Dust controll for power carving

What would be a good dust controll for power carving in a small room?

Almost all of the carving and engraving projects that I do are quite small
(less than 1 cubic foot). My method works very well for what I do, but won't
do very well if you work on projects that are larger than this.

I have a 4" muffin fan (with guards on both sides) attached to the edge of
a 24" square piece of 1/2" plywood. Whenever I'm carving I place this board
on my work table so that the fan is positioned between my arms and close to
my chest. The board becomes my carving work area. The fan blows away from me
across my carving area, keeping my work and the front of me relatively
clean. I also have a wooden box with a 10" muffin fan in one side and a 12 x
20 pleated filter in the other. The filter side also has a 8" wide lexan
hood extension on it. I place this box on my work table across from my
carving area with the hood/filter side facing toward me. The big muffin fan
in the box draws air in from my work area through the filter and out the
other side. The end result of all of this is that the little muffin fan
blows air across my work area and away from me toward the filter in the big
box. The lexan hood helps keep side spray from getting out of the air
stream, and the big muffin fan draws the dust into the filter.

I've used this technique for about 8 years now and have been quite pleased
with how much dust it collects (and how quiet it is). Some dust still gets
away into the surrounding room but it's quite low, probably 1 - 2%.
Depending on the hazard level of what I'm carving I usually still wear a
mask, and I always wear safety glasses, but I sometimes skip the mask if the
project is small and the materials are relatively safe (like adding security
ID's to metal tools). I always wear a dust mask when carving wood, stone,
and solid surface materials, and I wear a respirator type mask when carving
bone, but they stay quite clean when used with the above system. I use an
1/8" air powered die grinder for my "heavy" carving and a 1/16" Paragrave
carver for my fine carving work and what I do is on a hobby level. I don't
do it on a daily basis, but one time my job had me living in a hotel room
for 7 months. I couldn't live that long without doing some carving. I had
this whole setup in my hotel room and managed to do quite a bit of carving
without getting any complaints from the hotel staff. I had a contractor size
pancake compressor and a 2 gal. size shop vac with me that I cleaned my
immediate work area with at the end of every session and that was enough to
keep them from throwing me out.

--
Charley


"Tom Kroll" wrote in message
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What would be a good dust controll for power carving in a small room?

"Tom Kroll" wrote in message
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What would be a good dust controll for power carving in a small room?



Dust collector and downdraft table.

"Tom Kroll" wrote in newsKQke.35602$rt1.604
@fe04.lga:

What would be a good dust controll for power carving in a small room?



As other's have suggested "downdraft or air curtain" is the way to go,
here's an article that was written in the Woodcarvers ezine on making your
own unit.
Check for "Thierry's Air Cutain" in the contents menu on the left hand side
of the page, article is located at;
http://carverscompanion.com/Ezine/Vo...ol3Issue3.html
The authors name is Thierry Varem Sanders, there are a few more articles on
dust control by others in some other backissues of this online ezine.

Wannabe

I use a regular dust collector, attaching the 4" hose to the side of a
garbage pail and have a 1/4" vinyl coated mesh screen over the open top and
carve onto/into same. Does a great job.

Being a "leftie" helps too since the wood dust and chips are directed away
from me not at me as with you poor "righties"

--
Bob
London, Ontario,
Canada.


"Tom Kroll" wrote in message
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What would be a good dust controll for power carving in a small room?