Official Luthiers Forum!

Those of you that build your guitars in the basement of your house...Do you have a problem with fine dust spreading through the upstairs....I have been trying to convince my wife that if we buy a new house I can set up in the basement and with a good dust collection system do all the work there....She totally disagrees.....Any body here have dust problems upstairs when building in the basement?....Larry

With my basement shop I don't have that problem at all. I track dust out on the floor if I'm not careful, but no other issues. Unfortunately, very little of the HVAC air gets in to that room either to "freshen" it. Using a dehumidifier at this time of year that makes it noiser and warmer than I would like it to be. I have a small dust collection system in there for my bandsaw, drum thicknessing sander and ossilating(sp?) drum sander, plus an air scrubber dust collector if I make too much dust. The big offenders like the table saw and radial arm saw are out in a garage workshop. Noise is a bigger problem there because bedrooms are above it.

Donovan

Larry buddy my new shop that I will start building this fall will be in my basement.

But the old shop was a second bedroom in my flat style condo - with white carpet. Using very good HEPA dust extraction (Festool CT-22) and keeping the place clean as I worked and my shop and condo stayed very clean. All my furniture in the condo was black so dust would show big time if I had that problem.

So with this experience as the model for me I am sure that my new shop will be clean and won't dust-up the house either. I plan on completely containing the basement shop with walls and a drop ceiling and controlling the RH very well too. The one wall that will be along the foundation wall will have a false wall built with about an inch of air space between it and the foundation. I am also going to cover the concrete floor where it is not carpeted with a sub floor.

The shop will have a micron rated/HEPA air cleaner mounted from the ceiling and positioned to create a mini cyclone effect in the room. And again I will just continue to collect dust as good as I can at the source as I work.

One of the things that I believe really helps cut down the dust level in a shop, home too, is to not have any clutter around. This means not hanging 50 chisels on the wall in favor of keeping them in a drawer. I always cleaned up after I had a session int he shop and it only took 10 minutes to do.

When I moved out of the condo several weeks ago the carpet was still pretty clean except for one place that had a HHG stain that I am sure will steam out....

So I believe that it can be done but it is not going to stay clean and keep your house clean unless you make it so.

I think hesh is so clean he could work on his dining table and then eat a meal of streight after.

for most us we just are not that tidy.
wood gets everywhere when making guitars and if you have sanding machines the fine particle get in the air no matter what.
also unless you change into overalls and boots every time go to and from the workshop you will bring dust with you when you walk through the house.

my first workshop was in my dads back room and no matter how hard i tried a allways brought dust through the house.

but i am a self confessed messy bar steward so you may have more luck than me.

but if you are getting a new house look for a place that has a large double garage or out building this will solve you problem and probably save your marrige (my fiance hates wood dust its the only thing we end up arguing over).

At the end of the day only you know how you work so its your call.
things can be done keep the dust down.

by the way have you considered the problem of getting mahines into a basement.
Joel.

I work from the basement utility room with the forced air furnace and it is possible to mitigate the dust issue. I use a 6 hp Rigid shop vac with a HEPA filter on all of my power tools. I change the furnace filters monthly which helps also. Its not perfect, but we live on a gravel road which provides plausible deniability!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Hi Larry,
I have a basement shop too, and with a cheapie dust collector (Harbor Freight) and a box fan with a furnace filter in front of it as an "ambient" air cleaner, I manage to keep things pretty clean. No complaints from upstairs, ever.

Until I fire up the dang table saw, anyway.

Hmm....Larry, you didn't say where you're building now... and I suspect that she smartly wants to avoid a bigger mortgage just for the sake of putting a bigger shop in the basement.


That said, it is possible to contain it all for the most part, if you work cleanly and have adequate dust collection. That's the biggest key. You will still have the smells migrating through the house which almost can't be avoided. Whenever I cut rosewood, my wife can't stand the smell that permeates through the whole house. It's not so much that dust is getting everywhere as much as the fragrance just goes where the air goes.

If I could....I would build a separate building for the shop on my property. Of course the lack of actual square footage of land and money prevents that nicely. But if those constraints weren't there....separate building.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I would be more worried about the fire hazards the the dust, to be honest (I know I am). Not sure if you should tell your wife, though...

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I work in the basement and I work pretty messy. I have no problems. I have a special pair of shoes I only wear in the shop and that keeps things pretty much under control.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

It can certainly be done, as I was in a similar position as you. My wife and son have extreme allergies, and I can't have ANY dust making it's way upstairs, or into our basement living area - or I risk putting them at significant medical risk.

First, get an idea of exactly what kind of dust containment you're going to need. Plan this as thoroughly as possible. Think through each aspect of your build routine: are you going to be able to dedicated drops to each machine, are you going to run more than one machine at a time, are you going to want flexible/moving ductwork, or do you have the space and money to dedicate air volume to a specific site, are you going to need exhaust capability for outgassing for your finishing material (not the spraying itself, but NL gasses off for a long time for example), where would the collection unit sit, etc. For the dust that escapes the vac units, and it will, what sort of containment/filtration are you going to have, and what volume of air are you realistically going to need to turnover for the size of your shop area. All this needs to factor into your overall plan. I spent a decent amount of time on Bill Pentz's site. I eventually came to the conclusion that dust collection volume is similar to clamps...you're just never going to have enough.

My collector isn't that big, but it works well and is sealed tight. It's a 3.5hp, 220v unit with a 16" impeller, and it drops the dust into a 55 gallon trash can then the exhaust is ported through my basement foundation wall to the outside air. The unit itself even that sits outside my workshop/living area so I cannot get any blow into the house filtration system, not that it does that. The main duct tube is 6" PVC sewer pipe, with blast gates (multiple where possible) at each machine so that where possible it moves the maximum amount of air. The main room air filtration (not dust collection) is a Jet AFS-100B unit, hung from the ceiling...and I even use a clearvue mini-cyclone with a shop-vac to create a hepa-filtration unit that can be used for spot work, etc. (it works incredibly, by the way). I didn't create, or purchase, all of this at one time of course, but over the last 1.5 years, etc.

If you really want a dustless system, you can have it...but it requires what most people will say is considerable "overkill", and a serious attention to cleanliness. Having said all that, here's the bottom line: my wife can sit in the shop and talk to me WHILE I WORK on the guitars. She can stand next to my belt sander while I'm sanding, and not smell the wood. Had I not done it this way, there is no way I could be building guitars in our house.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Whereas visible dust may be controlled, if you or any family members are at all allergic types, especially with asthma, you could have a problem even with trace amounts. Years ago when my asthma was at its worst, even a strong fragrance without dust would trigger an attack. For example, walking by someone wearing perfume or hairspray, or walking down some aisles in the grocery store with fragrant items (the detergent aisle was off limits). So, if you already have a medical problem, be careful. My shop is in a room off the garage with separate furnace and airconditioning from the main house. You can reduce dust by avoiding as much sanding as possible, by learning how to use hand planes and scrapers. I am told that those skilled with these tools work very quickly and get great results. If the issue is only visible dust, you can control that as mentioned in other posts. Keep a separate pair of shoes at the shop entrance to avoid the tracking mentioned in one of the other replies, and maybe wear coveralls in the shop or change clothes at the door to avoid rubbing against something in the living room when you have dust all over your clothes.

I'm working out of my basement (my laundry room to be specific) and I'm having no problems so far. Hell, I'm even using my belt sander in there and I've yet to run into any issues. I think they key is not only setting up a good dust collection system, but setting aside some time after every session to clean up after yourself and wipe down/vacuum whatever is necessary because even the greatest dust collection system can only go so far. A little diligence goes a long way, I think.

You know I was thinking...... One of the things that made my bathroom shop, my first shop, work well for me was that it was negatively pressured. It had an 80 CFM ceiling fan to exhaust methane and I ran it all the time when working. I think that it made it more difficult for the dust to migrate into the rest of the place since fresh air was coming in the door of the shop and being pulled into the shop. It is more difficult to control the Humidity, you will use more water, but it still works.

My new shop will have an 120 CFM fan in it too exhausting out the back of the house. I still have that methane problem.....

Another piece of the puzzle in all this is how long your work sessions are. I remember working in a cabinet shop (the best summer job ever!). We had Delta air purifiers in every corner, huge dust collection system, and we made so much dust that the floor easily had a cake-like layer every day at 4.

The things we're doing on guitars typically aren't huge dust generators to begin with, unless you're shaping a neck with a belt sander. But still, longer sessions are bound to get a little dust that finds it's way out.

Hesh--

After seeing Bloomberg's Energy Futures this morning methinks you should be bottling and not exhausting!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

But then, he'd have to change the clothes he works in..... or boxers. The hose would be a real inconvenience!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

PLEASE! (sorry for having to shout) But keep this away from BillyT and the other Photoshoppers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

Venting outside can be a problem unless you have a perfect climate. I was about to set mine up that way, and then I realized that I would have a complete air change every two minutes. I would not be able to heat or cool the room, nor keep the humidity at a good point.