HELP! How catch dust in vaccuum when drilling wall?

Actually the truth of the matter is that I was sinking an electrical socket into a wall using an SDS chisel/drill, so the envelope trick (and I suspect, even the wonderful DustBubble) would not really have cut the mustard there!

David

Reply to
Lobster
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To be fair, I think we are dealing with two different problems here:

At the simplest level of just catching the heavy dirty dust generated when drilling brick or blockwork, then the envelope will deal with most of the *visible* dust that would otherwise fall on your carpet, and hence can in many cases be declared adequate.

However when you start trying to catch *all* of the dust produced, including the very fine particulate dust that is emitted into the *air* from the drilling site (and later settles out all over the place), then you are into a whole new ball game. Even with vacuum collection some of this sub micron stuff will be sucked straight through any filters and returned to the air again. In these cases, containing the dust at the production site is going to be more effective. This is obviously important where the fine dust can not be tolerated either due to its harmful nature, or its ability to contaminate.

Reply to
John Rumm

you are supposed to stuff a vacuum cleaner into its handle - so it is not unpowered as such...

It is OK (ish) but can end up trapping some dust between it and the wall which with either stain it or later drop to the floor. I bought one years ago - but don't tend to use it! I don't find it much better than an envelope - especially if you use low drill speeds, and periodically withdraw the bit from the hole *slowly* to clear the dust into the collector. Not self sticking to the wall also means it requires more hands to use.

Reply to
John Rumm

The one I had (see separate post) *was* self sticking.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Years ago I bought something similar, and it worked quite well.

A small chamber (about 8cm x 15cm) with a soft rubber surround, that pressed against the wall. Connector and lightweight hose, with various adaptors for vacuum cleaner hoses. Small hole in front, covered by a rotating disc with four different sizes of hole.

Turn on vacuum cleaner, stick to wall in right place. Select smallest feasible hole and drill through it. That's it.

OK, not so easy to carry around but the device itself is small and you probably have the vac there anyway.

Reply to
Bob Eager

That is in a slightly different league!

Using a bin bag as in place of the envelope can help here, tape it round the hole and hanging under it like a hammock (as best you can, and still get at it with the drill). You can catch all the stuff that falls out, but the airborne dust is almost impossible to catch in these cases.

Reply to
John Rumm

Reply to
Owain

I suppose that's /just/ about worth claiming the free sample offered and ebaying it, if one marks up the postage a bit.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Perhaps that suggests an inventing opportunity for an SDS-compatible SuperDustBubble.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Chris,

I've tried quite a few and I'm afraid they really don't work very well, considering the high cost. That is, they sort of work, a bit, most of the time. Far better to get someone to hold a vac nozzle just under the drilling site or - if working alone - to use one of the envelope/bag methods suggested earlier in this thread.

Reply to
rrh

Tommy Walsh if I'm not mistaken?

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

Um, no, unless that link lost a digit or two. The unit I referenced is basically a bucket that goes in line between your shop vac and it's nozzle. The air and dust is brought through water in the bucket so most of the dust gets trapped in the water instead of clogging the shop vac filter.

Pete C.

Reply to
Pete C.

I have been called much worse in my time :-)

Then again, a 100ml paint sampler is ~£1 and the 5 litre pot is £12, so in terms of cost/volume it is no different from any other product.

If you take the 500 trade tube, they are about 4.5p each because we can sell them direct, but going through the chain stores means N00% mark-up which unfortunately we can not dictate.

The other thing to consider is the convenience that you can drill to put fittings up and a freshly decorated room without getting red brick dust stains on your new carpet (as someone here posted they had). In that case, the cost of the new carpet that might get stained makes £1.99 of DustBubbles seem insignificant. Other applications were hear a lot about is putting up shelves near sensitive equipment. £1.99 a small price to pay to not have to move it all, so often it comes down to convenience.... Also, you don't need someone to hold the dustpan/vacuum, so it is saves on having to have a helper around...

Event he most staunch sceptics often soften when they use them, so go ahead, give me your address and I'll send you some.

Cheers

Chris

Reply to
Chris Styles

We are prototyping a version that is good for much larger holes (50mm+) at the request of an industrial client we have, so making a version that is good for sinking a backbox into a wall isnt that far fetched, as the same basic principle applies.

Cheers

Chris

Reply to
Chris Styles

The link you posted contained a session id, which is a pretty sure sign that it won't work for anyone who visits the site atfer your session has expired. You need to post the keywords so we can do a new search.

Reply to
Rob Morley

John, I think you're one of the few people in this thread to appreciate that this ultra fine dust is exactly what I, as OP, am having problems with.

From all the suggestions I find that the best way (and it's not great) is where I use a small square of filter-bag material in between the hose and attachment of a domestic vaccuum cleaner.

All the dust gets drawn in including the fine stuff. The really and truly fine stuff passes thru the filter material (as a second square will show) but *hopefully* it gets trapped by the actual dust in the main vaccuum cleaner bag or by walls of the main bag.

What's left topass thru the bag and then thru the vaccuum's exhaust filter isn't worth worrying about. The main issue here may be how fast the main bag gets clogged to the point of being useless.

I guess a Dyson-style vaccuum centrifugal cleaner + HEPA filters would be better at trapping the dust. (Is this correct?) ANd I was asking in another group if an el-cheapo £30 Bush DD2227B bagless Cylinder Bagless from Tesco is any good as I could devote it to this task. See

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"The Bush DD2227B Cylinder Bagless is a 1200W cyclonic cylinder cleaner. High level of filtration. 1.5 litre dust capacity."

Reply to
David Peters

As often seems to be the case when you have people arguing that black is white and vice versa, it usually means they are looking at the problem from different viewpoints (or one of them just likes arguing!)

HEPA filters certainly trap fine dust (probably better than anything else you are likely to find), but they are also expensive if you clog them too fast!

My experience with Dysons is that if you collect fine plaster dust with a DC01 Absolute for example then you can clog its filters quite quickly (in fact you may do better without any filters in it). You get least clogging if you can ensure that you maintain fast airflow through it (i.e. by not momentarily blanking off the suction pipe as you clean - something that is easy to do with a crevice tool etc). Something like the DC14 would be a better bet since has far more suction power and hence will maintain airflow speed better (it also has much bigger filter areas). Given the price however I would be reluctant to buy one of these just for this purpose!

better at the price!

You could build a pre filter for the task... various folks have posted details of building small cyclones in the past, including me[1]. Although my one was not really designed for ultra fine dust collection however, and talcum powder sized stuff will still go through it into the vac. You would need one with a proper conical section and lots of air speed to accelerate the finest particles out of the airflow.

[1]
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Reply to
John Rumm

Get an envelope. Ideally DL size, with the flap on the top not the end (typical "A4 folded in 3" commercial envelope - recycle your junkmail for one).

Poke the two bottom corners in, so the the envelope bulges outwards and is an inch or two "thick" at the top edge.

Use a few inches masking tape to tape the envelope flap to the wall, just below the drill hole. Single sided tape, half on the envelope, half on the wall. Don't press the tape down too hard, or it may lift paint from the wall.

Drill. Catch the dust in the open and gaping envelope.

Blow or brush gently to knock the dust off the tape's top edge.

Remove envelope, taking care not to rip the wall off with the tape.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

me too some people make more work being clean than the entire job involves:(

Reply to
hallerb

Concur with all of above: just want to mention that the dust 'cascades' over the masking tape and down into the envelope. The 'few inches' of masking tape is to catch the dust as it exits the hole in a fan-shape .

Reply to
Brian Sharrock

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