Air Cleaner

[Renzo]

I'm with you Renzo, being in Canada, looks like the Jet one is out of the question. Where did you order yours from to get such a good deal?

My basement has been gutted for awhile now and I have my work space setup on one end. I have been using a Festool CT22 for the last few months and that has helped, but it is amazing how far the dust will travel. The copper pipes that run to the far end of the basement even have dust on them. The stuff gets everywhere so am thinking an air cleaner would definitely help with this.

Hi Rob,

Not sure what part of Canada you're in but I'm in Ottawa

There's a place here called Mark's Machinery. The guy works out of his house (i know it's odd, but he's a general dealer and has given be better prices than anywhere else)

He also delivers for free right to my basement (even for my table saw and jointer). I had looked at a few other stores who carried General and all wanted about $80 for shipping on the table saw and would only go as far as my garage. Not sure i was going to get a 312lb saw to the basement. But it all worked out, and i'm certainly a client for life.

[cts1085]

For me there must be a multi-phase solution: First try to collect at the source (I use a DC with separator), then try to collect what it missed (I use the JET air filter with 12x24 sized prefilters. Lastly wear a dust mask (3m half-face works great!)

My next dust purchase will probably be a full cyclone like Marc has - research continues to point people in that direction.

[Renzo]

For me there must be a multi-phase solution: First try to collect at the source (I use a DC with separator), then try to collect what it missed (I use the JET air filter with 12x24 sized prefilters. Lastly wear a dust mask (3m half-face works great!)

My next dust purchase will probably be a full cyclone like Marc has - research continues to point people in that direction.

Hi, yep I agree with you. I've got a General 1 1/2HP 1100CFM dust collector. Just got the air cleaner mounted to the ceiling yesterday, bit of a pain to do without help, but managed to not drop it on my head! I've also got a 3M 100PN respirator. Generally i'll have the DC and air cleaner on whenever i'm doing anything and then of course the respirator if i'm doing any sanding or finishing etc.

My concern or reason for getting the air cleaner was to keep as much of the fine dust from spreading into other parts of the house as my wife has asthma and scent issues.

I've only used the air cleaner twice. I find what i do is run it when in the shop and set the timer for an hour when i'm done. Fine Woodworking indicated it cleaned the air in their test shop in about 15 minutes, so I think an hour is plenty. Seems be to a good investment so far.

[Chester]

Note ... I did not do this, but ...

There are some wonderful do-it-yourself designs for building a shop air-born dust filter.

At the end of the day, it is about:

• 
  
  
• fan capacity
  
• control of fan speeds
  
• control of fan times
  
• filter media
  

If you are moderately good with some electrical, this would be a good project. I bought the smallest Jet unit. It was on a very good sale at WC and I couldn't let it pass. I was also in the middle of a big, very dusty project and I needed it.

Chester

[Chester]

What I really want to build is a window-mount exhaust fan for the shop. I have double-hung windows at each end of my long (32') shop. I would like to mount an exhaust fan in some sort of box that could be lifted and set easily on the window sill. This would pull cooler air in the window at the far end of the shop and also exhaust air out of the shop.

Has anyone done this kind of thing? I could just buy a cheap box fan but think I need a little stronger fan. This will be a good winter project.

Chester