Moving House - new workshop and dust extraction

PeteC

Sold my house this week and moving out of the smoke to the Yorkshire countryside. 

Biggest upside is will have a double garage to set up my new workshop next year - no more 8x10 shed and trying to do everything in a cramped space !

So plenty of room for machinery but I need some advice on dust extraction. 

what would be a good set up in a spacious double garage for dust extraction for a hobbyist ?   
Should I fit rigid plastic pipe and get a decent extractor - or just use a shop vac and a DIY cyclone set up ? 

I'm only looking to do about 6-8 guitars a year I think. 

Thoughts and advice welcomed. 
cheers

Roland

Everybody has a different view on this. The answer depends on what you will do in your workshop, what machines you will use, and what your workflow is. If you flit from machine to machine then you don’t want to be re-connecting a vacuum hose every two minutes. Whereas if you’re like me, and spend a whole day on one machine then it’s not a problem. It also depends on budget, but don’t forget that a new set of lungs is hard to get. 

Whatever extraction you’ve got the workshop will fill with fine dust, so my starting point would be air filtration such as this.

The safest way is to vent extraction to the outside world, having collected chips, shavings, and dust on the way. The downside is that it also vents your warm air, and in the winter the shop gets cold within a minute or so. If your volume of dust is small then you might get away with not venting.

Each machine needs a different type of extraction. Some machines need high volume extraction, some need high pressure. A bandsaw needs extraction from the point of cutting and from inside the case. In most bandsaw designs this is totally inadequate, and many people end up adding their own collection methods. If your usage is very low then you could simply resort to vacuuming out the case after every few cuts. 

My personal approach, in a 3m x4m workshop, is a high pressure vacuum on wheels, plus a big air filter hanging from the ceiling, plus a mask when I’m doing anything really dusty. I keep meaning to add a vortex to extract shavings and dust, but with my volume the bag doesn’t fill quickly so it’s not reached the top of the To Do list yet. Whenever I’m working yew (toxic) or laburnum (poisonous) I consider placing the vacuum outside the door so that the small particles vent to atmosphere.

PeteC

Thank you @Roland ;
 that's very helpful indeed. 

I'm erring towards a ceiling dust filter for the fine stuff, and a mobile shop vac as you suggest - but certainly something better than the small Karcher wheely vac I use at the moment.

Corvus

Nice one Pete, happy days ahead.
I've got both sorts, a large chip extractor and a cyclone setup (ash vac + chemical drum with cylone ontop). The vac wouldn't stand much chance with the PT I think and was pretty hopeless with the router-planer, but is better with routers. It doubles for the constant cleaning up with a cheap hose & parts set. Difference probably explained by this link, which made my brain hurt but the basics are there to take away - A guide to dust extraction by member siggy_7 | UKworkshop.co.uk

fwiw the ash vac setup was about 50 quid for the vac, 20 for the steel drum, 20-30 for the cyclone; I got a dust commander instead of the cheap copies. It's all on a dead basic trolley. Dust never hits the vac filter so it never needs replacing.
The chip extractor notes say reducing down from 100mm hose heavily reduces its suction - not that I tried, so might not be that bad, but don't want to be moving the fat hose round much anyway. S/h chip extractors come up pretty cheaply on fleabay.

Jimbro66

If you've not read it before @PeteC there was a member's very informative account of setting up a well equipped workshop from scratch here:

https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/85542/new-workshop-time-nearly-there/p1

A little light bedtime reading perhaps

greggreg66

Exciting! 

I am more on the side of dedicated machines and fixed setups (after a few years with a mobile extractor wheeled between machines). I think the Laguna cyclone extractor is supposed to be decent. I'd run something like that along with galv spiral duct on the ceiling and have an epic extraction game - in addition to the workshop filter. Is this overkill? yes, but it'll be completely awesome. 

There is a great video by Frank Howarth on YT where he describes how he built his own cyclone workshop extractor. I've invested quite a lot in our workshop extraction and all the ducting etc as I think it's really important. It's not cheap but it's great having decent extraction. Mine is a drop in the ocean compared to some setups though!

greggreg66

This is the Frank Howarth vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcGSjSMHxIg&ab_channel=frankhowarth

PeteC

Many thanks all. 

Plenty to think about and plan 
much appreciated