open.

Good Luck, I hope you find a workable solution and can enjoy the hobby. - Dave

PS Here are some snapshots of my setup. Click on the thumbnails to zoom in.

View attachment 380010 View attachment 380011 View attachment 380012
Click to expand...
Thanks for sharing your setup. It's always great to see how others adapt to their environment.
 
Ian5713 said:
Hi All
I hope to return to pen turning after a long hiatus. MY plan is to purchase a mini lathe and turn in my spare bedroom now the craft room. She who must be obeyed has provisionally OK'd my idea. On the provision, I can keep the dust down to a minimum.
So is this feasible? Will a shop vacuum and a decent shroud work?
Or am I heading for a telling off?
Click to expand...

Welcome back to the fold!

Regarding dust collection. If you are goign to be turning small items like pens and similar, yes, a shop vac will do the job. I picked up this for my midi sized lathe station (where I turn smaller iteme):

www.rockler.com

Dust Right® Lathe Dust Collection System

This highly adjustable steel boom arm holds a semi-cylindrical dust scoop that closely cups your small turning projects, capturing nearly all dust!
www.rockler.com www.rockler.com

I hooked it up to w Small sized Fein shop vac, which itself is then hooked up to a simple bucket vortex system so that most of the chips and dust are captured in a bucket. I have changed the bag in the vac only ONCE in the time I've had it (bought in...2020, springish). So the vortex system is great. The bucket, if I'm only turning small things, takes forever to fill up, so I only empty it once a month or so. (If I'm turning larger items, it can fill up a lot faster, but that's only because for the bigger items I really NEED a proper dust collection system, which I won't be able to afford, or fit into my shop, any time soon.) I'd pick up the rockler system, or even jury-rig one up yourself if you have the necessary parts (probably a lot cheaper!) and hook it up to a shop vac, and I think you'll be fine.
 
I second Jon's (@jrista) post.

Before switching to an actual dust collector (high volume low pressure) I used a shopvac (low volume high pressure) and that very same Dust Right Lathe Dust Collection System. It works pretty well, especially if you can turn in the sweet spot where the opening is.

Do be careful about trying to use a shopvac with 4" hose/tubing and fittings. The area of a 2" opening is 1/4 of the area of a 4" opening. Why does this matter? Because the shopvac is a low volume high pressure system, and if you switch to larger diameter stuff, you will reduce the velocity of the air movement by a factor of 4, and this is not what you want. As both Todd (@sorcerertd ) and Tom (@wolf creek knives ) both noted dust collectors work with less suction because of the high volume and velocity of the air.
 
Welcome back Ian and have a safe trip home.
Thanks for the presentation of these technical concerns, very useful for those, like me, who are seriously thinking about setting up a workshop.
It's not that cold in Florida, is it?
 
I think there are actually two things in play here that both need to be considered - noise and dust. Unfortunately, most of the equipment to fix one negatively affect the other. Not a lot of really quite shop vacs in the market, unless you go real high end like the Fein Turbo's or Record Cam Vac. Same in that not a lot of dust collection methods actually catch large amounts of the dust - in that you will always be working to keep the fine dust from settling on things in the room. If you have the cash, I would look at the Record CamVac or Fein and put some 'at the source' collection devices in play. I would also invest in a ceiling to floor moveable surround that you can use to enclose your workspace to help contain the dust. A surround would allow a 'clean' and a 'dirty' space in the same room, allowing your wife a bit more comfort, and reduce your need to keep a larger space clean. I find noise from tools to be the most distracting when I work, so invested in quieter dust collection and a quiet air compressor to help. Good luck!
 
Since you are considering this INSIDE your home, there should be TWO items for the dust collection and some kind of Noise Reduction planning :

1. A DC (Dust Collector system) do take in the dust, chips, turnings, sanding from the lathe, the drill and the saw. Yes you will need all three tools for making blanks and pens. Even then there all kinds of fine dust that escapes over time into the room or shop. This is not so bad in a shop, but not good at all in a house. Therefore the second part to keeping the wife happy:

2. Air Filtration system such as these on Amazon -

3. Noise Reduction: As mentioned once above Fein makes some powerful shop dust Vac that are not as noise as others. Be Careful, there is a difference between Dust Collectors and Dust/Shop VACs. (A Vac and Collector are different.) Vacs are less powerful than Collectors.
AS to Noise reduction, A small dust collector and even a good Vac can be put inside a housing and even in a small closet fully lined with carpet squares. Baffles for air to circulate in and out of the housing or closet also lined with carpet will cut down on the noise considerably. I lived in Japan for many years where houses were literally 6 to 8 feet from each other. So I made a housing for my dust collector and put it inside the housing with air circulating in an out to keep the DC motor cool, and the noise from the DC was much less than normal voice conversation between two people. I could talk on my cell phone with no problem while it was running and the person I was talking to could not tell I had a noisy DC running. It worked well.
 
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d_bondi said:
I second Jon's (@jrista) post.

Before switching to an actual dust collector (high volume low pressure) I used a shopvac (low volume high pressure) and that very same Dust Right Lathe Dust Collection System. It works pretty well, especially if you can turn in the sweet spot where the opening is.

Do be careful about trying to use a shopvac with 4" hose/tubing and fittings. The area of a 2" opening is 1/4 of the area of a 4" opening. Why does this matter? Because the shopvac is a low volume high pressure system, and if you switch to larger diameter stuff, you will reduce the velocity of the air movement by a factor of 4, and this is not what you want. As both Todd (@sorcerertd ) and Tom (@wolf creek knives ) both noted dust collectors work with less suction because of the high volume and velocity of the air.
Click to expand...

Its a very good point about hose diameter. FWIW, I have 2" hose throughout my shop. The Fein vac hose is actually a bit smaller in diameter, however, the fitting hole on the vac actually fits a 2" hose fine, and I jury-rigged a way to fit my 2" hose from the vortex into that hole, even though it does not latch. So my whole system is 2" through and through, rather than 1 1/4" like the normal shop vac hose.
 
NJturner said:
I think there are actually two things in play here that both need to be considered - noise and dust. Unfortunately, most of the equipment to fix one negatively affect the other. Not a lot of really quite shop vacs in the market, unless you go real high end like the Fein Turbo's or Record Cam Vac. Same in that not a lot of dust collection methods actually catch large amounts of the dust - in that you will always be working to keep the fine dust from settling on things in the room. If you have the cash, I would look at the Record CamVac or Fein and put some 'at the source' collection devices in play. I would also invest in a ceiling to floor moveable surround that you can use to enclose your workspace to help contain the dust. A surround would allow a 'clean' and a 'dirty' space in the same room, allowing your wife a bit more comfort, and reduce your need to keep a larger space clean. I find noise from tools to be the most distracting when I work, so invested in quieter dust collection and a quiet air compressor to help. Good luck!
Click to expand...

I also have an overhead Jet 1000B air filter, which captures the loose fine dust that excapes into the shop. My shop is not large, I think its 11 feet wide by 26 feet long, and I put a long tarp along the open side to block it off from the rest of my garage, and contain the dust. The air filter does a pretty good job capturing the fine floating dust. I used to have a layer of dust on EVERYTHING all the time, but with the air filter, and better management of my Fein shop-vac based dust collection, that problem has lessened. I still get some dust, a shop vac aint no dust collector, but its better than nothing. The air filter helps keep the air clean so that if I move through the shop when I'm not working and don't have a mask on, I'm not breathing in tons of dust.

I had hoped to build a ClearVue based dust collection system with their larger DC and the Peltz vortex a year ago, but it ended up not being in the books. I read all of Peltz content on dust collection, and the dangers of fine dust in the lungs and nasal passages, so I'm rather paranoid now about wearing a respirator whenever I'm working. :p This is still the plan...just need the funds.
 
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