Hello all, I am curious as to what other people are using to collect
the dust and spin off made from Tripoli and rouge when polishing. I
have my large polishing wheel with exhaust hood on wheels, I roll
that and my flex shaft outside to work. My exhaust set up is from Rio
Grande and it just does not do the job good enough,I see they do
carry a super deluxe model for about $2000.00 which I can not afford
at this time. Does anyone rig a vacuum or shop vac to suck out their
dust when polishing, or has anyone built a special set up to help
eliminate dust flying everywhere? I don’t want my studio to turn red,
plus I do not want the particles in the air.
Any suggestions would be appreciated being that it is starting to get
cold, I will be unable to go outside to polish soon. Lee.
Lee, I built a box with front fixed where I slid an air
condition filter into opening, bought a bath exast fan,duct
thru the wall…buffer if front with light under over hang…one
switch seprate for fan…left in on sometimes to exaust oders
whatever…c lyde
Hello Leeann, I have made a simple and cheep dust cleaning device. I
have taken an PVC square water collector. The one who are used on the
side of flat roof. The one I have is approx. 25x15 cm. The bottom of
this collector has a round connection of 125 mm. On the side I have
cut some out to let the axe of the buffing wheel pass. The collector
is fitted 45 degrees downwards on the buffing wheel. On this I have
connected a laundry drying hose and this one goes in to a wooden box.
The size of this box should be at least 50x50x50 cm. But bigger is
better. In this box I have put glass wool what you put in your exhaust
hood of the kitchen. On top of the box I have placed a ventilator. The
ventilator comes from yes again an old exhaust hood of a kitchen. This
ventilator is sucking from the box and blows the air back in my
working room. The trick to make this exhaust working right, is the
amount of glass wool in the box. Not to much (to much resistance) and
not to less, dust will go trough it . You can test it buy letting the
box sucking in some flower, or some other fine powdery stuff. If it
will come out on the other side the resistance should be higher.
Martin Niemeijer
I just purchased two units that fit between the dust collector heads
and the vacuum unit of my polishing system. The dust enters at the top
and swirls around, finally setting in a removable container at the
bottom. These units remove a large proportion of the dust before it
enters the vacuum dust collector and also will collect the odd stone
or flying piece. The filter in the collector is much cleaner, so these
units are effective.
Rick Hamilton
I have taken a bargain-basement approach. My bench polisher is in a
plywood enclosure like an open-fronted box, lined with heavy plastic
sheeting to aid in cleanup. In the back is an opening connected to a
shop vac. While this is an improvement over what I had before
(nothing), it is still far from optimal. I am not overly impressed
with the suction I get, and it is horrendously noisy. It does,
however, keep the dust out of my shop. I’d love a better, quieter
system, but they seem very expensive. Even a better, quieter shop
vac would be great.
Janet Kofoed
I used to manage a polishing department that employed fifteen full
time polishers. These guys polished gold and silver with old worn out
blowers in a hot overcrowded noisy poorly ventilated room. The owner
of the company did not want to spend the money to correct these poor
working conditions but he did constantly complain about the filth
caused by the rouge. One of my tool suppliers tried to convince me to
eliminate the red rouge completely and switch over to green rouge or
another final polish such as fabuluster. Of coarse when I mentioned
this to the polishers they thought I was completely out of my mind.
So I made the decision to disappoint my boss rather than upset some
of my best guys. However I have often wondered what difference the
change would have made. Has anyone out there tried this approach and
if so what results did it have.
John Sholl
Littleton, Colorado
I wonder, has anyone tried or considered an electrostatic
precipitation process? Would it work for something like this? Would
it be prohibitively expensive?
Margaret
Changing to a polish other than red rouge just changes the color of
the dust, it doesn’t eliminate it. Sort of out of sight, out of mind.
On the filter question, You need to change them often. A filter
that lets air through will eventually let the dust through. Replace
them often and the amount of dust will be greatly reduced.
Don
polishers know how to polish. what do they know about what’s in the
stuff? do you guys know what rouge is made of? do yourself a favor &
get some MSDS sheets. if polishers had any idea of whats available and
believe me it’s more than what’s in the rio cat that everyone just
raves over. Water soluble compounds for instance, they would beg you
to change over. call SATTEX CORP. (541) 826-8808. buy a few mini bars.
these compounds are very dry, so easy cleanup. very low scratching
(all rouges will scratch if you allow it so why not use stuff that
scratches less?). and give a beautifull lustrous shine. this is
valuable thank me later.
SATTEX corp.
PO BOX 2593
7932 PACIFIC ave
WHITE CITY OR.
97503-0593
John Humphries, Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to hear. I
know that historically red rouge has been used as a pigment in many
products and is a very effective dye. That is why the idea of getting
it out of the shop sounded great. I have heard that rouge is a health
hazard as well. Can any one tell me if it is any worse than the other
compounds used in a typical shop.
John Sholl
John, I have used red rouge for years.I use a standard hood buffer in
three of the locations I work in.I tried switching to white diamond
from tripoli and red rouge to fabuluster.I don’t like the polish from
Fabuluster as much as rouge so I switched back.Iam going to buy an
expensive filtration system even though I have been breathing this
stuff for years.I guess the closer you get to check out time the more
you worry about your health.I read that there is a link between heart
disease and high concentrations of iron.What better way to absorb iron
than breathing iron oxide in rouge.Happy Buffing J Morley Coyote Ridge Studio
John Humphries, Thank you. This is exactly what I wanted to
hear. I know that historically red rouge has been used as a pigment
in many products and is a very effective dye. That is why the idea
of getting it out of the shop sounded great. I have heard that rouge
is a health hazard as well. Can any one tell me if it is any worse
than the other compounds used in a typical shop.
Basically, it’s finely divided iron oxide (i.e. RUST). It’s about as
bad as any other metal powder would be in one’s lungs (to be
avoided).
Ron Charlotte – Gainesville, FL
@Ron_Charlotte1 OR afn03234@afn.org
Time to humble myself with a correction. SATTEX compounds are not
’water soluble’. they are saponifiable. A term which all of us
educulates know means they will break down with alkali (soap
and water). at any rate everything else I printed is entirely accurate.
I guess the closer you get to check out time the more you worry
about your health.I read that there is a link between heart disease
and high concentrations of iron.What better way to absorb iron than
breathing iron oxide in rouge
I am not a Doctor but I expect that there is a more immediate
concern about the effects of the stuff we breath in the shop on our
lungs rather than our heart. This has become a subject near and
dear to my heart (lungs) in the last four years. I was diagnosed as
having emphysema as a result of a genetic disorder called alpha-1
antitrypsin deficiency. It mostly affects males at around the 35 to
40 age and is most often not identified until much later after
several different doctors have had a shot at you. I quit smoking in
1975 at the age of 35 because of breathing problems. I was sure
that the lungs would “Pink” up again and everything would be OK.
Wrong. In 1994, I stared my own store after retiring from the
corporate world. Well, the buffing and polishing, and stone cutting
started to take a toll on me. In 1998, I was diagnosed as having
Alpha-1 caused emphysema. All the rouge and polishing compounds as
well as the soldering and casting fumes didn’t cause my condition,
but they sure were aggravating it. I found out that you can’t feel
the lung damage until you have lost a very high percent of you lung
capacity, something like 75% or so. So just because you don’t feel
the affects of breathing all of the dust, including the stuff you
can’t see, doesn’t mean that it isn’t causing you problems.
A good exhaust system will go a long way to reducing the exposure to
lung damaging by-products of our trade. I was recently in a custom
shop in Cambria, Ca and couldn’t help but notice the exhaust system
he had installed. It was an industrial strength blower with an 8"
duct system that sucked fumes and dust from “EVERY” work station in
the shop. The bench, the polishing stations, the casting table, the
kiln, even the wax table. The owner and I got to talking about his
exhaust system and he explained that he put it in after he was
overcome by fumes from a wax pot. Who would have thought?
So, the problems of the staining of Rouge’s and the dust that gets
over everything in your shop is really not the problem, but the
alarm going off. TAKE CARE OF YOUR LUNGS. Once they are on the
trip south, the only fix is for some other human to give you theirs
and this makes it difficult for them to breath.
Don