need tips for adding ventilation in garage

[edadmartin]

Ive decided to setup and cast my 45 acp boolits.The only place is in my garage. I turned on my furnace the first time yesterday with the doors open and a fan blowing out, and after only 15 minutes the wife wondered what the he** was I doin ?? It was smoky!!! .I guess all the new oils in the 4-20 furnace were burning off. I only put in 4 lbs of ingot lead.
If you have to do this in a garage there must be a way to get rid of fumes so family and neighbors wont have a hissy fit. I dont have 10 acres so people are close by. How should I go about this? showing pics would be cool. thanks

[Shiloh]

I have a window right behind my bottom pour pot. If needed, i could put a fan in the window, but there always seems to me a breeze
going out the window.

Shiloh

[jsizemore]

Range hood mounted above the pot and exhausts straight out the wall. It's got lights in there too. You can wire it with an extension cord and not have to hardwire it unless you like doing that.

[shootinfox2]

add a whole house fan over the work bench.

[shooter93]

I cast in my garage/shop. It's heated and in the Summer I just open the door and windows. I get very little smoke, I use sawdust as flux and my lead is very clean to start with. In the Winter I just cast. Like I said I get very little smoke etc. Lead never gets hot enough to vaporize so I don't worry much. I have cast bullets, and I've torn out more old lead bearing plasters etc. over the last 50 years than you can imagine. I have my lead levels tested but it has always been so low the lab calls it immeasurable. A whole house fan will evacuate the smoke etc. toot sweet for sure along with the heat so I probably wouldn't run it constantly. Everyone may react to lead in different ways but I've yet to have a trouble. I also cast for a Gunmaker at his place but the pot sits right in front of a window with an out blowing fan in it. That may work well for you if your garage has a window handy.

[Yodogsandman]

Like shooter93 above, I take no real big special precautions. I cast in my carriage barn that's 24' x 32' with a 10' ceiling. I open the outside door if it gets smoky or the fumes are bad. Most important is not to stay there when it's not healthy for you. Don't put your face over the pot. After fluxing, I go back in the house for 20 minutes or so to let any fumes air out. Wear gloves when handling lead if you can. Always wash with soap and water after handling lead and before eating, drinking or smoking. I've cast for about 35 years and have had my lead blood checked by a lab every 6 months for work. I've always had very low lead levels.

[44man]

Some where along the line I got lead in my ***! [smilie=w:used to have a guy at work we called metal man. gold in his teeth, silver in his hair and lead in his ***. Seems age does that.
I cast in the garage and only worry about flux smoke. Window with a fan is great.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Any fan blowing out an open door will suck in fresh air as the old air is blow out.

I do this on a somewhat larger scale and there is a noticeable breeze happening all the time the big fan is running.

I was casting the other night and watched the smoke off the flux go up about 2 feet and bend sideways and get blown out the open door. The pot is 20 feet away form the big floor fan.

If you don't need a big floor fan then Harbor Freight has a smaller 24" version that is excellent and would work great in a 2 car garage. You put the fan on one side of the garage blowing out and you get a swirling effect of air flow being sucked on the other side of the garage door.

This actually works well and I have been doing it all summer long here in Ojai where it is actually hot. It will clear all the hot air out of the garage which is 2000 SF and drop the temp 30F in about 15 minutes from door closed all day to very comfortable .

It also sucks out paint fumes and any other stink that I generate.

Here's pics of the fan. Note how it is placed to one side of the garage door.

Randy

[CastingFool]

see if you can get a blower off an old furnace. They are not difficult to remove, as most are set up on rails, to facilitate maintenance on the motor. You can install it on a window, or if brave enough, cut a hole in the back side of the garage, frame it in, and mount the blower. Mount it high so the blower can suck all the fumes up and out the opening. If you go to one of those heating and cooling shops, they may have one out back, and may let you have it for a reasonable price or even free.

[buckwheatpaul]

I generally cast and smelt in my breezeway or outside....in your case, I would place a roll around fan behind you and blow the smoke and vapors out the door.....I have a 4 ft. roll around fan that is perfect for that .... get them at Sams or Costco.....

[Garyshome]

A couple of well placed fans.

[Leadmelter]

Go to Walmart and they have a personal fan with a clip. I open my door about 2" and turn the fan on high. It blows everything across my work area. After I am done, I leave the door open with the fan on for as long as I can. Works for me.
Leadmelter
MI

[BAGTIC]

I wouldn't want the fan blowing across in front of me. It will just stir up smoke etc. Set fan between you and exit and let it suck the pollutants out.

[StrayRound]

I put a fair amount of thought into this myself recently. Your situation is a little different, but hopefully I can save you some time or at least give you some ideas.


The thought of winter casting sessions in the garage with the doors and windows open didn't appeal to me so I decided the basement was the way to go. But like you I didn't want a domestic crisis resulting from the fumes. Almost all of the options I considered were either too expensive or just circulated the fumes around without actually removing them from the room.


I settled on a 3" inline bilge blower for boats (about $20) with a 12 volt power supply I already had and inserted it into a run of 3" Sch 40 PVC pipe through the outside wall. (This pipe was already in place in my case. It was intended as a combustion air intake for a furnace but was never used, so I re-purposed it as my vent line). It turns out the bilge blower fits almost perfectly into the 3" PVC pipe. On the end of the run, I attached a 4" flexible dryer vent which fits almost perfectly over the outside of a 3" Sch 40 PVC elbow.

115722 115721

This setup has worked well. It captures the fumes before they have a chance to enter the room. I can position it directly over my lead furnace when I'm casting and move it out of the way when I'm not. If I get ambitious, I may even fashion a poor man's fume hood by cutting the bottom out of a large plastic mixing bowl and attaching it upside-down to the intake.

If you don't want to run PVC through your outside wall, I'm sure a dryer vent would work too. You could also use the marine grade flexible hose that is actually designed to attach to bilge blowers, but it's more expensive.

Hope this helps.

[leadman]

I cast in my garage and also had to vent the fumes outside. It is a little hot here in Phoenix in the summer and I wanted to keep the doors shut so my evaporative cooler could do it's job.
I have 2 crank out windows on either side of a larger window so I am using one of these for my exhaust. I need to have access to the crank handle and this is why there is a door on the housing.115730115731115732

[Jungle867]

StrayRound,

I like what you did with your setup. It reminds me of professional venting systems that I have used when stick welding indoors. How long did it take you to run the entire setup? What was your cost all in?

[HeavyMetal]

A couple good ideas here, I like Strayrounds system but a used range hood might be a little easier?

I used to cast in the back yard now that I am an apt dweller again I use a finished piece of 3/4 inch plywood to cover the stove and use the range hood to vent smoke outside, even lite applications of saw dust will smoke to much.

In a garage I'd set my casting station up and set the range hood over it close enough that the light in it would be an asset as well! Venting out a window might be easiest but be sure you have enough "stack" to keep fumes and smoke from annoying the guy next door.

Strayrounds deal is the next set up if ya can't find a range hood at the right price but it might require a bit of carpentry to exit properly.

Leadman's set up is cool if it doesn't blow out on the guy next door, it's amazing how nosy people can get when the house fills with smoke they don't make, LOL!

I used my plumbers pot for the first time in my back yard and the guy across the street thought I was testing a jet car in the garage!

Note to members: One smokey Burnout in front of the house will brand you as "strange" and from then on any strange noise, smell or smoke will net you a visit from somone who is clueless and afraid of getting cancer from all that lead!

[edadmartin]

all great ideas. I've wanted to install a window in the garage for a while ,Ive been looking at the rehab store here for the size needed, so Ill do that first. Ill need a dedicated section of bench for the casting setup and since Im a woodworker, bench and wall space is premium. Summer will bring out doors casting but winter will need to be inside the garage. I like the idea of a bilge fan setup because when an untrained eye looks at it ,it would suggest a wood working dust collection system---stealthy!! Ill put the furnace away after each casting session anyway.

[leadman]

I had an inline fan that went inside a duct, might have been 6 or 8". I looked for it awhile back and could not find it. They are available from home improvement stores and run on 110v.
I recently had the a/c changed on a friends mobile home that my wife and I take care of (they live out of state). The adapters that went on the unit and the 16" flex duct attached might be able to be mounted to a box fan and the duct aimed out a window or flattened some and placed out the bottom of the garage door.

[dakotashooter2]

I use a range hood but most that you find now don't direct vent they just recirculate air. I just taped off the front vents and cut a hole in the top (above the fan) for the vent stack and run it out the wall, ceiling or window.

[tja6435]

115793115793Well, it's sideways but in the pic you can see my 'poor guy' vent hood. I used a 5 gal bucket, a 4" hole saw, 4" aluminum dryer duct and a $50 4" 120cfm blower I got off Craigslist. I used bungees to hang the bucket close to the top of the lee pot and run the other end of the vent duct outside the sunroom on the deck

[StrayRound]

Jungle867,

The bilge blower was $17 from WallyWorld and the flexible dryer vent kit I think was around $14 from Lowe's. This is not the flimsy type but the heavy duty type that holds its shape. I already had a 12v power supply so I'm not sure how much that would set you back. The pipe costs roughly $1 a foot. The elbow was about $3.

My first thought was to use a range hood as others have suggested, but my reloading station is not on the outside wall. It's in the middle of my basement. And like dakotashooter said, it is hard to find a range hood that vents through the wall nowadays. (Perhaps from a junked RV?) Most of them just recirculate the air through a filter. Cost was the deciding factor for me since all the range hoods and AC powered inline fans I looked at (radon fans, etc.) cost at least 3 times as much as the bilge blower.

Once I had the parts it went together in less than an hour, but as I said, I already had a run of pipe going through the wall. Cutting an exit hole through your outside wall will slow you down a bit.

[triggerhappy243]

I got hold of a furnace blower unit to vent my attic space and it moves the air for sure. Id bet the hvac shops would let you have a blower unit free.

[Patrick L]

I know I ran a whole thread about this before. I built a casting cabinet with an old range hood and vented it out the window.
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff038.jpg (http://s204.photobucket.com/user/patrickl_01/media/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff038.jpg.html)

Probably overkill, but its very efficient and keep everything neat and contained. I think the range hood by itself would have been fine, especially in a garage. This is down in my basement, and I wanted to be sure no offending odors escaped to upset the boss.

[edadmartin]

lol I too have gone sideways on many a project. ! I see what you did ,very helpful.

[edadmartin]

any concern with flames from fluxing ?

[edadmartin]

Ive ordered a bilge pump in 3" and got some metal flex hose. I already have a nice 12 power supply just sitting on a shelf. I have just 4 feet of wall space and bench space. This will do for winter time casting Im sure. Ill get some pics up when I get her done.

[original]

Patrick L. Is that a pot above a pot? Genius idea, I am not at that level of output yet but might steal that idea from you for the future.

[edadmartin]

Ive ordered a 3" bilge blower,Im wondering if I can use the specific marine bige blower hoses or would I have to use metal dryer vent hose?

[rcav8r]

I've been planning in my mind a casting station for my basement. I was planning on a ductwork setup like strayround, but I'd have a in-line duct fan (same as his bilge fan, but 120V). Planning on 6" duct, and thought about making a round or square hood to boot.

My only concern would be sucking out what little heat I get in the basement in the winter.

[edadmartin]

well the 3" hose I bought with the blige blower is a vynal or some kind of poly similar to a wood dust collection system hose. for some reason I thought it was metal---so can I use this hose ? how hot is the smoke? Is there a flame concern ? Also the 3" bilge blower says 130 cfm, my run to the outside is about 8 feet total,is that enough cfm for 1 4-20 lee pot??

[StrayRound]

edadmartin,

I don't think it matters what hose you use. You are not moving a significant amount of heat, just sucking out fumes, so vinyl should work provided it's not touching the pot. The only reason I used the flex aluminum at the end of the run was I wanted to be able to shape it and have it hold its position over the pot without a support.

My run is about 20 feet and the bilge blower works fine. I'm using rigid pipe though. If your entire run is flexible hose there is more resistance, but I think you'll be fine if it's only 8 feet.

[edadmartin]

ok cool. I ws thinking about a hose stand with a sheet metal shroud that could be positioned using magnets ,then swung out of the way when furnace is put away,so on we go.

[Patrick L]

Sorry I've been away from this thread for a bit.

I don't get flames when I flux, so no I guess that's not a concern for me.

Original, yes that's my old 10# pot. I use it to pre melt ingots and re melt the sprues. That way I top off the main 20# pot with hot metal and you don't get that "ice cube" cooling effect when you drop cold ingot into your pot. Keeps the casting flow uninterrupted. And I stole that idea from others too. Here's how its mounted
http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff024.jpg (http://s204.photobucket.com/user/patrickl_01/media/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff024.jpg.html)

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff026.jpg (http://s204.photobucket.com/user/patrickl_01/media/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff026.jpg.html)

http://i204.photobucket.com/albums/bb157/patrickl_01/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff028.jpg (http://s204.photobucket.com/user/patrickl_01/media/Casting%20cabinet/GunStuff028.jpg.html)

[JSnover]

Hmm... my 4-20 doesn't smoke enough to worry about. I make ingots outdoors in a Dutch oven, thats where I generate smoke, burning out all the crud.
For boolit casting the lead is clean and the wooden stick keeps my alloy together without smoking me out.

[Petrol & Powder]

The ingenuity of the folks on this forum never ceases to amaze me.