Re: ShopTalk: Dust Collection

[Ed Reeder]

Bill, Welcome to the forum!       (I changed the subject to Dust Collection) I'm curious if you have any general thoughts about the dust collection issues club makers face vs. those of woodworkers?  I have some guesses on their different characteristics to get us started.  (Others please chime in). I would characterize woodworkers as producing a variety of different size particles and a variety of different quantities of particles.  The size may vary from chips to fine dust.  The quantities can be significant, as in the case of a planer, or relatively small as when finish sanding.  For the most part the particles are wood (which for some species can be toxic or inflammatory), but could be plastic, MDF, etc. Club makers typically produce only dust, primarily from their shaft cutting operations.  The quantities are very small compared to a woodworker.  The predominant dust is graphite or steel, with some plastic from ferrules.  (Some club makers use a wet tile saw to cut graphite shafts, which eliminates air borne dust).  Some club makers grind the soles of club heads, which is another source of steel "dust". The club makers "dust" is produced almost exclusively from grinding, as opposed to a woodworker's cutting tools, so it is typically very fine. Given these assumptions, is there anything that jumps out to you as to specific advice to offer? Thx, /Ed Bill Pentz wrote: Hi,   John asked me to come and share a little on this forum. With my clubs long since retired after my handicap slipped from a 7 to a 28 with health problems, I probably can contribute little on the golfing side.   I might be able to contribute a little to the concerns about fine dust created in working with the clubs. Back in 1999 I had some worsening allergy problems so threw money at that problem buying the top recommended Oneida-Air cyclone and upgraded its stock filter with the “best” rated American Fabric Filter fine oversized bag filter. Within a couple of months I was in the hospital with dust triggered severe pneumonia. I spent my recovery time learning about dust collection and what went wrong. What I learned is it is the residual dust that lingers in our work areas which we keep putting airborne with our tools and dust collection that causes the biggest problem. I paid for a medical air quality test and found my woodworking tools and filter sprayed the finest dust all over, and my cyclone moved under half the air needed to collect the fine dust. I then went to work figuring out how to repair my cyclone. When all my changes only made a little improvement, I started over and built my own cyclone design. It worked so well my doc talked me into sharing and I did on a couple of woodworking forums. I was immediately so overwhelmed, I moved those few articles to their own web pages and included a rapidly growing Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page. Either crazy or a touch of a fanatic I’ve kept those pages and my designs evolving and now see in excess of 18,000 unique visitors a day to my pages, and almost every cyclone maker now uses some of my innovations. I’m pretty pleased right now because Harvard Medical School just did some testing and gave me a gold star with my cyclone separating 98.2% of the finest dust particles versus the closest competitor, which uses my design changes to a standard cyclone at only 42%. When they finally get published, I will share the details. Anyhow, the point is don’t let yourself get in trouble from too much exposure to resins, fiberglass, graphite, etc.   Happy to be abord. Bill Pentz Cyclone and Dust Collection Research:  http://BillPentz.com/Woodworking/Cyclone/Index.cfm