"Made It Myself" Shop Air Filter

"Made It Myself" Shop Air Filter FARM SHOP Miscellaneous 34-3-36 When Ron Isaac owned a welding shop, he made his own air cleaner by building a box lined with fiberglass insulation and fitted with a large ventilation fan. "I got a lot of smoke in the welding shop, but this filter took care of it and also the fine dust," he explains. "A friend with a paint shop said the idea worked well for him, too." Initially Isaac was concerned about fiberglass particles floating in the air, and there are some for the first couple of hours it's used. But after that they vanish. Isaac built a 32 by 48-in. box with a 2 by 4 frame to hold a 1 1/2 hp fan. It can be a blade fan or squirrel cage fan, and Isaac suggests mounting the fan on rubber pads or springs to reduce noise. He nailed 1 by 2-in. (or smaller) slats every 6 in. on the inside of the box to prevent the insulation from pulling inside. He split the batt insulation to about 1 1/2 in. thick and slipped eight 4-ft. pieces between the 2 by 4's all the way around the box. A piece of plywood covers the front with an opening for the fan. The entire unit is secured to the wall with lag screws. "It pulls air in through the batts and blows clean air into the room," Isaac says. He changed the fiberglass batts every three or four months as needed. As a test, he let a diesel tractor idle to the point where it filled the 40 by 60-ft. shed with smoke. He shut it off, turned the fan on and within 1 1/2 hours there was no diesel smoke. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ron Isaac, P.O. Box 204, Hythe, Alta., Canada T0H 2C0 (ph 780 356-2727).

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