Controlling Jobsite Dust

This new door, stained and sealed, is ready for a final sanding and topcoat.

And there it sits in quiet company with R2Vac2, neither being good to go.

Dust is a nuisance. It can mess up otherwise nice work. In the course of sanding, I vacuum, keeping the nozzle close to and under my sanding hand.

But high velocity exhaust air will create turbulence in an otherwise quiet room.

Air turbulence is not something you want when finishing woodwork. So do what you can to keep the air quiet while generating dust: e.g. temporarily close windows, turn down thermostat, turn off air-conditioning, seal off registers, hold your breath (kidding).

(On commercial jobs in occupied buildings, good use can be made of portable air scrubbers. Bought outright or rented, these can keep dust under control on a room-by-room basis or throughout an entire building, which typically elicits delight from the tenants).

If you are trying to vacuum while sanding... if the vac exhaust only blows everything around before it can get snagged and bagged... what is the point?

So... why not attach a hundred dollar hose to the exhaust port, and direct that high volume of turbulent air out and away?

The free end of the exhaust hose will want to flail around like a weasel in a leg trap, so weigh it down with something. Use your head if it resembles a brick. Use your leg if you're a weasel.

This toolbox is one of three that I have. None of them have the original closures. Poor design of fifty cent closures renders a thirty dollar toolbox pretty much useless... no? My limit of buying another was three... went out and got another after the first, transposed a remaining fastener from the first to fix the broken one on the second. Funny how we can always blame things on the weather (...'that particular plastic can't handle thirty below... must be more careful' etc.) until I realized it wasn't the weather at all -- it was a bloody consumer plotI And so it was that I left my toolbox-buying days buried deep in the dust of history.

I stopped buying stuff altogether. Newspapers piled up. Phone went unanswered. Lingering questions went unanswered. Prayers went unanswered. But... once relatives heard that I had begun praying, immediately they deduced my need for some serious help. They saw that I now had a complete and firm grasp on the CONSUMER PLOT ideology. Good it was that they came over, kicked their way through the empty rum bottles, looked under the bed, rudely pulled my thumb out of my face and gently coaxed me back into the realm of CONSUMERISM.

The two months of rehab I underwent was first spent gingerly testing various chewing gums. It was difficult as first. I found that some chewing gums would so freshen my mouth that they froze my whole face. Friends and strangers alike would ask "what the hell's wrong with your face?" Having gotten bored with saying "it once caught fire and someone tried to put it out with an axe", I ventured ever onward and upward in my rehab endeavor: Forced myself into the anti-perspirant B.O. underarm aisle one day. Bought something. It made my pits itch. Bought something else. It gave my pits dandruff. Bought something else. The smell gave me migraines. Bought yet something else. Now I smell nice. I still sweat though. But I don't smell like me anymore. So who the hell am I? I'm a toolbox for marketers! (... but it's o.k. : I put wood preservative on both my thumbs to inhibit sucking... and my toes too -- now I'm a fortified consumer. And if I relapse..., what's a little arsenic-induced twitching anyway, compared to the cramps I get from CBC?)

I keep this toolbox closed with a couple of snap-rings, and they make a convenient stay for the hose-end as you can see below.

This set-up creates negative pressure in a confined space, and the better part of all generated dust will now be caught and filtered, instead of blown around by moving air only to settle onto everything else including the nerves of tenants (and you ask why painters get annoyed with people-traffic: it's not that we don't like your company,
but it stirs up the air!)

The hieroglyphs on my toolbox lid are master samples of a custom stain mixed to match woodwork to furnishings.

Side Notes:

Handy closure device saves this second BENCHMASTER from a one-way trip to the dumpster. Aptly named, that... because once the latches break off, there it will sit... forever more Master of the Bench.

The above exhaust hose was salvaged from R2Vac1, a previous machine that flamed out and drove me into rehab.. All that machine needed was a simple repair, but the motor was hermetically sealed and could not be disassembled to replace the one dollar brushes. Instead, the whole thing became useless, except for the hose. So how do you like my $100 hose? Why are stores that sell tools getting bigger and bigger when there are less and less things to repair?


Run with the frugals? Save eight bucks a pop by recycling your vac bag once or twice.