clean air

[scott-n-montana]

I have a 20' x 22' shop that I use just for welding projects and some woodworking. It is sheetrocked and insulated. In the summer I leave the door open, but in the winter it is shut with the heater on. Usually when I come in at night I am coughing up half the metal dust it seems. I hate wearing the masks. Anyway I was thinking of taking a blower I have from an old furnace and installing it in the attic space. I thought maybe I would put the air intake ( with filter of course ) in the center of the ceiling and then have it return into the room somewhere along the outside perimeter of the ceiling, using ductwork. So anyway I thought I would see if anyone had any better ideas before I go to it. Thanks -- Scott

[tasslehawf]

Coughing up metal dust??! What are you doing that's creating that much fine metal dust?

[Vicegrip]

I tried all kinds of air cleaning systems back in the wood working days and found that nothing worked as well as a good fitting mask. I think this hold true in metal working too. I don't like them ether but for welding in an inclosed space they work well. Furnace type filters don't remove gasses or do much for the particles that are being generated right in front of your face. I used to blow metal detector tripping sludge out after a night of grinding welding and wire wheeling old cars. With the mask no nothing nasty coming out. Don't have to suffer the beer fart$ with a good dual cartridge mask ether. I had to cut the bottom off my welding helmet and rework it to fit the mask.
When I am doing something really dusty like cutting rust from large areas of sheet metal I will run two 20 inch box fans that have good furnace air filters taped to the intake side. They work far better than I expected and were only $9 each. I had a furnace air handler are ready to install as part of a planned filtered air system but skipped it. I do sometime only use my fume hood when Tig welding. It runs to a central vac that dumps the air outside.

[welder_guy]

It is critical to keep those fumes out of your lungs. I plasma cut and sometimes weld on a down draft table, they are realy easy to make and work good. I also weld outside. The masks arent really bad. I have one that fits nicely under my welding hemet, I bought it at airgas. Do everything you can to keep all that fume crap out of your body.

[shorerider16]

I agree with the masks or respirators, they may not be the nicest to wear, but they do work. Once you get put it on and start working you won't really notice after a while. As previously mentioned, a downdraft system works wonders for cutting and grinding. We use this type of setup at school in the grinding room and you can have two belt sanders and four 7" inch grinders going in a rather small room with no hint of dust in the air.