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I spent a couple of hours last night reading the MSDS on Ferro enamels and mediums. I spent 3 hrs this morning reading archives on safety. I plan on using R53HE-P100 when airbrushing enamels. The P100 when cleaning & grinding, then N95 masks when grinding for stained glass. I am buying HEPA filters for the shop vac. I am building a spray booth about 2'x2'x3'. Also want to build air filter boxes. the part of our studio we are using for glass is about 1000 sq ft we also work with fabric in the same area at different times. My birds are in my studio also, we do move them to another room when enameling and cleaning. I have had 2 of them for about 23 years so I am very concerned about their safety as well as mine. Now questions.

1. How long do shop vac HEPA filters last?
2. Blowers for booth, I have read everything from home range hoods, commercial range hoods and 300cfm - 1500 cfm. What would be appropriate for my size booth that wont suck the paint away before it hits my piece? Grainger only has about 5,000 blowers listed.
3. Air filter boxes, What size, how many do you recomend, and what size blower?
4. Is it safe for my birds to be in the same room when grinding for stained glass?

Thanks
Cathy

1. How long do shop vac HEPA filters last?

I clean my shop vac hepa filters with another shop vac outside. Its a messy ordeal and I get all my protection equipment on to do it. I vacuum up a lot of whiting so it packs the prefilter and hepa filter pretty quickly. I assume the hepa filters last indefinitely if cleaned. But I don't expect them to totally eliminate all nastiness in the shop. I have a kind of rotation, because I have two hepa shopvacs and one non-hepa.

2. I don't know the answers to your other questions, but if you get reliable metrics on the air-flow thing, please post it here.

Air filter companies can supply ready made frames for standard size specialized filters. They can also supply something known as tack oil that can be sprayed on filters that will continually encapsulate the particles in the air.
Air brush spray will stay in the air for a phenominal time. How are you going to be sure you get all the contaminants? Be sure when you speak with the air filter company that you tell them what you are filtering. After you get the filters all dirty with paint particles how are you going to dispose of them??? Kevin in Tofino

I would not have the birds in the same room. Even overheating a teflon skillet on the stove can kill them, so who knows what the usual chems used in your studio will do. They have delicate little respiratory systems. At the least I'd ask a vet, or call a vet school for their opinion. As to how long a filter will last, I agree with Don. As long as they are mechanically intact, I clean and reuse. As to how long they go before needing to be cleaned, that will be based on usage. I can tell my Hepa vac needs it by feeling the suction at the nozzle, it is noticibly reduced when the filter is full. Something to remember too, is that as a filter clogs the airflow through it is reduced, but the filtering size becomes finer, so it actually filters more for a given volume passing through it.

Cathy:
I checked with my vet when I started fusing and he said not to put my 33 year old African grey in the workshop, as I had been doing during parvious stained glass days. (Even with hepa filtered air circulator and a good hood that pulls 400-600 cfm). I want her to live another 30-40 years and birds are extremely susceptible to respiratory contaminants. My bird is a great companion and really funny but is no longer in the workshop.
Nikki

Thanks....we knew the birds could not handle enamels but really were not sure about the glass grinder, so we already moved them to my office. It is such a treat trying to talk to a client with a double yellow head & an african grey mumbling, talking and screeching in the background and fighting them for control of the key board:lol: