Technical Dust and Smoke Collection in the Home Shop

I don't think I've ever seen a thread on this, so I thought I'd ask the question. When doing welding and grinding, lots of smoke and dust is created and it gets in every area of the shop.

Some people apparently have figured out how to do this type of work and keep their shop clean. Do they use some sort of dust collector? What do you use?

I love doing welding and fabrication but I hate having soot all over everything in my shop. Thanks for your ideas.

 

I'd like to know too. Sometimes my shop looks like a bomb hit it.

 

Abrasive cutting are the worst offenders.
If you can avoid chop saws and cutoff wheels whenever possible you'll be further ahead. Grinding is part of it and trying to catch it is easy on a table, curtains help too.

A fan that sucks air out of the shop helps a bunch but that's a heavy duty rascal, not a box fan.

You'll need to own a broom too.

 

I've always thought a kitchen range hood would be a cheap easy way to evacuate smoke/fumes
from a wool bench area.

 

Make that a work bench area!

 

I guess the fact that I have a heat pump and work with the shop doors closed most of the time makes matters only worse. I'm constantly changing filters in my heat pump, too.

 

I know they make small Smog Hogs, but I've only seen them used in fab and machine shops. Maybe they have smaller ones sized for home use. I would also post your question over at the garage journal.

Anything messy like that, I just roll it outside.

 

Messy work inside of a climate controlled area? That's going to be difficult and costly no matter which way you look at it. You'll want to scrub the air of smoke and dust and return it. Right now your heat pump is doing some of that, but no where near enough if your shop is getting filthy.

Suck up and contain the lionshare of crap right where you are making it.
You could clean up 3 times as often.
You could Do the nasty outside
You could Forgo the climate control and change the air.
You could Build a dirty room/area

A simple dust catcher is a box fan fitted with cheap furnace filters. 4 to 5 of those will catch a bunch of dust, not all of it but way more than you are catching now.

 

If I can I grind next to an open door and roll my fab table near the door. I have a 10
' X 10' roll up door on either end of the shop and two large fans that move air. I have to turn the fans off to MIG or TIG so the gas isn't blown away. When I built the shop I had the ceiling made 12' so I could put in a lift later and that helps with the dust cloud. I use a leaf blower to sweep the shop and it does a very good job of getting under benches and stuff. It takes about ten minutes and all dirt, grit and spiders are blown out onto the driveway.

 

"Messy work inside of a climate controlled area? That's going to be difficult and costly no matter which way you look at it. You'll want to scrub the air of smoke and dust and return it. Right now your heat pump is doing some of that, but no where near enough if your shop is getting filthy. "

I think you nailed it. I'm just going to have to give up my comfort, spend a lot of money ( not) or clean up often.

Thanks, Guys

 

out west where there isn't much humidity, we use evaporative coolers. It blows cool moist air into the shop. I have a little room where I do most of my grinding and welding, and it has a window that I open to let fumes out. Most of the crap from grinding gets on the floor in that little room, not in the rest of the shop. But when I'm grinding on a car, the mess gets all over.

The traditional solution is to move the grinding operations outside, under a shade tree.

 

If it's not extremely cold I open up the garage doors and use a big fan.

I also have a window fin I can reverse and suck smoke out of the shop. HRP

 

I try to do most of my nasty work outside when the weather cooperates. I have my wire wheel/buffing wheel near the door so that helps. I use a rotating fan, but my shop gets so nasty from the dust from grinding/welding/sanding that I have to just move everything one area at a time and clean it out about once every week or so. It is so dust filled now that I don't think I could do another paint job in there until I completely clean it out, wash it all down and paint it. I built another garage in hopes of keeping it clean but it turned into a storage building. At least it isn't filled with dust though.

 

How about a fan and cover your stuff up? Works for millions of do-it-yourselfer's.

 

I collect my dust with a shop vac.

 

I do the same thing, but the schedule is more relaxed...once every year or five. Or ten.

 

Eliminating surface area helps clean up too. Lets say you have a 20x20x10 shop area and that there is absolutely nothing else in there, completely empty. There's 4000 cubic feet in that space and 1600 sq feet of surface area (walls floor and ceiling) to either catch dirt or keep clean. Now if you were to place just one 12"x12"x12" box in this space you've increases the surface area to catch dirt or keep clean by 6 square feet, and decreased the cubic feet by only 1. Doesn't seem like much until you start adding all the stuff up in your shop.

Lets say you have just one shelf in there that's 2'x10' x1"thick just the shelf alone add 20 sq x2 or 40 sq feet of surface area and reduces the cubic feet by 0.13. So you figure you can fit 20 of those boxes on there at 6 sq feet surface area each and now you've added 120 sq feet of dirt catching area and reduced the cubic feet by 20. Ahhh, but who has just one?

The ratio of cubic to square feet soon gets really out of whack and the effort to clean or the ability of your shop to catch dirt multiply exponentially.

Picture 1 cup of dust evenly distributed in the air of the empty 4000 cubic foot space. Theres 1600 square feet to catch it. Got that ? Now picture the same 1 cup of dirt in 3000 cubic feet space that has 6000 square feet of surface are to catch it. Big big mess.

 

Well, I've got 1800 sq ft of dust. Soon as I finish my Buick rear suspension project, it's time for a clean up.

 

i have built a few dust collectors in the past, i used a squirrel cage blower inside a sheet metal box, there is an opening for the air to exit and on the other side a place for a 24x24 filter, i have had them just sitting on top of a work bench or with the filter side closed i built an arm with joints so you can move that around to where you are working, these arms are sold at most welding supply shops but i made my own out of old motorcycle clutch disks and some 6" dia plates.

 

I open up the big door, sweep first, use shop air with a long 18" tip to blow off the surfaces and under the benches. My shop vac converts to a blower and I hit everything with it (lights, shelving) and push it all outside....It's a pain in the ass. I wish I had a fab area, paint area, and assembly area.

 

budd so you have any pictures? I'm working on a squirrel cage fan with a hood and exhaust tubing and have been working on a design for chains and a counter-weight to be able to raise/lower and move about over the table. I'm looking for inspiration.

 

I didn't have a problem with dust when building my first old car.....all I had was a carport.

 

http://www.wholehousefan.com/products/

A fella could build one hell of a home shop air scrubber with something off this page. Save your expensive climate control and keep a good portion of the pollution from scattering.

 

I have a couple of squirrel cage fans, the type that power home central heat units. Built litle holders on them for furnace filters. Doesn't take everything out of the air but it sure helps, and it feels cooler on hot days. Can put a new filter in and just let it run a day not doing anything dirty and its amazing what it looks like. Also works great to crank on after laying down paint, gets the fumes out and pulls a lot of overspray into the filter and of everything in my shop.

 

sorry i do not have any pics of mine, it was two pieces of 8" flue pipe about 4 ft long joined with flex pipe, the arms that the tubes were attached to were 2"x2" thin wall sq tube, the friction joints that allow you to move the arms into a location and have it stay were as i said motorbike clutch disks, i took one 6" by 3/8" disk and used my lathe to cut a recess 1/2 the thickness of the clutch disk to keep it centered, then i drilled a hole in the middle of both disks and used a bolt and an old valve spring for tension, to each disk i welded a 4ft length of the 2"x2" tubing, so there were to friction joints, one at the base and one 1/2 way along.

 

The leaf blower works great, wear you respirator, not just a dust mask. Check out garage journal or some woodworking forums, the woodworking guys I know are insane about clearing dust.

 

Bumping this up, any new ideas. I got a squirrel cage fan out of an old furnace that I need to wire up. I'll put a filter box on it. Got the leaf blower and that's the main cleaning tool with the squirrel cage close to the overhead door.

I'll blow off all surfaces and under all benches. Respirator ready to go. I did a lot of welding and grinding over the winter. Spring cleaning time.

 

Not sure if I mentioned it already?

A simple box fan (placed anywhere in the shop) with a cheap furnace filter on the suction side of the fan will catch a lot of airborne dirt. 2 of them will catch 2x as much and so on.

 

Expanding on this, if you can arrange several smaller fan/filter set-up to make a air circulation pattern in your shop it will do a better job than a single larger one. I had eight large filter units arranged for circulation in the truck equipment shop I managed, made a world of difference in the air quality.

 

I just purchased a $55 Toro corded electric leaf blower yesterday, for yard clean-up. I ran it over the garage floor with amazing results. Normally, I would just blow it out with the air from my compressor. This leaf blower will live in my garage from now on. A little older, a little wiser.