Hello from Ireland - PPE Interest

Hi, welcome. From your description, it sounds like you are thinking dust collection. This is a topic that I spent a lot of effort to learn about. However, dust collection for wood is likely a little different than for stone. Perhaps you could tell us a little more about the medium you're working in.

Some materials are much more dangerous to your health than others, and will require wearing full coverage mask at minimum. If you are cutting stone, especially scraping and smoothing, or using a power tool, I'd be inclined to want a mask that is hooked up to an air supply with lots of filtration.

This is the dust collection I have set in a small chamber next to my shop. It uses a hose attached to machines, goes through the wall, spun around in the cyclone so that heavier particles fall into the drum (to be emptied carefully later), then the air is pulled into the machine where it gets a second spin so most fine particles fall into a bag. The cleaner air exits through the drum filter on top, and then passes through one more filter to return to the shop. The return retains heat or cooled (conditioned air) back in the shop.

This one is a fairly inexpensive one from Harbor Freight, but there are much larger, more powerful units that may be better for stone work. At any rate, cyclone dust removal makers can tell you more about what you might need for stone work.


The picture below is of the Harbor Freight unit, which only comes with an ineffective clothe bag filter. You have to buy the drum filter separately, which costs more than the whole unit. This is a minimal unit. If it is run outside, the cloth filter is OK, but if you use it inside, especially without the cyclone and a chip collection bucket, your lungs will be affected. You need to blow air through the filter occasionally to knock the dust off the filter element.

G’day @redmondherrity.

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