Welding Tips and Tricks

What are y'alls experience with vacuum cleaners to do general dust/grime cleanup? I'm trying to avoid opening the garage door to sweep/blow out crud since I'm trying to keep the temperature decent with a small A/C, but grinding definitely makes a mess. I have a smallish shop vac that works good, but if there's another good suggestion to make clean-up faster I'm all ears.

I have a Husky shop vac. It’s been with me through a complete house renovation and it still works like new.
Sweeping is a mistake if you’re trying to control dust as it stirs it up.


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DavidR8 wrote:I have a Husky shop vac. It’s been with me through a complete house renovation and it still works like new.
Sweeping is a mistake if you’re trying to control dust as it stirs it up.


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Same here, shop vac FTW, yet sometimes sweeping can't be avoided

I use a shop vac with a drywall dust bag and a hepa filter.

Shop vac, Oscar. With a REAL GOOD FILTER.

ditto on the shop vac bag they save the filters.
a drywaller showed me that he carefully cuts and empties the bags and retapes them for several uses.

I normally just blow all the sawdust and grinding out the door with my leaf blower. Once its outside I blow it off into the grass, good nuff. It just melts away.


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I'm definitely not doing sweeping as I mentioned. Been mostly using a dry dust filter in the shop vac, but perhaps I need to look into a bag type filter as well. My current shop vac use a filter cloth that goes over the foam "wet" filter, and I like this design because I don't have to throw it away. I simply take it off (its like a large 24" diameter circle) and just blow it out outside to clear out the dust. The pleated filters don't seem to be too easy to clean in comparison and are likely meant to be thrown away, correct? I have yet to see one that is 'reuseable'.

drizler, I'm not opening the garage door to control temps as best as I can, so your suggestion is unfortunately not an option I'd like to implement for that reason.

Get a mini cyclone to put in front of the filter. You'll need a cart to mount it, but a cyclone separator makes a HUGE difference.
Also, 2 husky and one shop vac brand.

Forget the vacuum... They're useless.

https://www.harborfreight.com/22-inch-m ... 98399.html

BugHunter wrote:Forget the vacuum... They're useless.

https://www.harborfreight.com/22-inch-m ... 98399.html

There is also other dust that I would like to pick up, not just magnetic particles. I don't even have the space to roll that around, lol.

I’ve used a cyclone for big debris, wood chips especially, but it takes up a bit of space and it doesn’t drag around the shop well. And I have the Harbor Freight mag as well. But it doesn’t get the SS or aluminum stuff.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Shop-Vac-HEP ... gJ2HPD_BwE
The hepa is water washable, I have two so I can let one air dry.
https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-8-Gallo ... 9890&psc=1

Make sure to get the bags for drywall dust there much better.

Poland308 wrote:I’ve used a cyclone for big debris, wood chips especially, but it takes up a bit of space and it doesn’t drag around the shop well. And I have the Harbor Freight mag as well. But it doesn’t get the SS or aluminum stuff.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Shop-Vac-HEP ... gJ2HPD_BwE
The hepa is water washable, I have two so I can let one air dry.
https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-8-Gallo ... 9890&psc=1

Make sure to get the bags for drywall dust there much better.

Thanks do you use the cartridge as well as the collection bag simultaneously?

hey, hey,,,,just had a brain attack. My wife used to use one of those rainbow vacs...sucks the dust into a container of water and nothin gets by it. Wondering IF I could make it disappear, to give it a try. News at noon.

Yup both at the same time.

BillE.Dee wrote:hey, hey,,,,just had a brain attack. My wife used to use one of those rainbow vacs...sucks the dust into a container of water and nothin gets by it. Wondering IF I could make it disappear, to give it a try. News at noon.

I have a Grizzly drywall sander that works that way. Works perfectly. 0 dust escapes. You can even run the shop vac without a filter.

So essentially it’s a dust bong!

Poland308 wrote:So essentially it’s a dust bong!

Hadn't really thought of it that way but yes, I guess that's true. We certainly now know where your mind is at. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Lol

Poland308 wrote:So essentially it’s a dust bong!

or a water version of a oil bath filters which used to be common.


has anyone tried the dust collector shields on metal grinding ?
ie those shields that you attach a vacuum cleaner to for grinding brick, concrete, cutting wood etc.
do they have a high temp version for steel?

"Poland308"]So essentially it’s a dust bong!

is this the voice of experience or just a really good guess ??

Hi Oscar,
Just like that. The itty bitty ones still work surprisingly well, but Josh is right. It's only useful if you put it and your shop vac on a dolly or cart. Otherwise you don't want to drag it around! But if you can make that work, you'll clean filters a lot less.

JustTheDad wrote:Hi Oscar,
Just like that. The itty bitty ones still work surprisingly well, but Josh is right. It's only useful if you put it and your shop vac on a dolly or cart. Otherwise you don't want to drag it around! But if you can make that work, you'll clean filters a lot less.

Are you talking about the cyclone?

I can attest to cyclone separators of various styles being helpful in shop cleanup as well.
I bought an eight gallon dust right separator which is effectively a bucket with a pair of elbows in the lid, one input and one output.
Even this gives enough spin to the incoming debris that most separate out and stay in that bucket. Sawdust and metal shavings (not at once, usually) both seem to work well in it.

A small 3d printed one I made for a friend has been working well to keep concrete grinding dust from plugging up his small garage shop vac, it only required being mounted on a five gallon bucket lid with a bit of sealant tape and a few screws.

Hi Oscar,
Yes, the mini cyclone. Those work surprisingly well for a shop vac, but are not fun if you are trying to move it around a lot. So you either use a really long hose or mount the cyclone and the collector on a dolly. My wood shop DC is a 5hp cyclone version plumbed to my all wood tools, and I have another smaller 2HP one dedicated to the CNC machine. The mini ones aren't as effective, but they still make a big difference.
https://www.shophacks.com/dustdeputy_vs ... per.html#/