Turning my old dirty garage into a workshop

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Great shop pete! I can't begin to describe how jealous I am...
 
You have gotten me motivated.
We just moved into a new place with a separate shop.
It is about 25' x 25' with built in work benches on 2 walls and the landlord beefed up the electrical for me just in case.
Looks like soon I will be bringing my work home with me.
 
Dave Martell said:
One thing I'd like to mention is that you've got to be careful when using dust collectors on both wood and metal grinding together on the same machines. Handle shaping with metal tangs and spacers aren't really an issue, it's when you use the same grinder (and dust collector system) to grind blades after you've got a build up of wood dust. Also, the build up of belt fuzz can be something to worry about as well - an example is what comes off of the orange Norton Blaze belts - highly flammable stuff. I've personally had two fires inside my dust collector system and that was within the lines but I've had about a 1/2 dozen mini-burns that resulted in holes in plastic pickups and hoses. Currently I'm setting up my shop with a 100% metal dust collector system (well expect for dust hood/pickups on wood only machines) that exhausts outside into a controlled burn free area. I expect to have no troubles from the new set up BUT I'm buying two new fire extinguishers just in case. The thing that worries me is the smoldering that happens when no one is around to use the extinguishers. You've been warned!
Click to expand...

I am building a new dust collection system soon. Was the fire caused because you were mixing handle material and steel in the same network of ducts or did the fire occur from just the steel dust piling up in the ducts alone?
 
Dave Martell said:
One thing I'd like to mention is that you've got to be careful when using dust collectors on both wood and metal grinding together on the same machines. Handle shaping with metal tangs and spacers aren't really an issue, it's when you use the same grinder (and dust collector system) to grind blades after you've got a build up of wood dust. Also, the build up of belt fuzz can be something to worry about as well - an example is what comes off of the orange Norton Blaze belts - highly flammable stuff. I've personally had two fires inside my dust collector system and that was within the lines but I've had about a 1/2 dozen mini-burns that resulted in holes in plastic pickups and hoses. Currently I'm setting up my shop with a 100% metal dust collector system (well expect for dust hood/pickups on wood only machines) that exhausts outside into a controlled burn free area. I expect to have no troubles from the new set up BUT I'm buying two new fire extinguishers just in case. The thing that worries me is the smoldering that happens when no one is around to use the extinguishers. You've been warned!
Click to expand...

Loosvelt said:
I am building a new dust collection system soon. Was the fire caused because you were mixing handle material and steel in the same network of ducts or did the fire occur from just the steel dust piling up in the ducts alone?
Click to expand...


Both

I have only one belt grinder that gets used for woodworking and knife grinding. In the curves of the dust collector lines there will be small pockets of build up of wood dust and belt fuzz (some belts make more fuzz than others) and this tends to ignite easily when a hot spark lands on it and is fueled by the massive air movement through the line.

Using steel duct work doesn't prevent fires from happening but in my experience they extinguish before they become a problem.

Mixing steel grinding and wood dust is bad business but the belt fuzz is a problem even if you're just grinding steel. Most knifemakers simply blow their dust into a water bucket that sits directly below the platen (or wheel) and that seems to work very effectively on putting out sparks. :)

Why don't I do that? I run my grinder horizontally with the bad stuff blowing away from me which sends it more towards the wall than to the floor.


PS - Welcome to KKF :cool2:
 
Dave Martell said:
Both

I have only one belt grinder that gets used for woodworking and knife grinding. In the curves of the dust collector lines there will be small pockets of build up of wood dust and belt fuzz (some belts make more fuzz than others) and this tends to ignite easily when a hot spark lands on it and is fueled by the massive air movement through the line.

Using steel duct work doesn't prevent fires from happening but in my experience they extinguish before they become a problem.

Mixing steel grinding and wood dust is bad business but the belt fuzz is a problem even if you're just grinding steel. Most knifemakers simply blow their dust into a water bucket that sits directly below the platen (or wheel) and that seems to work very effectively on putting out sparks. :)

Why don't I do that? I run my grinder horizontally with the bad stuff blowing away from me which sends it more towards the wall than to the floor.


PS - Welcome to KKF :cool2:
Click to expand...


Thanks for the welcome!

I plan to suck the steel dust into my dust deputy which will several inches of water as spark trap. Going to try to grind my first kitchen knives soon.

On a side note you'll be hearing from me soon sir, as I want to buy my first waterstones and learn to handsharpen. I think there is too much risk by using the belt grinder. Works good, but that heat is always lurking. Too much speed, pressure, or time and the temper at the edge could be affected.
 
I finally built a storage solution for my belts.
zejZA5.jpg
 
I just added this knife vise, which has made shaping handles much more ergonomic and effective. It allows me to safely clamp the blade and rotates 360 degrees as well as vertically 180 degrees.

81PG8z.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My god... I need one of those. That looks 1000x better than a regular vice
 
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