Bad vapors off finishing products

[John Torchick]

I have a number of products as WOP, Mylands Sanding Sealer, to name a few that have warnings about harmful vapors/fumes. My shop is enclosed with no outside venting. Has one window but the house has settled over the years and is jammed shut. Only way would be to go outside but at the mercy of the weather. Your thoughts?

 

[John K Jordan]

Besides wearing a respirator with cartridges for volitiles, could you put an in-wall fan to the outside? A friend of mine did that - it has louvers. His is large, but I see various sizes for sale on Amazon and elsewhere.

When I worked at a large woodworking facility they had a separate finish room that exhausted fumes to the outside. I've read of some people who have small finishing tents inside the shop. Perhaps a larger one could be set up outside as needed.

I wonder if it's possible to make a finishing booth or tent for inside the shop with an exhaust fan with filters that would remove harmful fumes before returning air to the shop.

When spraying chemicals at the farm I use an industrial 3M full-face respirator with cartridge filters. Would probably work for finishes too. This one shows P100 filters for dust but they twist off and the cartridges for chemicals twist on.



JKJ

 

[Dave Landers]

I've got a small spray booth. It doesn't hold big things, but is enough for most of my work. It does fold up so I can just set it up when needed. It vents out a hose you can stick thru a partially open (about 2") window. I stick it out the bottom of the garage door. Not great if it's below 10ºF or whatever, but those aren't finishing days anyway for me. It would require you to fix your window, but there might be other benefits to that Anyway, this is the booth I have:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTTH4WNL?th=1

It does ok with vapors from wipe-on and brushed finishes, and should be ok if used as designed (for small airbrush projects). But it's a bit underpowered for how I airbrush lacquer. Still vents, just not quite enough. So I also wear a respirator with vapor (not dust) rated filters. And do my finishing at the end of the day so I can leave the shop right after.

Since you don't have a window... I have seen a YouTube video or two of someone making a water filter - basically they took a spray booth like the one above and blew the exhaust into a bucket of water. Not sure how effective that would be...
Not sure if this is one of the videos I saw, but here's one:

View: https://youtu.be/4HWM3dJ8ESc?si=Ni517JYjlGYStY2-

 

[John Torchick]

To vent outside would entail removing one pane of double glass in the window that won't open. Plus going through a block wall in the front of the house wouldn't be attractive. As for respirator, I have one but can't wear it as it throws my glasses out of focus and get lightheaded and severe headaches. Need glasses to see what I'm doing.

 

[John K Jordan]

To vent outside would entail removing one pane of double glass in the window that won't open. Plus going through a block wall in the front of the house wouldn't be attractive. As for respirator, I have one but can't wear it as it throws my glasses out of focus and get lightheaded and severe headaches. Need glasses to see what I'm doing.

Sounds impractical! My friend simply knocked out the blocks on one of his outside shop walls but it is a wall that faced the woods!

Curious, what kind of respirator messes with your glasses focus? I've worn both close up and distance glasses with the 3M full-face I use and haven't noticed that with my glasses.

But would one of the 3M half mask respirators work? Should work with any glasses.

I keep multiples of these respirators around, mostly for fine dust and when working in potential toxic places like cleaning out the chicken house and sometimes mowing (I'm allergic to grass). In this case, I wear safety glasses with the respirator (or prescription glasses with side-shields and impact resistant lenses, available through our local Eye Center.

I've bought half-mask respirators from Amazon and Home Depot. The newer ones (the 7500 series) are made with a more flexible and comfortable silicon material.
www.amazon.com/dp/B008MCUT86
This pictures shows a half mask with particulate filters installed but they are interchangeable with cartridges for chemicals, organics, and volatile vapors.


I tend to use the cartridges listed below but also have others (a drawer full!):
www.amazon.com/3M-Cartridge-60923-Respiratory-Protection/dp/B00AEFCKKY

BTW, the half-mask respirators easily fit under the Uvex Bionic face shields popular with woodturners: Of course, those face shields might mess with vision through certain glasses too.


If you have an industrial safety supplier nearby perhaps you could visit and try what they have.

JKJ

 

[John Torchick]

The photo is like mine. I even have to play with adjusting my N-95 mask so my glasses will focus.

 

[robo hippy]

Well, Osmo and Rubio Monocote have no VOCs. I have been using the new "LED" finish which also has no VOCs. It does need ultra violet light to cure though. They have fancy light systems, the small one is about $650. The big one is about $1600 I think. It is intended for use on floors though. I have thus far let mine sit in the south side window and it is cured in a day. Other than that, you need to open a window and put a fan in it and do all of your finishing by the fan, or a hazardous vapors mask.

robo hippy

 

[John Torchick]

robo hippy, flytying uses an adhesive for coating thread and uses UV lights which are much cheaper. Don't have a window to open.

 

[Jon Rista]

To vent outside would entail removing one pane of double glass in the window that won't open. Plus going through a block wall in the front of the house wouldn't be attractive. As for respirator, I have one but can't wear it as it throws my glasses out of focus and get lightheaded and severe headaches. Need glasses to see what I'm doing.

Would you need one of those "full" face masks? Do the fumes hurt your eyes? I do have some ventilation in my shop (i.e. I can open a door, or a garage door), but I don't during the winter. I have a half-face respirator, with the pink and mustard filters (organic fume filters, works by chemically reacting with the volatiles). To protect my eyes, I then have a small fan blowing low-speed air over the area I am working, from a bit behind and off to the side from one of my shoulders. Keeps the fumes out of my eyes, and the respirator protects my lungs and all.

The VOCs will of course stay in your shop...I don't know if you have an overhead air filter or anything like that. The filters could help absorb the chemicals from the air. You might need to replace the filters more often (the outer filters are usually washable, the inner would likely need to be replaced.)

If none of this is an option, there are now low VOC finishes and no VOC finishes that might help. Personally I am not a fan of water-based finishes, its oil or bust for me and that either means extremely long cure times..or VOCs. I've gone the VOC route, although in my case, its in my garage, and we get the long-lasting stench of gasoline exhaust, gasoline itself, and you know, all the other fumes and smells of a classic garage. And in the summer I am able to open it up and ventilate the whole thing periodically. Most of the time I'm working at night, though, and I don't generally open it up, so the VoCs do escape into the space and stay there, but I try to run my overhead air filter to suck em up. I use it at a low speed, so it doesn't just drag them strait through, and I figure between the bit of dust on the filters, and the filter material themselves, the VoCs are getting mopped up a bit.

 

[John Torchick]

If I open the shop, it goes into the basement.

 

[John K Jordan]

The photo is like mine. I even have to play with adjusting my N-95 mask so my glasses will focus.

Is the respirator pushing the glass up a bit? Seems like that could be a problem with certain lenses. I have some the nose piece is not compatible and other that work ok.

Yikes, if that's an issue, maybe the optician could find or adjust a frame that would be better. Or the optometrist could make a change.

A long time ago I had to get a special prescription to let me use my custom large multi-monitor computer systems effectively.

I suspect you already went through the contact lens thing. My vision used to be so bad (20/400) that after years of visual suffering with glasses and terrible headaches, switching to gas permeable contact lenses instantly cured the headaches. (and were great or whitewater and scuba!) Then years later the advent of lasik surgery gave me 20/10 vision. (I'm not suggesting any of this would be appropriate for you, just wondering if there might be some other options. Last time I checked I still wasn't an eye doctor...)

Our son went through some medical things (unrelated to his eyes) in the last year that actually changed the shape of his cornia in one eye! Then another issue required special eye drops every hour of the day and night. Whew, glad that treatment is over- I get more sleep now!

 

[John Torchick]

The respirator and mask push the glasses up and out of focus. I can move the mask a bit by pinching the metal strip. Contact lenses are not on my list nor were they ever considered. No for surgery, too. My late BIL had LASIK and still had to wear glasses to read. I have a small face and have finally found glasses that fit...after 38 years.