Cleaning the workshop floor with Vacuum and minute metal sharpening "dust"

[Jonathan Leong]

Hello folks,

I just vacuumed my workshop today to clear the floor of wood chips and dust. I just remembered that I had sharpened my plane iron and chisel using the worksharp 3000 a couple days ago so there is trace amounts of metal dust on the floor and other vacuumed surfaces as well. That all got vacuumed up with the wood dust and chips. Is this a fire hazard? How do you all clean up your shops if you have grinding wheel type setups in the same room as wood dust producing machines? I think I read somewhere on one of the cyclone websites that metal shavings can start a fire with wood dust...

Thanks!

[Bruce Page]

I've never heard of a fire hazard using a shop vacuum. I have machine shop equipment along side wood shop equipment. After sweeping up the majority of the mess I vacuum everything else, wood & metal chips together. I never had a problem.
There is a spark risk if you use your DC to clean metal chips off the floor; they can spark when they hit the impeller.

[Jonathan Leong]

That is reassuring. I am using a dust deputy hooked up to my vac so I think that is where I found cyclone related spark hazards, but I hadn't thought of the impeller in the large dust collectors as a spark source.

[Bob Michaels]

I suspect what you read was refering to hot metal material from a drill press or grinder. I am cautious not to suck hot metal debris into the dust bin of my vac or dust collection system.

[Michael Dunn]

I think it's fine as long as the shrapnel is not hot.

[John Hays]

+1

I wouldn't worry about it.

[Ole Anderson]

Metal chips would have to be really hot to start a fire, probably close to red hot. And as others have stated, the flow of air cools the chips rather quickly. Sparks from grinding are a different matter. And I would be cautious vacuuming large quantities of aluminum dust as powdered AL can be an explosion hazard. Although having generated hundreds of pounds of the stuff in my home shop abrasive brushing aluminum, I have never had a problem, but then most of it got swept up the old fashoned way, with a broom and dustpan. Pre dust collection system.

[Lee Schierer]

Unless you are sucking up hot chips or hot weld spatter you should not have a problem. Even if a steel chip hits the impeller in your DC most likely it (the impeller) is aluminum so it will not spark.

The problem arises when someone hooks up a DC directly to a grinder and they suck the grindings right off the wheel into a bed of saw dust.

[Jonathan Leong]

Thanks for the reassuring words all!