Ventilation for winter casting suggestions

MRM

MRM

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I am new to casting, but I assume many have this same problem and have solved it.

I cast in my garage, near the open overhead door, with a fan blowing outside. With winter setting in, I don’t want to open the door and lose all my heat and there is no window or other doors in the garage.

Any suggestions out there? I would prefer not cutting a hole in the side of my house, but would look at venting through the door if that would work.

Thanks

MRM
 
This is my set up...send the hose through any orifice available in your garage,lots of options

IMG_20141013_170241_zps89347fda.jpg


From the extreme

garagestudio04.jpg


to the sublime

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yomomma said:
This is my set up...send the hose through any orifice available in your garage,lots of options

IMG_20141013_170241_zps89347fda.jpg
Click to expand...

Is that a home made melting pot Yomomma?

@op: Perhaps installing a cat door in the garage door. Get a bathroom fan for over your pot, hook it up to some flexible 4 inch big-O drain pipe and stick it out the cat door.
Then it still looks decent, might help if you ever want to sell the house :)
 
My 2 cents is use a decent fan and check to see if the fumes exhaust. My father made on once with a cheap fan thinking this is nice a quite, while still sucking back the fumes. Throw a small piece of paraffin wax on the molten lead to make sure that you are exhausting all the fumes. I use a inline fan which was for the principal exhust fan for a house about $80ish homedepot.
 
Thanks folks. Bathroom fan never crossed my mind. I had an elaborate range hood or furnace blower in my head. I use a portable setup as well, on a rolling metal tool cart. A bathroom fan attached to a removable support may be the answer. Now I need to find an exhaust port for the door.

Do I need to set up ventilation for winter casting? No, have plenty casted. Am I going to? Yes.
 
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but you really do not have to worry about any "vapour" from the lead itself until you over heat it 1000deg?

Your flux is a different story.

Good ventilation is need when smelting because of all the other nasties in with the wheel weights.
 
I render all my lead outside , and cast indoors with just a window open with a fan blowing outside.
I don't flux at all, just skim the surface of the melt occasionally. The lead is already cleaned, so therefore, no smoke, fumes, or issues of any kind.
 
Fumes, the way I see it is lead melts near 650f and boils near 1700f usually boiling means fumes. But when you have water at room temperature not 100c it still vaporizes just slowly. I believe this to be the same with lead small amounts will still vaporise. So my idea is a little ventilation will help, plus lead has a bad name people had lead pipes for years we survived. The events from lead poisoning was in ancient Greece they put lead powder in their wines, and original canning in the late 19th century was done with lead sauter. So I still say a little ventilation to get 90% of the fumes and wash your hands.
 
yomomma said:
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but you really do not have to worry about any "vapour" from the lead itself until you over heat it 1000deg?

Your flux is a different story.

Good ventilation is need when smelting because of all the other nasties in with the wheel weights.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Don't heat the lead until it boils, and you reduce the amount that goes airborne to almost nothing.

I would casually suggest that there is more risk of poisoning oneself with a cigarette while casting, if one is a smoker.

Keep the casting pot clean and dry while stored, to avoid producing lead oxide. That white powder is not very healthy to ingest or breathe.

Cheers
Trev
 
How cold does anyone here practically cast in? When do you give up due to trouble maintaining mold/pot temps (Thinking an unheated shed, w/ a bathroom fan setup and maybe a space heater?)
 
I use to cast outside, when I was in my teens and my mother did not like the smell in the garage seeping into the house. I did cast on cold day around -10, it is doable, but I found the molds would cool really fast and two minuets in the cold and they would take ten or so cast to bring it back to temp, so not really worth it. But I did do it when I was determined, but I recommend find somewhere warm.
 
Instead of cutting a hole in my door or wall could I just run the hood fan through air filters to collect the lead particles? Right now I use a gas mask and that gets annoying after a while.
 
Mean Steak said:
Instead of cutting a hole in my door or wall could I just run the hood fan through air filters to collect the lead particles? Right now I use a gas mask and that gets annoying after a while.
Click to expand...

Any lead that goes airborne from casting, will not get caught in filters. Filter 'might' be useful if you were buffing the stuff, and creating a bunch of airborne particulate.

The plus side is that you actually have to work pretty hard at it to gt lead into the air, essentially you have to boil it. That is a really really high temperature, compared to just melting it to cast with.

Cheers
Trev
 
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