Dust advice

[JonF]

Having spent the afternoon turning a yew branch into 5 mushrooms I felt a bit conjested and short of breath (any wood dust gets to me this way) despite wearing an Airshield Pro. It turns out, when I checked the air levels, that it wasn't working properly and dust will have been creeping round the edges of the mask. I see now why the 'pro's' on here recommend multiple dust measures.
I'm working in a small shed with reasonable ventilation and I have a Black and decker workshop vaccuum with the appropriate wood dust filter bags. I had an idea that if I put a small garden storage 'box' (the ones you normally keep spades, compost and flower pots in) up against my shed, cut a hole in the side of the shed and box to feed the B&D hose through I'd have a dust extraction system without spending any more money. The reason to get it out of the shed is to minimise noise and to allow me to dispense with the expensive dust collection bags.
Does this make sense? Will the vaccuum pull air througn at a reasonable rate?
I should say that I plan to still wear the Airshield Pro, once I've got it working properly.

 

[Jonzjob]

Just googling Black and decker workshop vaccuum brings up lads of things? Which one do you have?

I have a JSP pos pressure mask and it comes with a little gauge which you plug onto the output into the mask to tell you if you have enough presssure of air blowing into the mask, if the filters need changing or the battery needs charging. I get no problems with my mask as long as it is working correctly and you should not have any if yours is doing the same.

 

[JonF]

Sorry, my mistake. I have a Bosch GAS50 Wet & Dry Extractor .

The Airshield has a similar guage which remained stubbornly at the lowest point. Battery charging overnight, hopefully ok tomorrow.

 

[CHJ]

Dumping the dust outside of your working area is always better, assuming you are not dumping it in some elses back yard.
If you fit coarser filters to your extraction then that will increase the air volume moved.

As far as your extractor is concerned I would query the effectiveness of such a unit to move enough volume to capture enough of the airborne dust.

I too am very sensitive to wood dusts and the associated chemicals released from wood, I have finally arrived at a working system that rarely bites me but it is several orders of magnitude greater volume than your extractor can provide being a HVLP chip collector (100mm pipes) fitted with extremely course filtering and housed outside of the shop in its own little cabin.

My mask also has a waist mounted filter system that draws air from behind me which helps with the chemical constituents problems, as long as I don't have too much curry.

Your Airshield Pro should have sounded an alarm if your battery was low and the fan not producing enough air flow.