Is this possible?

[hawkeye10]

Due to neuropathy in my feet I may want to do scroll sawing inside the house. Can this be done without making a mess with getting dust everywhere. Are anyone doing this or know someone that is doing it. If you have any knowledge on what needs to be done please let me know.

 

Don

[Bill WIlson]

One of the members of my scrollsaw club lives in a trailer.  He uses a spare room to do his scrolling and he scrolls a lot.  I think he has a plastic curtain of some kind that he uses at the doorway to help prevent dust from migrating into the rest of the home.  I don't know if or how he seals it, but one thought that comes to mind is to use magnetic weather stripping to hold the plastic curtain in place around the door.  If your room has a window in it, consider putting in a fan, with a furnace filter attached, to exhaust outside.  This won't eliminate dust, but will help keep airborne particles contained.

 

Also, think about your heating system.  If you have a forced air system, it will pick up some of that dust.  That could be a bad thing.  Most furnace filters aren't fine enough to capture the really small dust particles, so you may need to upgrade to a HEPA type filter and change it more often.  There are ways to minimize the accumulation of dust in side your shop area.  Scroll saws aren't always the most dust collector friendly power tools out there, but I know some of the folks on this forum have done some creative things to enhance dust collection at the scroll saw.  Fortunately a scroll saw doesn't throw a lot of the really fine dust in the air like a lot of other power tools do.  Most of the dust is confined to the table and underneath.  If using a power sander, I highly recommend one that can be attached to a shop vac.  Sanders are notorious for generating very fine dust that is not only messy, but not good for your lungs either.

[GrampaJim]

It can be done.  I have always done my scrolling and sanding in the basement.  As Bill said, you need to control the dust.  I have a Dewalt and use a Box fan with a furnace filter attached at the saw and at the sanding station.  They run for several hours after sawing and/or sanding. The furnace filter has always been a very high performance type.  My wife has asthma AND major allergies and dust has never been a problem in the living areas.   If it became a problem, I would just go to a higher end dust collection system.  My chop saw and planner are in the garage for the noise as well as the dust.  

[Lucky2]

Sure you can scroll inside the house Don, that's where I do all of my scrolling. I have a room in my basement that I do woodwork in, it doesn't have a door on it and no dust seems to escape the room. I use a box fan with a furnace filter attached to the front of it to collect the dust, it does a descent job. I have a large stand alone dust collector in that room also, but, I hardly ever use it for scroll sawing. I only use flat blades, and they don't create as much dust as spiral blades do. So, I can't say how things will be if you're using spiral blades, hopefully, someone else with experience with spirals will chime in with some advise.

Len

[meflick]

Thanks for asking and thanks to those who are replying and giving insight. I have been wondering about the same thing since I am sharing husband's workshop space and don't want to "take over" HIS space which is already pretty full and not much room for "growth" of my intarsia and the additional toys errr tools I would like to add. I have a workroom in the house but we also have an area in the basement that I was thinking would make a great area. Now, just to clean it up and convince the hubby.

[amazingkevin]

Due to neuropathy in my feet I may want to do scroll sawing inside the house. Can this be done without making a mess with getting dust everywhere. Are anyone doing this or know someone that is doing it. If you have any knowledge on what needs to be done please let me know.

 

Don

I used to sit in front of the ac intake with a pleated paper filter .no dust got anywhere in the house.

[GPscroller]

I do all my work in the basement, always have.  I bought a small dust control system which hangs from the ceiling at Canadian Tire which has a double filter system and keep the door to the "shop" closed.  Seems to do the trick.

 

Jeff

[hawkeye10]

I have been looking and looking for this post. I now realize I posted it in the wrong place. (Dang I hate getting old) I appreciate all the posts so far. I am hoping it will not come to doing that but the out look isn't good. I just don't don't to wind up doing nothing except watching TV. As long as I can stay active with something I like to do I will be happy.

 

Don

[GrampaJim]

Another nice benefit is that in the basement I have heat in winter and AC in summer.  What's not to like about that!

Jim