Adequate Ventilation

[Sparkwizard]

I did not know that. I know stainless steel can be very bad for you.

I suspect some of the same "alloy" gases are airborne from both metals.

 

[Kartorbust]

Stainless steel gives off hexavalent chromium, nickel, and manganese gases. Highly toxic. Welding galvanized steel gives off zinc fumes. Drinking milk DOES NOT prevent getting sick after welding these metals. Welding aluminum can release oxides. One of the things you're supposed to do before welding aluminum, is to take a clean stainless steel brush, and clean off any oxide on the material.

Fume extraction should be definitely looked into for us even hobbyist welders/fabricators. That or wear fresh air masks or filtered masks under our welding hoods and grinding shields. The biggest thing, besides removing the fumes, is also preventing the shielding gas from being blown away while welding, as that will lead to poor welds and a lot of porosity.

Back in college when I was getting my diploma for welding, each of our welding booths were tied into a centralized fume extraction system. Was just enough to pull some of the fumes out, without disturbing the shielding gases.

 

[Minimichael]

So I am tabling the lawn blower motor because it's too loud and likely too strong. But building a system is a must. So far, I have a 4 inch flexible vent pipe that's 10ft long. I'll need an exhaust cone for one end and a fan assembly for the other end. Thinking a computer fan might be too weak for that distance but a small office fan could be just right.

I'll update as this diy fume extraction rig comes together more.

 

[Minimichael]

Updating on this adventure... What I'm working with now is a 5 dollar 10-inch two-speed house fan, 2 buckets, and about 10ft of 4-inch dryer vent pipe. As currently designed it is only minimally effective, and even then only at close range. I suspect my aerodynamics are out of whack, and might try a stronger fan with a wider vent, or go short on the vent length and maybe smaller extraction hood design.

 

[Kartorbust]

Hopefully that'll move enough CFM to make a difference. Curious to see how well it works.

 

[Minimichael]

I ran it short as five feet of vent tube and it still fails unless the 10 inch bucket is just six or eight inches from the source. Otherwise the smoke is happy to trail off into the garage around meit must be the abrupt diameter changes in my design, and maybe combined with the fan's efficiency. I'll keep trying...

 

[Sparkwizard]

I used to have a kitchen range hood/exhaust fan on the wall in the shop. Had a hole in the wall to blow welding and paint fumes out. It worked well, but made it hard to heat the shop, so I removed it. Now, I just open the windows as needed.

 

[Kartorbust]

I used to have a kitchen range hood/exhaust fan on the wall in the shop. Had a hole in the wall to blow welding and paint fumes out. It worked well, but made it hard to heat the shop, so I removed it. Now, I just open the windows as needed.

Bet if you added a damper to it, that auto closes when the fan has spun down to a near stop, the heat would stay in. Unless you're talking about when its on, at which point, yeah tough call.

 

[Sparkwizard]

I thought about that, but I realized that I did not spend much time welding under the hood, so the fumes from welding in the center of the shop didn't find the fan, anyway.