# Dust collection strategies for a home shop



## PMV (Feb 13, 2016)

I know there's a lot more I could do on the dust collection front, but for a home shop with fairly low throughput (maybe 6 projects per year) what are some good tips and tricks to manage dust? Buying expensive dust collection gear doesn't seem worth it.

Here's what I do now:

1. Put on a half mask respirator (P100) before doing any cutting. Since I won't shave my beard, I use silicone diver's grease to seal the mask, which seems to work well even if NIOSH wouldn't approve. Of course eye and ear protection are in use as well.
2. Use a standard shop vac for tools that have dust collection built in (most of them, but not my circular saw). 
3. When done, sweep as much visible dust as I can out onto the landscaping. Hose it down (at which point I feel it just becomes compost).
4. Turn on the standalone HEPA air filter, which will be running in the garage for the next several days at least
5. Keep the garage door open for the rest of the day
6. Go into the laundry room, still wearing respirator. Take off respirator and change clothes, dumping the dusty clothes in the wash immediately.
7. Shower and try to clean off the silicone grease from my face with rubbing alcohol, soap, water, and profanity.


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

before sweeping up, Blow down all of the shelves, work benches and difficult places to sweep with the blowing side of the shop vac.
Other than that, you have already covered pretty much everything.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Seems like your process is pretty good. To be honest, you could probably get away with just the respirator during the work and keeping the shop-vac hooked up to the tools, provided you don't have any sensitivity issues already.

My personal regimen of sorts is the respirator goes on when I go in the shop, I keep my dust collector hooked up to the running tools and I keep the respirator on for about 20 minutes after the tools shut off. Every once in a while I'll vacuum up whatever dust settles


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## PMV (Feb 13, 2016)

I do tend to get mild sore throats after being exposed to sawdust (for example, a couple weeks ago when I took my respirator off without thinking...). Certainly nothing severe, but it is annoying.

Great tip about blowing down the other surfaces of the garage - I should be doing that.


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

If your shop is in your garage, a large floor fan facing the dirction outside the garage to exhaust the dust works really well. 
There really isnt much to it other than thinking of where and how to exhaust the dust. Keeping your work area clean does not require much effort. The trick is to not let it accumulate or else the same dust keeps circulating.


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## ducbsa (Jul 6, 2014)

Regarding mulching, aren't there some species of tree that their sawdust/chips are toxic to plants? Maybe walnut? Not real sure about this, since dead branches from walnut trees hit the ground and don't kill off everything.


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

i'm sure there are some that can be toxic to other plants. All i can say is that when i ran my commercial shops, I used all kinds of woods including many exotic woods and never had a problem. 

I have read somewhere, maybe on here, that walnut shavings and dust can kill a horse. I never read it from a credible source, only read it on forums.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

I have heard that walnut dust can be pretty toxic as well as a lot of exotics, but that's to humans and generally only people who already have a sensitivity to wood dust. 

If you're already having mild issues when exposed to sawdust, you probably need to take more care than most people. I know that wood allergies are one of the ones that get worse with each successive exposure


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

epicfail48 said:


> .................
> I know that wood allergies are one of the ones that get worse with each successive exposure


I heard the same thing said about 'work'. That's why I retired.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

Tony B said:


> I heard the same thing said about 'work'. That's why I retired.


Rub it in why don't you, I've got a few decades left before I can do that...


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

Trust me, I thought my day would never come. I retired 3 years ago at age 66. Always wanted to retire early, but it just wasn't in the cards. I am very fortunate in that I still am in great health. I am now 69 and take absolutely no meds. However, if I went for a psychiactric exam, they might feel that I should, LOL..


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## difalkner (Nov 27, 2011)

Tony B said:


> i'm sure there are some that can be toxic to other plants. All i can say is that when i ran my commercial shops, I used all kinds of woods including many exotic woods and never had a problem.
> 
> I have read somewhere, maybe on here, that walnut shavings and dust can kill a horse. I never read it from a credible source, only read it on forums.



Last year I ordered some Walnut from a source in MO and we were talking about how efficient his process is, that he even sells sawdust to local ranchers and farmers. Except Walnut, that is... They won't buy it if there's Walnut dust in there because it will kill horses. I didn't challenge it or ask his source but he can't sell it if Walnut is in the mix in any percentage, for what that's worth.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

Your process are better than mine. I have a dust collector hooked up the tools, and a over head air filter ( non hepa). Unless I'm doing something inherently dusty I don't wear a respirator. If it's warm outside I keep the garage doors open. I blow out the shop on nice days with the leaf blower.


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## blackpearl (Jul 20, 2012)

Tony B said:


> Trust me, I thought my day would never come. I retired 3 years ago at age 66. Always wanted to retire early, but it just wasn't in the cards. I am very fortunate in that I still am in great health. I am now 69 and take absolutely no meds. However, if I went for a psychiactric exam, they might feel that I should, LOL..


Very nice to see this! Proof that woodworking is a healthy hobby. Some hints on your way of working should be valuable information to us...


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## Tony B (Jul 30, 2008)

Nothing special in the way of working. I just kept a neat and orderly shop. I usually did a quick clean-up after every work function. For example, If I was planing, I would clean-up right after I was finished. I would do the same after any longer than 15 minutes on the table saw, Otherwise, I would just sweep the dust off the surface with a foxtail brush. I only wore a face shield when turning bowls and only wore hearing protection when on my bandsaw and chemical respirator when spraying finish. Floor fans when using stripper - yeah, lots of jokes can come from that. It made a horrible screeching sound. I always had my hearing protection hanging from the band saw and had foxtail brushes hanging from all of my stationary tools. Keep what you need at the places you need them. Other than that, ventilation was very important to me. I also never left the shop without cleaning up first.


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## BWSmith (Aug 24, 2010)

We have some pretty elaborate DC systems here....slight Friday tangent,those easily offended have been warned.

My #3 son is a 20 sumthin,sort of genius'y big shot in or at their manufacturing facility.He specd out a HUGE Camfil dust scrubber as part of his start up operations.It is completely bad arse.

But,lets trip on back to Earth.Wonder where he got that idea?Yup,growing up in,"this ole shop".

Their Camfil is cool...but it doesn't have a whole lot on some of the systems we have.

Sure,write a cheque,buy some expensive system.But how's that working for you?Shoot man,in most cases just taking your problem dust issues outside works.Cheap,ain't it.

Engineering is all fine and good,but there still is something to be said for good ole common sense.Do you want to sweep this mess up or would you rather blow it outside?

Do you prefer to stand upwind or downwind from a campfire?How is that different from a dust or paint spray issue?

What made me make this post was about our little 1969 Electrolux vac.All our custom DC systems don't ever quite measured up to this little vac.Check eBay,prices are very attractive.We use it to clean our lobby and stairs.


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## TomCT2 (May 16, 2014)

I started on a project with rough sawn red oak. it went like this:

- first boards run through the planner using an 8 gallon shop vac hooked to the 2.5" chip hood.
yeah, sudden chips blowing out everywhere. 8 gallon size is not even remotely adequate - the hose, the 90' fitting on the vac, everything plugged solid.

- so I got some 2.5 clear tubing, couple connectors, elbow. bingo - can blow chips directly into a big corrugated box! yahoo! you can even watch the chips flying through the tube!
yeah, worked great - box full of chips . . . except for the choking giga-cloud of red oak flour all over everything....

- so I bought the plastic lid thing + two 4 to 2.5" reducers + hose + trash can (31 gal)

now, this set-up works - with comments . . .
(1) it's suitable for the home shop. it's not an all day-all night production system
(2) the chips collect in the can very nicely, thank you so much. I got about 20 gallons of chips on my first pass - operating time roughly 2 hours of 4/4 to 3/4.
(3) the flour collects on the filter of the shop vac. again - works for the home shop, less suited to major production. the flour coated about 30% of the diameter for the near-full can of chips.
(4) reading the reviews of the lid doohickey, it worked for some, not for others. I found a clue: four inch ducting / hoses doesn't work well. why? well, centripetal force - the bit that throws the chips outward - goes by the velocity squared. a shop vac, with a fixed cfm draw, will produce higher stream velocity in a 2.5 inch duct than in a 4" duct. so the chips enter the "cyclone" - that's a real generous description of the lid thingy - at a higher velocity and get thrown to the outside, stopped / slowed and fall 'more effectively' than when using a four inch hose.

I had to modify a number of things to make this all fit together and play nice.
(a) I cut off part of the outlet 'stack' of the lid; cut, belt sand down to a boss, then spindle sand away the interior lip so that the 4 to 2.5 adapters would fit inside the stack.
(b) which only worked when I sanded off some of the 4" adapter outer diameter to get them inside the lid stack.
note to industry: yo! youse guys need to get your fittin's and dimensions in order!
(c) the lid came with a four inch 90' elbow - which I had to shorten - and shorten the 4 to 2.5 adapter as well so they would both "fit" in the lid stack - the elbow from below and the adapter from above.

there were comments about the lid not fitting the trash can rim causing loss of suction. so I took pains to ensure the trash can had no dings on the rim and sat flat on the floor with no gaps when upside down. I went through 6-8 cans to find one that looked "perfect"

note that the inlet and outlet stacks are symmetrical. hmmm, std cyclone design says suck from the middle.... the lid has a bolt on handle with molded depression in the middle. one could block off the one four inch stack and drill a center hole for the shop vac suction. I found this to be unnecessary - collecting some 20 gallons of chips, I had perhaps 2-3 cups of chips in the shop vac, but lots of flour.

the cost: lid was about $25, can $28, $15 for the two reducers, $25 for the hose. byosv.

for me it works - the 8 gal shop vac itself is plenty adequate for the table saw, router, sander and general clean up. seems a bit silly to install a mega-super dust collection system to handle a small percentage problem. one could certain buy the plywood and DIY for roughly the same cost + free left over plywood....
this I had "done" in about an hour.


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