Shop ventilation

Thanks, my shop vac is the huge type and uses a lot of electricity and generates a lot of noise. It's capable of sucking in a small cat or puppy and maybe a small child. I think for the little bit of work I do, rather than install a vent system, I'll move my work outside in the driveway. To facilitate this, I'll look into adding wheels onto things that generate pollution like a furnace. The ideal solution, which the wife wouldn't like, would be to embed rails in the garage and driveway and wheel stuff out on flanged wheels. Steel shops, i notice, tend to do that with their heavy loads.
 
If you shop around some, you can find bathroom exhaust fans that vent into 4" dryer vent tube... and are rated in the 100-150-200 CFM range.

Seems to me if one put one of those above each machine... and used it as they needed... they would move enough smoke away.

Since my shop is in the basement of my home... I am gonna have to figure out something to keep the smell out of the house.
One of the things is to not use soluble oil... :)
 
My situation. I do both woodworking and metal work in a new 1500 sg/ft , 8" walls, well insulated shop with wood stove. Winters here can be darn chilly, below zero and summers can be over 90 for more days than I like. I don't like dust on my projects or machines and I'm sure most of the occasional welding / wood stove smoke or knife dust isn't good to breath. And being retired I basically live in my shop. I found a book on dust collection at the local Woodcraft store (can't remember the name, somebody borrowed it) that studied the dif options for collecting
that dust and cleaning the air we breath. Bottom line, a box fan with a furnace filter taped to it was darn near as effective as the $$$$ air cleaners. I picked up a in-line air plenum booster fan, 1/10 hp, 1200 rpm, 7" double squirrel fan unit used for 20$, built a 18 X 25 plywood box to mount it. I used two 16 x 25 furnace filters, one was full size the other I cut in half. This covers one side and both ends of the box, it exhausts out the 4th side. The effectiveness of the filters gets better as they get a little dirty. It is hung from a truss in the center of the shop, and is powered thru a router speed control box. It runs 7 x 24 and keeps the dust / smoke / fumes out. I've used this for over 8 yrs in my last two shops and love it. I change the filters about once a month. I can adjust the speed based on what is needed. And I'm not wasting the heat or cooling. This unit takes care of the stuff we breath and I use a roll around canister type shop vac at each machine to collect the heavier stuff. Might be just another option.
Jack
 
My friend made his living making boxes. Sounds simple until you find out that his boxes are home theaters, libraries, and such for multi-million dollar homes. He has the box fan/furnace filter in his little shop. It'll clear the air well enough to varnish. IIRC he started using it back when he was doing the wood in yacht cabins. It doesn't do much for the smell of burning cutting oil. I solved that problem recently by going to a mist system. It sure beats breathing what is surely carcinogous smoke. If the little bit of mist bothers one, then one of our sponsors sells a fog free one. No more blue chips. No more smoke. No more petroleum smells leaking into the house. Cutters seem to last longer, too.

Ventilation is still a good thing, but you don't need a gale force blow of arctic air of a screaming sucker for hobby/small machining... just my simple minded opinion.
 
Ok, it's been a while since I checked in, roundtoits and all that. But I found a solution to my problem, it's a bit of overkill, but it works just fine. I was at a blacksmithing conference last fall and a friend had a Torrit fume sucker in the tailgate section. I tried to buy it off of him but because I'd done him some favors when his ornamental iron shop was going out of business, he wouldn't tell me the price and eventually gave the unit to me!

One of the projects that kept me from getting back to the forum was insulating my shop roof. I'd found a place that was re-roofing and bought 100 of the 3.5" foam boards off of them. A retired friend was able to cut and hand up pieces to me on the scaffold, but because he's due for knee surgery he wasn't able to help me up on the scaffold. It was looking grim for a timely completion when I got in touch with a young horseshoeing acquaintance that could use some extra work. The two of us on the scaffold could do in one day what was taking me 4 days by myself. What a relief. Last winter I'd run my wood stove for 3-4 hours and the temperature would go from 15° to 18°. Looking forward to the new thermal resistance ;o)

I like the idea of a fogless mist system, I'll check that one out. Thanks.
 
Ok, it's been a while since I checked in, roundtoits and all that. But I found a solution to my problem, it's a bit of overkill, but it works just fine. I was at a blacksmithing conference last fall and a friend had a Torrit fume sucker in the tailgate section. I tried to buy it off of him but because I'd done him some favors when his ornamental iron shop was going out of business, he wouldn't tell me the price and eventually gave the unit to me!

One of the projects that kept me from getting back to the forum was insulating my shop roof. I'd found a place that was re-roofing and bought 100 of the 3.5" foam boards off of them. A retired friend was able to cut and hand up pieces to me on the scaffold, but because he's due for knee surgery he wasn't able to help me up on the scaffold. It was looking grim for a timely completion when I got in touch with a young horseshoeing acquaintance that could use some extra work. The two of us on the scaffold could do in one day what was taking me 4 days by myself. What a relief. Last winter I'd run my wood stove for 3-4 hours and the temperature would go from 15° to 18°. Looking forward to the new thermal resistance ;o)

I like the idea of a fogless mist system, I'll check that one out. Thanks.
 
When I built a couple of 3D printers, my wife complained about the ABS fumes. Since the printers use 12 volts DC I bought a boat bilge blower that also runs on 12 Volts. I hooked it to speed pot that I bought on ebay and it works great. I use dryer vent hose. Built a temporary exhaust vent to fit the window to vents though so that I don't lose too much heat from the room.

Roy
 
I guess I never gave it much thought myself. I spent way too many hrs around screw machines to get too concerned about it. where bar machines are there is bound to be smoke & noise!
 
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