Keeping the floor swept

[Tim Bueler]

I'm in my shop almost daily. Sweep at the end of day, always, and possibly several times during the day depending on tool usage. Most everything except routers are hooked up to dust collection. Vac every couple months in the winter when it's too cold to open the doors. During warmer months I open all windows and doors and get out the leaf blower, again, about every couple months.

[Doug Dawson]

A sharp scraper actually puts some extremely fine invisible dust particles into the air. I've heard that if you can smell it while working, it might be making dust. I once read a study showing the size and quantity of dust particles that come from various hand tools. (I wish I'd saved the reference. ) I've watched my Dylos particle meter counts go up when hand scraping nearby.

That is so very true. Also, sawing by hand puts a lot of fine dust into the air. If you can smell the wood, it's a potential problem. You're probably more exposed to fine dust from hand sawing than from using a machine hooked up to a good dust collector.

As to sweeping, a broom puts up a huge amount of fine dust into the air. My Dylos spikes big time. Vacuum only, thru a HEPA dust filter machine.

I don't want to be sensitized to wood dust. I'm already so sensitized to car exhaust that I can't work on or around older cars any more. Lord leave me just one last thing I can do with my hands.

[Von Bickley]

Leaf Blower.... As Needed.

[Rick Potter]

I have been known to sweep around the workbench and then sweep it under the bench for later (much later) removal.

My shop has so many things on the floor that sweeping is a major undertaking. Leaf blower for me also.

[William A Johnston]

I usually do a good clean up after a project and in between if there are a lot of chips on the floor.

About once a year I do a really good cleaning then break out the back pack blower with a respirator on and go to town. Then you have to wipe everything down again because of the fine dust.

So I guess it looks clean?

Bill

[Rod Sheridan]

Usually I vacuum at the end of the day.

Now I am doing some turning so when there’s a lot of shavings I turn on the DC and gently push them into the sweep under the lathe.....Rod

[Al Launier]

My tools are all on casters. I'll pull them out, run the wood through a machine, parkit, then vacuum machine & floor. I don't leave a machine/floor dirty after each use in case I have to leave. I don't like walking into a dirty shop & I don't like to track sawdust around, especially since my shop is next to my finished lower level and I frequently have to go upstairs through that area.

[Ole Anderson]

I have a Pergo laminate shop floor (basement shop), so sweeping it with a horsehair push broom when I can see a mess is enough. Previously it was concrete, so I had to vacuum more often to get the dust out of the pores in the concrete. I end to vacuum when I have metal shavings from my DP, cut off saw or grinder. No set schedule, as needed.

[Patrick Ebner]

I sweep after each job and sweep and vac the whole shop weekly

[Patrick Walsh]

Home shop and place of employment get treated differently for me. Both I sweep a fair amount to a lot.

Place of employment at days end or if I used a router. God bless my lungs but I blow things down with compressed air maybe 100 times a day. Friday the shop get a thourogh sweep at days end. Most days I ssweep quickly 2-3 times.

When working at hime in my shop I vacume only and I vacume l]after every operation that makes a mess. At days end I spend a good 30 minutes vacuuming every surface and the floor top to bottom. Me donts likes a mess when I’m on my own time. I don’t like a mess ever but the boss you know I want the boss to make some $$ so I can keep my job.

[Derek Cohen]

My shop (a double garage) is also home to one car, and I do not want to track shavings into it. In any event, plane shavings would build up quickly and it would be easy to lose items under them. Not to mention slipping on shavings is possible and therefore dangerous. Consequently, I sweep up when there is a break (just into a pile on one side), and remove the pile at the end of the day. I give the shop a vacuum at the end of a job ... when it is time to do an overall tidy up and sharpen handtool and bandsaw blades.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Zachary Hoyt]

I do some vacuuming every time I am in the shop. Typically I am in there in the evening for 3 hours or so a night. I vacuum as needed when tools are dusty or I am going from sanding brass to sanding wood or vice versa. The floor gets vacuumed 2-3 times a week, though if I am doing something really messy it's sometimes every day. I mostly only use a broom when I'm turning, to push the shavings under the Shopsmith so I'm not standing on them. Once I'm done turning the shavings get manually put in a 5 gallon bucket and dumped in the boiler to burn. I move the same 5 gallon bucket from saw to saw when I'm working, and scraps that are too small or low quality to keep go in it, and thus to the boiler. I save some pieces of good hardwoods that are too small for what I do in boxes and once I have 20-50 pounds I put them on the free section of Craigslist. People use them for knife scales, carving, crafts, or whatever, and it never takes more than a couple of days to get a response. Scraps that are big enough for me to use either get cut into rim blank blocks or put in boxes for later use. I have a box for each species that I save, and I go to the scrap box first when I need something, before I cut into a larger piece. I don't like to let scraps fall on the floor since the dust collector, drum sander, shop vac, cart and one work table are all on casters and get moved often.
Zach

[Pete Staehling]

For me cleaning frequency varies pretty widely, but it is usually somewhere between daily and weekly. I don't think I have ever vacuumed the shop floor other than maybe to hit a particular spot that was hard to reach with the broom if at all.

Most often I sweep up some of the biggest stuff like curls from hand planing or especially heavy areas of sawdust, but then I usually open the roll up door and blow everything else out the door with the battery leaf blower or the air hose. There are times when I use the broom more and sweep the whole floor, but that is the exception.

[Phil Mueller]

Like some already posted, I sweep/vacuum after and sometimes during every proceedure. After rough sawing boards, I clean it up. After hand jointing, I clean up. After hand face jointing, I clean up whenever the bench top gets covered. Floor is swept often. My work space is small and the spoil from woodworking drives me nuts. I joke that my workshop is probably the cleanest room in the house. Hand planes and the like even get brushed and vacuumed after each use.

If I get lazy, I vaccum up the waste off the benchtop during planing or whatever. Problem is I forget there’s other stuff on the bench. I think I have two erasers and maybe a small pencil in the vac debris I’m going to have to find when I empty it.

[Prashun Patel]

Sweeping the open areas where I walk is easy. I do that several times during a session mainly so I don’t slip. But the corners and shelves and out-of-path areas get cleaned whenever it looks unbearably dirty to me - about once a month.

If I am working with green wood, I take care to sweep and vacuum at the end of the session because of rust - not dust.