Casting Indoor question (specific question about this setup) Is this "safe"?

[TES]

Bullet baker






Bullet Maker

[Dan Cash]

I used a couple bathroom exhaust fans in my set up. They both burned up shortly. The motor needs to be out of the heat stream as with a squirrel cage fan. Tried a squirrel cage set up from a room heater which kind of worked but too little volume. Went to an electric motor rebuild outfit and bought a squirrel cage set up from a trailer house furnace. That is the cat's meow. Sucks all the smoke up the pipe, motor stays cool.

[LAH]

I flux well when making my ingots so I dont have to flux in my garage while casting. In the summer I'll turn in the window ac and cast without any exhaust. I'm sure someone will tell me how incredibly dangerous that is and how I will surely die in the next few days. That is why nobody who does that has posted to your thread, they don't want that hassle. Your vent hood is fine if it makes you feel better. Far more important to never eat, drink, or smoke while casting, wear protective clothing, and triple wash your hands with soap anytime you leave your casting station.

I more or less do things the same way. The danger is in the dust. Casting temperatures will cause no problems with clean alloy. Remember to clean your area by wiping with a damp cloth, not sweeping. I'm well over 10 tons cast & my levels have never been over 5, in fact mostly 3.

[John in WI]

I think a better fan will be in my future but I am hoping this will work for now. That is the cheapest fan that home depot sells.

Now that the pipe is installed, upgrading the fan will be the easy part later.

That looks pretty good to me. I built a similar looking little spray booth for air-brushing stuff (I kept it in cardboard as there was no heat involved). I had to upgrade and run the booth both with the bathroom fan, and a larger squirrel cage fan I picked up for cheap from Grainger. It was a bit noisy, but you could barely smell solvents with the setup. Can you get another bathroom fan, and just run them in tandem?

Good work thinking about safety though--I do a lot of soldering while I'm fixing electronics around the lab, and the curl of smoke from the rosin core always seems to blow right in my face. At my work area I have a hood, but often times the repairs are wedged behind rack mounts or under optics tables where the ventilation is non-existent. Maybe that's why I'm so stoopid

[dikman]

John, many years ago, when I was involved in installing telephone exchanges, I used to spend hours sitting in front of racks soldering untold numbers of wires. I often wonder about all the flux from the rosin-cored solder that I breathed.........

[MtGun44]

What bob said. . . . . +1

Bill

[bearcove]

Won't work its WAY TO CLEAN!

Thanks for all of the ideas.


I vented the pipe out the side because this bathroom fan was set up that way and im not sure the outlet on this cheap model can be moved.
I experimented a little more today with covering the sides with cardboard to direct the flow straight up and it worked well. I tossed in some wax and all of the smoke went up the pipe.

This "garage" is actually the house next door to me. It is not the house I live in. I bought it and removed all of the bed rooms and converted the back half into a "garage". My mom "hangs out" in the remaining portion. It has forced air heat and no windows in the garage area, just a roll up door and a entry door. (see pics below)





That being said, I'm not as concerned for myself as I am my Pregnant wife. As of right now she just doesn't go in there.

I need to get some of the lead wipes you guys are talking about so I can check and see how contaminated the place is.

I'm more worried about not being able to have the kid in there once its born than I am worried about myself.

At the most, I planned to use the lead pot a few times per year (indoors) for a few hours at a time. This would not be an every day thing.

I am also wondering how far the lead travels. Do I need to be concerned with just my work bench area or the entire structure? I seen someone said 3-5'. Would a standard furnace filter trap the lead or would it even make it that far?

The "garage" area has an epoxy covered floor and a (covered) pool table. If the floor were swept and mopped, would it be safe to let a child crawl around on or would it still be too contaminated? Would I just be spreading the lead around by mopping it?

Iv'e only ran the lead pot indoors twice now, so I guess it shouldn't be too late to scrap the whole idea and just carry the pot outside if I must.

Couple of pictures so you can see what I mean:




Your looking at what used to be 2 of the bed rooms and the hallway. The open door leads to the living room, kitchen,dining room.




My workshop area used to be the 3rd bed room and the garage door is directly behind me in this picture.




I don't normally have a car in there. I was just working on this one.

[Advil]

I started with that fan you have there when I was working out in our barn. It was ok in an environment that open but totally inadequate indoors. Went through a couple more fans then found this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Suncourt-...GTP/202797339#

This thing moves some air and doesn't cost too much.

You'll need to find the 6" version of the telescoping duct someplace. The advantage is you can just hang the end of the big dryer duct right over the pot and it's wide enough to pick up everything.

They can deliver the fan to a local Home Depot with no shipping if you don't mind waiting a week.

Do it. Don't screw around with poor ventilation.

[snuffy]

My question to the OP and others is; what or who has you so scared of lead? I keep seeing so many fear stories, OCD stories, about lead "fumes" indoors when casting boolits. Lead vapor,(what most are so concerned about), is only generated above 1200 degrees. Some say that is 1000 degrees. Our thermostatically controlled electric pots don't go much over 900 degrees. So it's just the smoke you're worried about? It's NOT pleasant to breath, but it won't kill you!

Maybe I'm about to fall over from lead poisoning, according to the fixes I see some doing to eliminate smoke. I cast in my reloading room, in the summer I can have windows open, but winter time not so much, they have to remain closed. It gets foggy in there. I live alone, so no wifey to itch-bay, no kids to worry about. I DO have my lead-blood levels tested annually, never have been above 7.

[6bg6ga]

I cast in the garage in the spring, summer, and fall of the year. I have both the double door and the single car doors wide open when I cast. I catch heck
(note no profanity or 4 letter words in this post. Been busted for a 3 and 4 letter word that rhymes with hit and grass in a prior post because it was deamed as profanity)

With all due respect I consider casting in the house as extremely dumb. The smell is going to linger for quite a while after your finished casting. The smell can get into the sheet rock and in carpeting. Your going to have to have a air draw that is better than that of a floor fan in order to remove the toxic smell and poisons.

[K-Rod]

I cast in the garage in the spring, summer, and fall of the year. I have both the double door and the single car doors wide open when I cast. I catch heck
(note no profanity or 4 letter words in this post. Been busted for a 3 and 4 letter word that rhymes with hit and grass in a prior post because it was deamed as profanity)

With all due respect I consider casting in the house as extremely dumb. The smell is going to linger for quite a while after your finished casting. The smell can get into the sheet rock and in carpeting. Your going to have to have a air draw that is better than that of a floor fan in order to remove the toxic smell and poisons.

I'm sorry but I disagree with this. The reason you are "catching heck" is because you don't have a proper draft working for you. Opening both doors in your garage doesn't give you a good draft. Think of a Wood Stove. Open the Flu & the smoke is forced out. I'd bet when you flux, all the smoke hangs out near the ceiling of your garage & some of it but not all, drifts out the doors.

I cast in my sun lit basement. My casting bench is right under a window with a box fan in the window right behind my casting pots. The box fan doesn't take up the whole window so I have a piece of wood covering up the rest of the window next to the box fan. When the fan is turned on, it sucks the fumes & smoke right out the window. The trick is I crack one of the other windows in the room about an inch or two. This depresurizes the room & creates a "Draft" like in a wood stove. The best way to see if you have a proper draft is to drop some wax in your pot. If the smoke is sucked out the window, so are all the nasty fumes.

[6bg6ga]

It doesn't make good sense to me to cast indoors. Not to bright to have an object that puts out close to 1000 degrees of heat close to combustable material. I'm sure your home owners insurance wouldn't look kindly at casting indoors.

[725]

I use a range hood built on a three sided stand, sealed to the table top. Vented outside with a booster fan. Hood is as close to the pot as was comfortable / acceptable for adding more lead. I wipe the area with a soap rag, once in awhile, and throw the rag away. Use gloves which I toss as they age. I get my blood tested once a year and have no problems at all. I'm actually down in the low normal range. I also cast in an open garage with a pedestal fan venting when the weather permits. Both systems seem to be working.

[6bg6ga]

I use a range hood built on a three sided stand, sealed to the table top. Vented outside with a booster fan. Hood is as close to the pot as was comfortable / acceptable for adding more lead. I wipe the area with a soap rag, once in awhile, and throw the rag away. Use gloves which I toss as they age. I get my blood tested once a year and have no problems at all. I'm actually down in the low normal range. I also cast in an open garage with a pedestal fan venting when the weather permits. Both systems seem to be working.

I have no problem with casting in the garage. I do have to pull the stupid chain when people cast indoors and put their home, belongings, family, and pets at risk. This is why I purchased the Mark IV so that I am able to produce a boat load of bullets when the garage is warm enough in the spring, summer, and fall of the year. I have enough to shoot without worry for 2 years and without casting again.

[K-Rod]

I have no problem with casting in the garage. I do have to pull the stupid chain when people cast indoors and put their home, belongings, family, and pets at risk. This is why I purchased the Mark IV so that I am able to produce a boat load of bullets when the garage is warm enough in the spring, summer, and fall of the year. I have enough to shoot without worry for 2 years and without casting again.

Maybe you are right. Maybe it is "stupid" for me to cast in my well ventilated concrete floor basement, but I do have enough common sense to make sure all the Gasoline, Propane tanks for camping, White Gas & Kerosene & other "Combustible" material are out in the garage where they belong. At least thats where us Rednecks keep that stuff. Maybe City Folk keep it somewhere different. I don't know? It's ok though. My home owners covers my garage as well as my house.

I still disagree with you but if you follow how I explained about getting a draft going in your garage, you won't smoke out the house & "catch heck" with the wife. You can thank me later after you get over being bitter because someone disagreed with you & see that I'm right.

[6bg6ga]

Maybe you are right. Maybe it is "stupid" for me to cast in my well ventilated concrete floor basement, but I do have enough common sense to make sure all the Gasoline, Propane tanks for camping, White Gas & Kerosene & other "Combustible" material are out in the garage where they belong. At least thats where us Rednecks keep that stuff. Maybe City Folk keep it somewhere different. I don't know? It's ok though. My home owners covers my garage as well as my house.

I still disagree with you but if you follow how I explained about getting a draft going in your garage, you won't smoke out the house & "catch heck" with the wife. You can thank me later after you get over being bitter because someone disagreed with you & see that I'm right.

I'm glad your smart enough to have remove the combustible liquids and gas from your basement. That is step #1. Step two would be to cast in an environment that was safer like the garage or an out building.

For the record....I'm not bitter about anything and certainly not because someone lacking common sense disagreed with me. When its all said and done my home will be free of any contaminents.

As the old saying goes ...you can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I guess you simply cannot make a red neck adopt common sense.

[rodsvet]

Merry Christmas Joe!! Don't forget to put that Mark IV in your will to me! Rod

[TES]

I'm glad your smart enough to have remove the combustible liquids and gas from your basement. That is step #1. Step two would be to cast in an environment that was safer like the garage or an out building.

For the record....I'm not bitter about anything and certainly not because someone lacking common sense disagreed with me. When its all said and done my home will be free of any contaminents.

As the old saying goes ...you can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I guess you simply cannot make a red neck adopt common sense.

Isn't that a camaro in your drive way????!

[6bg6ga]

Isn't that a camaro in your drive way????!

Actually its a supercharged Z-28 but I don't cast in it either.

[snuffy]

[QUOTE=6bg6ga;2538319]I'm glad your smart enough to have remove the combustible liquids and gas from your basement. That is step #1. Step two would be to cast in an environment that was safer like the garage or an out building.

For the record....I'm not bitter about anything and certainly not because someone lacking common sense disagreed with me. When its all said and done my home will be free of any contaminants.

Good for you! Your home is free from that extremely toxic, dangerous lead.

As the old saying goes ...you can take a horse to water but you can't make them drink. I guess you simply cannot make a red neck adopt common sense.
Apparently you just don't get it, some of us cast indoors WITHOUT any problems. You saying we're stupid does not make your case for you.[/QUOTE

I guess that makes me a red-neck. I think that's a compliment. Us red-necks have a different way of thinking. What don't kill us just makes us stronger.

Just get rid of the EPA prophets-of-doom thinking, get on with your life.