Help Designing system to contain chips

[Clay Fails]

I am setting up a new shop and looking for the best way to contain chips from flying all over the room. I used shower curtains on rods suspended from the ceiling to create a booth in my last shop, but was not completely happy with that. I was considering something like the rollup shades you can buy for patios. Akon sells industrial pvc enclosures that would be perfect, but they are pretty pricey. What does everyone use that they are happy with?

thanks in advance!
Clay

[Richard Coers]

Friend of mine built a retractable curtain system out of 2" pvc and small gear reduction motors. Works great.

[Thomas Wilson80]

I use flexible shower curtain tracks - they screw directly into the ceiling and then I’ve suspended curtains by thin rope to them. My lathe is in a fairly small room and is located in the corner with two walls blocking chips and two curtain tracks that go behind me and to the side. When not turning, I simply push the curtains against the walls, opening up the room.

Tom

[Neil Strong]

I use flexible shower curtain tracks - they screw directly into the ceiling and then I’ve suspended curtains by thin rope to them. My lathe is in a fairly small room and is located in the corner with two walls blocking chips and two curtain tracks that go behind me and to the side. When not turning, I simply push the curtains against the walls, opening up the room.

Tom

I've wondered what curtains would do with the DE intake inside the curtain screen and the DE exhaust outside the curtains. I'm running a 6" ducting system and expect the curtains would be drawn in by the airflow.

I'm guessing that the curtains wouldn't need to go up anymore than about head height and weights could be added to the bottom of the curtains to keep them down.

[Don Stephan]

It might be important to be able to see clearly through any screening.

[Thomas Wilson80]

I've wondered what curtains would do with the DE intake inside the curtain screen and the DE exhaust outside the curtains. I'm running a 6" ducting system and expect the curtains would be drawn in by the airflow.

I'm guessing that the curtains wouldn't need to go up anymore than about head height and weights could be added to the bottom of the curtains to keep them down.

My dust collection is a 5hp clearvue with great pull. It has 6” ducts and 4” terminals that come off the wall in front of the lathe which are at least 3-4’ from the nearest curtain. The curtains are semi-clear plastic and are heavy enough that they don’t move at all. The chip containment isn’t perfect but that’s usually because I haven’t closed them totally or due to the little bit that gets under the 12” ground clearance. It’s good enough for my purposes so that I haven’t considered adjusting them for tight control.

[Neil Strong]

My dust collection is a 5hp clearvue with great pull. It has 6” ducts and 4” terminals that come off the wall in front of the lathe which are at least 3-4’ from the nearest curtain. The curtains are semi-clear plastic and are heavy enough that they don’t move at all. The chip containment isn’t perfect but that’s usually because I haven’t closed them totally or due to the little bit that gets under the 12” ground clearance. It’s good enough for my purposes so that I haven’t considered adjusting them for tight control.

Thanks for that info Tom.

[Clay Fails]

I use flexible shower curtain tracks - they screw directly into the ceiling and then I’ve suspended curtains by thin rope to them. My lathe is in a fairly small room and is located in the corner with two walls blocking chips and two curtain tracks that go behind me and to the side. When not turning, I simply push the curtains against the walls, opening up the room.

Tom

This is an interesting idea, and might work for me. I'm going to look into it.

thanks to all for your replies!

Clay

[Ben Darrah]

I use old school roll up window shades mounted to the ceiling. Some I cut and glue in screen mesh for air flow. One tug and they are out of the way.

[Jeffrey J Smith]

In my old shop, I put up a nice set of curtain tracks sold at Ikea - curved corners, rolling cars and all - its reasonably priced and worked very well to make a U-shaped enclosure. When I designed the new shop I only needed to protect the rest of the shop at my back, so a wall to wall steel wire cable and turnbuckle supports two visquine curtains on shower curtain hooks that go from about a foot from the cieling to the floor. Works just fine and the transparent plastic allows light to penetrate. Simple and very cheap. everything pulls easily to one side and gets a bungie tieback to keep it out of the way when not needed.

[Edward Weber]

Zip Wall
https://www.zipwall.com/shop/

[Reed Gray]

This makes me think of Glenn Lucas, Irish turner. There is one video clip of him with a big dumpster box by his lathe, and he has things figured out so just about all of his shavings fly into the bucket. I guess, depending on what you turn, having shower curtains around would help and get most of it. You will get different 'disbursement' of chips and shavings. Different for spindles than for bowls...

robo hippy

[Neil Strong]

This makes me think of Glenn Lucas, Irish turner. There is one video clip of him with a big dumpster box by his lathe, and he has things figured out so just about all of his shavings fly into the bucket.

Yeah, that's a good party trick of Glenn's. I've been known to use it myself on the rare occasion when I have someone in the workshop with me and I give them a bit of spray. I always have a small bin (you might call it a trash can on your side of the pond) next to the lathe and at some stages of turning can direct most of the shavings into it, but when the speed is up and I'm turning as efficiently as I can the shavings end up from floor to ceiling and from one end to the other of my turning shop.

As I do nothing else other than turn in my turning shop having shavings everywhere is not an issue other than on my sharpening station. Shavings and metal dust is not a good combination. Hot metal sparks in the shavings used to be more of an issue before CBN wheels, but I still don't like the metal swarf in the wood shavings and going through to my DE filters. At this stage I just have the sharpening station curtained off.

As it happens the curtain is in the spray line when I'm green turning so another reason to have the curtain there. The green blackwood that I turn a lot of has left a distinct spatter streak across the curtain and up over the ceiling!

[Dave Bunge]

In my old shop, I put up a nice set of curtain tracks sold at Ikea - curved corners, rolling cars and all - its reasonably priced and worked very well to make a U-shaped enclosure.

I've done the same and have been very pleased with the result. The specific product from IKEA is called VIDGA.

The curtain tracks can be hung from the ceiling and can incorporate 90 degree corners. So you can make a U shaped track and surround yourself with a curtain. Then when not in use, the entire curtain can be slid to one end of the U. It's very simple and quick to set up, and gets out of the way well when not in use.