Shielding and Containment

Another thing I observed right away was how much of a mess I could make all over my nice clean work-shop. Again, my best resource for advice was my son, John. He said in his shop they just use a bunch of these little movable clear-plastic shields. I remembered having seen them in some of the catalogs I get, so I looked into them a little closer. I got a variety of bigger and smaller ones, mounted on a short shaft on a removable magnetic base. I gotta say, those work great! They are easy to remove so I can get in and do all the set-up I need to do, and I can put them all around the work area to keep coolant and chips right on the table rather than all over the place.

I’m still thinking about building a larger table under the base, and maybe some curtains or something, because despite my best efforts, I still have to stop every now and then and vacuum up chips all over the place – not near as much as without the little movable shields, but still enough to warrant a little more attention.

I use a mist sprayer rather than a flood coolant, so that also minimizes the mess that needs to be contained.