Workshop air filters.

[Iznogood]

Hello, i am considering buying an air filter for my workshop, and any thoughts or input from your own experience will be welcome. At the moment i am looking at the perform air filter from Axminster.

i nessecary to change the filters , or can you clean them.

Anders.

[Phisherman]

I highly recommend building one that uses cheap standard furnace filters. With the cost of the filters so low it doesn't make sense to clean them. Mine pulls air through three furnace filters and the unit rolls around the shop on wheels. It clears the shop air in minutes--well worth having.

[Rick]

I was planning on building a downdraft table that will also filter the air. The plans I found are at:

may alter the design some to try an incorporate a the type of bag filter used by many of the commercial shop air filters. Regards, Rick

[Gerald Ross]

I may alter the design some to try an incorporate a the type of bag

Mine uses a coarse furnace filter (for chips), fine furnace filter below that, then the pleated bag filter from Penn State. It uses a furnace squirrel cage blower below all this. The top has 1 inch holes to be used as a downdraft sanding table and tilts back for more air flow for general use. It really catches a pile of dust. And I use my regular dust collector piped to the saws and a handheld hose for the lathe.

[Andy]

If you're on a tight budget or want a temporary solution, a 20x20 furnace filter taped to a cheap box fan works fairly well. Or, if you have a little more time, I made one out of a dryer motor with blower attached and a few furnace filters in a box. I'd still recommend a mask or respirator for any extended sanding - the fine dust is no good for your lungs. Stay safe, Andy

[mac davis]

Yep.. my first one was a box fan with course and fine filters duct taped on... It worked ok, but what I didn't realize is that most "store bought" units that seemed under powered to me were that way for a reason... Unless I had the fan on it's lowest speed, it blew as much dust around as it collected.. I'm really enjoying my Jet filter, though I really question the price of almost $300... Mac

[Bill]

was gifted the same motor / squirrel cage assembly from a friend in the HC business. I put it in a large plywood enclosure that supports my grinder / belt sanders on top and has its air inlets on both sides. It's located at one end of a narrow (11' wide) 31' long basement shop and has

1,600 square inches of filter surface with a standard fiberglass filter outside, a 5 micron filter in the middle and a .3 micron filter nearest the blower made by duct-taping 6 20x20 filters together. (Two, end to end, for each layer).

The big stuff drops to the floor, of course, but the filter pulls the smaller stuff out of the air so well that I can varnish about as fast as I can get the can open. I get one air exchange every 70 seconds or so with an obvious circulation of the dust back toward the inlets along the outside walls. To account for air mixing, I usually allow about 5 minutes or so between a dust-producing activity and finish application.

My HF dust collector spits out 30 micron particles, so it is located in the return air stream, between me and the shop air filter. You can watch the dust leave the DC and head straight for the filter. I like that.

This is great filtration ... but I still wear my respirator while working because, due to proximity, my lungs get first dibs on the dust.

Bill