Building a workshop in my basement?

Then you want to put in a solid sheetmetal duct to the outside, or preferably up to the roof in a chase lined with drywall as an additional firestop. Then use a 'mushroom' style up-blast ventilator fan or a squirrel cage style blower on the roof - either style with a bypass motor that is NOT in the airflow.

The ones sold for commercial kitchen vent hoods will work fine for this, they can run sucking out fumes from a roaring grease fire inside the ducts long enough to let it consume all the fuel and go out - or to suck the dry chemical powder up the flue and put it out in place.

Restaurant hood style ducts to the outside would be overkill but they are designed to safely contain a fire - they use welded heavy gauge steel (looks like 1/8" plate) for the inner duct, then they wrap it in an outer sheetmetal duct, then the whole thing is in a drywalled chase.

The upblast fan on the roof will get those vapors far enough from the house to keep them from being noticed inside. You hope.

You can't really build up enough inert gas to off yourself - a big enough tank leak to do it in a small room would be heard. (Sssssss!) But sucking down welding fumes for long periods of time would do it, and paint fumes won't help your health any either.

Oh, a paint hood would be the same basic thing as your welding area, but you add paint capture pads to keep the stuff out of the ductwork.

Matter of fact, you could buy a prefab sheetmetal paint booth and exhaust system, and use it for everything. Just roll out the paint platform cart, take out the paint capture pads, and roll in your welding table cart. And make sure all the solvent fumes have dissipated before striking an arc.

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Have you ever seen a clean welding shop? Of course not. They are usually covered, along with the occupants, in a 1/4" of soot and grinding dust. Welding is messy and there is no way it can be compatible with precision machining. The fumes from welding are usually poisonous and they can be corrosive if the humidity is high (as in a basement). Yes, ventilation can remove the fumes but it will require make up air, and in a basement, where does that come from?

There are probably a hundred things that can go wrong in this basement welding scenario and a genius would be hard pressed to name 25 of them.

Tim Killian wrote in news:PbKdnbxsd5Tw2fHenZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@bresnan.com:

Outside, preferably.

Same goes for a garage, industrial plant, our even outside.

Tim, I think you are missing my point. Welding can be, and is done, just about anywhere, provided the surrounding environment is designed, or accommodations are made for that purpose.

Have you ever seen an area where TIG welding is done that is sooty?

Did Jeff ever say he was going to do precision Machining?

Are there millions of basements with furnaces? Do they not get enough air to operate?

My guess is that you don't have a TIG welder.

Dan

Tim Killian wrote:

I have. The shops I've been in are usually TIG welding race car stuff and the places have to be clean. My garage gets a llittle messy but it's nothing that a push broom and shop vac can't handle.

I have this vision of people emerging dark faced as from a coal mine, "Yep. Just doing a little TIG welding!".

Peter

The biggest thing to remember about doing work in a basement shop....dont build anything bigger than what you can get out of the basement.....

Gunner

Confronting Liberals with the facts of reality is very much akin to clubbing baby seals. It gets boring after a while, but because Liberals are so stupid it is easy work." Steven M. Barry

Or heavier. I've been redoing a '59 BMW R50 this past summer, I got the powder coated frame back around august. I stuck it on a crate in the shop, and started bolting things onto it. Good thing I stopped before the engine, because it took two of us to carry it up the stairs and into the garage.

Jim

Let the record show that Gunner wrote back on Sun, 06 Nov 2005 11:49:44 GMT in rec.crafts.metalworking :

And don't forget the turn at the top of the stairs.

tschus pyotr

Heh, got that t-shirt too. Did you take pics of th' rebuild/restoration Jim? Always liked those older Beemers.

Snarl

Ah, I know I *should* have, but a lot of this was done one spare hour at a time. If I thought I had to stop and take photos, I never would have even ventured into the shop most nights!

I have a before snapshot or two, but the program is still on-going. Ie, it ain't done yet! I still have to paint the tank and fenders still. That's the only thing holding me up. Funny how paint that looks like it's about to fall off on its own when the bikes running, all of a sudden becomes the most impervious, impenenetrable, adhesive, toughest, most ever-lasting material the instant you hit it with a sandblaster, stripper, a wire brush, or a scraper.

I'm seriously thinking of painting some chemical stripper on *all* my bikes just to make their paint last longer.

:^)

Jim

A corollary: Paint that looks horrible when one first contemplates it starts to look a lot better when one realizes that removing said paint with a sandblaster, stripper, wire brush, or scraper makes it the most impervious, impenetrable, adhesive, toughest, most ever-lasting material known to man. This is known as the "good enough" or "it looks fine from a distance" corollary.

Peter

Documenting projects can be a pain alright. Taking th' pics is th' easy part, akin to pullin' th' trigger whilst deer hunting... then th' real work starts .

Here's a tooling project I documented, well, almost to completion:

This retrofit was a nightmare to figure out. Turns out H-D reorientated and canted th' mounting patterns mid-stream in '01. Our theory is they did it to screw with th' aftermarket suppliers... it worked.

So that means there's still hope ; )

Got that t-shirt also. Imron I believe is what we sprayed on my '37 H-D years ago. Try removing that s*it! Ultimately ended up just sanding it and usin' it as a base coat after trying all of th' above.

You might just have something there. I'm leaning towards truck bed liner and sayin' to hell with it, heh, heh.

Snarl

The motor is outside the hood, and is a shaded-pole, so there is no starting switch to spark. Anyway, I usually start the blower first, paint, clean up the mess, and leave the blower on for a couple of hours. So, there wouldn't be any sparks while the fumes are present.

This is a Dayton centrifugal blower, rated at something like 100 CFM continuous. You have to throttle it a bit, or the motor draws too much current and overheats. When I can make

I do spray painting of electronic enclosures, with a 2-component chromate wash primer and bake-on enamel. The enamel has some volatile fumes to it, but the primer is REALLY potent stuff. The switch that turns the blower on can spark, but I've never had any problem with this setup. When it is working right, most of the fumes are sent outside, and there is only a modest smell. Sometimes the spray gun swirls the air around in the hood and a blast of solvent- laden air gets out in the room. I used to paint with a sheet of plastic dropcloth material with a few slits closing off the front opening of the hood, but the plastic got painted so quick I was working blind within minutes. So, I've been leaving the plastic off, but I ought to put it back. That really contains the fumes better.

Jon

Every house I've owned (that's 2) has had a walk-out basement. No walk-out, and I just scratch it off the list.

Jon

Paint??? Bugs are better. Wont rust under a thick layer of bug guts. And you only need to keep a a putty knife handy for clearing the heandlight. Of course..with a Boxer... jack rabbit and the occasional coyote makes for improved engine coatings. They never rust or oxidize if you keep a good coating of bugs and small animal guts on your bike.

Though it does tend to smell interesting for a couple weeks if you hit something big and squishy. When hitting a coyote..aim for the shoulders/neck area. If you hit one in the belly...it can be really squishy.

Gunner, '73 R90/6

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the s*it out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner

$25 hand truck from Harbor Freight works great.

An exterior entrance would be wonderful! (To avoid bringing everything into the house, down the stairs, up the stairs, out of the house...)

sdb