Dust is our biggest enemy

[Centro Graphics]

Hi all,

Dust, its a pain in the a**. We have a small but nice workshop, all open plan, no special room for the printer, or applying vinyl.

Im sure its one of the biggest bug bears in our industry, so just wondering how you all out there tackle this potentially job wrecking little beast?

We vacuum and sweep often, but still seems to be getting to places it shouldn't.

What are your methods?

 

[Christian @ 2CT Media]

We use an ever clean sticky roller to wipe of our tables and substrates often. We also made a antistatic wand using static string and a pipe to help reduce static charges in our dry air.

 

[Mosh]

swifer wipes..to be honest I have a MESSY shop and never have any problems.

 

[chafro]

Positive airflow room!

 

[player]

Never cut or sand in the same room as your printer, or vinyl prep.

 

[AF]

swifer wipes..to be honest I have a MESSY shop and never have any problems.

We have found those to do the trick also.

 

[Conor Knoxx]

we use those swiffer pads a lot too. I've often thought it might be worth making a rod full of them and attaching it to the front of the laminator, so it gives things a wipe just before passing through the machine :Big Laugh

 

[eahicks]

This.... roll your substrates before application, and all your prints before laminating. Can't live without it.

 

[nikdoobs]

We use automotive tack cloth quite often.

 

[Asuma01]

This.... roll your substrates before application, and all your prints before laminating. Can't live without it.

What is it called?

 

[HIGHSPEEDGRAPHIX]

I also use tac cloths, you can get them at body shop suppliers. another thing to consider...... drop ceilings........the are horrible, they are always holding dust and drop stuff from the ceiling. Also a humidifier is good to have when it gets dry, the humidity helps keep static down as well as helps plant the dust. An old school auto paint trick, when painting out of a garage, is you wet the floor down to plant the dust, this really does work. My father and I have painted lots of racecar in our garage with very little dust with this method.

I also tint windows, and when the window sill or its surroundings are filthy dirty, we clean up as much as possible around the frames to avoid dirt sucking into the film, but soak the surrounding area to plant the dirt, very common when tinting commercial windows on jobsite or when tinting sliding doors in homes.

 

[James Burke]

A customer notified me that the American Legion had banned smoking a few years ago and that they urgently needed to get rid of their smoke eaters (http://www.smokeeters.com/smokeeter.htm). They only wanted $100 for the pair, and normally they sell for over $2K each, brand new.

I never knew I needed such a thing, but now that I have them, I'd never part with them.

Basically, it's a large ionizer that creates static electricity capable of trapping airborne particulates. In other words, it's literally a huge dust magnet.

Every week or so, all we do is remove the cartridge and take it outdoors to blow out the dust. You'd be amazed how much it can trap in just a short amount of time.

There are no filters to continually replace. Electricity does all the work. Plus the ionized air always stays "thunder storm" fresh.


JB