dust collection anyone?

Since I need to do most of my carving in the garage with the door closed after the kids go to bed, it gets pretty darn sawdusty when I use the grinder. Does anyone use anytype of dust collection system while carving? Do they work? How aboutone of those cylindrical $100 portable ones?

SHOPVAC!!!

The floor catches most of mine... :)

I use a portable one that works sometimes and sometimes not.

If you can aim the grinderoutput at the scoop, it works great. For small pendants it is great except when it Eats the ones you drop into it. I have since fasioned a screen over the gaping mouth to prevent this.
http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=AP-300&LARGEVIEW=ON

Gman.... tell me more. Do you use the vac to clean up the dust on the ground or to actually get it outof the air?

Just off the ground bub. I guess I didn't understand your question. Sorry. Ben's rig there looks pretty wicked....but trying to aim the shooting dust is a bit too much for me (I have a hard enough time just keeping out of my face). I'm pretty much a loose cannon and need to be outside where it doesn't matter. I understand your situation now. I bet the dust is getting everywhere. It can't be good for the rugrats either. Maybe tack some 2x4s down and make a small sanding booth with plastic sheeting. I think Lake Surfer did something like that in his basement. I had a friend who made a big one so he could do fiberglass work in his garage in the winter without killing his whole family. Send Lake a PM and see if he uses one.

Good luck

-Gman

I do all of my carving outside, so confined dust isn't really an issue with me, but I always wear a good quality respirator when doing anything that has tons of flying dust (carving with a dremel, sanding, grinding, etc).

I have a very close friend who is a master woodworker and he swears by the delta tools that ben showed. His set up is pricey, but what price do you put on health?
here's a few examples:
http://www.rockler.com/CategoryView.cfm?Cat_ID=501
and all the connectors: http://www.rockler.com/CategoryView.cfm?Cat_ID=237
toget the dust out of the air your dust collecting mechanism needs to be almost against the object that you are sanding.
Some tools also come with dust collection bags attached to the tools and they do an okay job of collecting dust too (not that good, but pretty good)

A sanding booth is a great idea and do PM lake. I remember seeing a picture of it in his post, and it's in his basement (if I remember correctly.)
I'm in the midst of sanding some hardwood floors in my house, and I put up some plastic in the doorways and it did a pretty good job of keeping the dust within the room I was sanding.

POLYNESIAC - putting the 'F' back in ART

[ Edited by: Polynesiac 2005-10-22 12:27 ]

Thanks... I'll PM him today. I think I may wall off a section of my garage to limit the dust everywhere. I saw this at the Lee Valleysite... thought it might work for a small area, say 11 x 9. Anyone used these?

You might try a dust table. It's really meant for smaller amounts of dust from sanding though. We sell a variety of them here, but they are all meant to be attached to larger tools mostly. A dust mask is going to do you the most good with an angle grinder though. Or one of the Delta ambient collectors that mount like an AC unit in the room and filter maybe 3-400 cfm.