Grinding fibreglass, tips to reduce the insane amount of dust ?

[lembo]

Hi guys been working on the sharkcat cutting out floor and cross members and things. Dust coming off the cutting wheel of the grinder has been tolerable but now I've started grinding back glass and flow coat to prep the surface for new glassing. I'm using a flappy disk 60 and 80 grit. The amount of dust is insane! Is there anyway of reducing this dust? Was thinking about sticky taping the vacuum cleaner to the side of the grinder. Anyone got any good ideas to help stop so much dust flying around?

[Casey Ison]

Giddy mate when I restored my cruise craft I used a vacuum as u said above helps a lot but don't use a good vacuum kills me fast cheers

[Dignity]

As Casey says, the dust will kill your vacuum cleaner, I have a container that attaches to the handle which captures most of the dust and saves the motor. I'm unable to help you reduce the amount of dust although rubbing yourself with talc powder before starting helps reduce the itch problem.

[kind_cir]

Father in law left a vacume full of dust in the boat overnight. Boat caught fire. Duno how or why but the vacume was blamed for the fire. Better safe than sorry me thinks.

[Chimo]

lembo

We used to do a lot of glass work in rather primitive conditions and what we found was that if we used very very low speeds on the grinding back where we were going to bond new work it really cut the dust volume and spread. Still wore masks but we didn't have pressure suits on with constant positive air pressure flow.

Suggest you go low speed and see how you go and a suit with air pressure if you can. As your wearing a mask is there any reason you couldn't fabricate air pressure from the discharge of a newish clean vacuum cleaner?

Cheers
Chimo

[jeffo]

I picked up a ryobi vac from bunnings for 80 bucks and a shroud with a vac attachment for my 4 inch grinder for 30 bucks from trade tools. Just cut the font out of the shroud to allow the blade to be exposed at the front. 18 months later and both are still going strong.

[lembo]

Thanks for the help guys, unfortunately I'm using electric grinder so it's only 1 speed. Can't slow it down. I was thinking of building some sort of shroud that the vac can attach, I'm pretty darn itchy tonight I only wore long sleeve and pants today but I got some "sperm suits" from work so il wear them tomorrow should keep all dust off me. I have a cheap vacuum il tape to the grinder hopefully it will reduced the dust.

[Master4Med2]

A dust shroud with vac attachment to suit your 4 or 5 inch grinders. The front section of the shrouds are removable, to access the inside corners, or reduce the speed of the grinder with a 240 volt 10 amp motor speed controller, it will work on all brush type power tools.
Several electrical stores, such as Jaycar sell them.


Cheers

Con

[Rip it up]

Baby powder is your friend. Coat your self in it.

Clean up as you go so your not disturbing large amounts of dust when you move to a new area.

The itchy feeling can be relieved with a cold rise followed by a scalding hot shower.
Green scourer pad works well to open the pores of the skin. And then soap up.

Or a swim in the surf/pool.


Damo's dodgy boat building repair centre.

[GBC]

Google up cup stone shroud or surface grinding shroud for the size grinder you have. Plenty of options. This stuff isn't new. Another vote for the $150 ryobi shop vac and disposable bags. You can plug the grinder into the vac and it will come on and off automatically when you need it. You need to spend $800 plus for a better vac.

[lembo]

Cheers guys, yeah il be going to my local tool shop tomorrow and getting a vacuum shroud plus a ryobi shop vac. Used the sperm suit today and it helped a lot. Also any exposed skin was soaked in a thick moisturiser that the missus has, then a real cold shower followed by real hot followed by more moisturiser helped a lot.

[myusernam]

After lots of messing around with glass I find the best way is to pay someone else to do it.
Failing that sperm suit and a generator under a shady tree in the middle of nowhere. Camp shower and then driving home getting rid of the dust is my next choice.

[Dignity]

I found I needed to do some grinding today and looked at my multitool which had triangular pad with some sort of abrasive on it, worked for the small job and didn't create a lot of air borne dust.