How to keep the dust down
I have gotten to the real sawdust throwing stage of my Christmas projects in the shop. Using the routers and the orbital sanders for an extended period in a shop is a great way to redecorate the place with a fine coat all over everything. Then whenever I move, or use anything the dust gets stirred up all over again. Using the router on the elm and walnut wood produced a nice thick new covering for the floor. When the weather is nice I do most of these mess making operations outside. Working outside keeps the shop clean and lets the wind blow everything away. During the fine sanding a good stiff breeze can be a great help as long as you stand upwind. This is a great way to keep the shop clean, and it is much healthier for me. Fine sanding dust is the worst stuff to have floating in the shop. Particles smaller than you can see have a long hang-time, and are the worst for your lungs. Even with a shop vac, and dust collector the sunlight through the windows reveals a cloud of particles floating all over the shop. It’s best just to not let the dust get loose in a shop if at all possible.
Dust and chips from the router can get blasted all over a shop.
Years ago I made a downdraft sanding table to use when sanding smaller pieces. It caught some of the dust, but my orbital sander still threw a lot of it out of range. I made a small two foot tall clear plastic tent over it, and just had my hands inside holding, and moving the pieces. This did keep the dust from going anywhere else, but visibility would get poor due to dust build up on the plastic.
This year I decided to make a portable collapsible sanding room. The kids’ old collapsible nylon play house had enough space in it to flip project pieces around, and the frame was sturdy enough hold a 1mm 10 foot by 20 foot plastic sheet on it. By clipping the plastic to the four corners, and tucking the long ends in I was able to seal it up with it sitting on my assembly table.
The dust collector hose comes in from one side and the shop vac is hooked to the sanding table. When both of these are on there is enough negative vacuum pressure created that the plastic gets sucked tight to the tent. The overhanging gap at the end made a good place for me to stand inside the tent. Of course I had a good mask on and ear protection. After doing this for an hour and stepping out I could see that there was very little dust in the shop, but plenty in the tent area.
Elm and walnut dust make elmnut dust, right?
The board above was in the tent and shows that not all of the dust was collected by the vacuums, but the tent did keep it from coating everything in the shop like this.
By blowing the tent clean outside it can be used in another way. Varnishing and dust don’t work well together. The tent with plastic over it might be a good way to keep the dust off of freshly varnished projects. This leaves the rest of the shop, and it’s tools available for production.
