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Shop Cleaning Question - Magnetic Floor Mats?


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Hello everybodddehhhh!

I have a question about shop cleaning and safety. My wife got up last night to have a midnight snack, and wound up with a fragment of a wire cup stuck pretty deep in her heel. There have been a couple other occasions of the kids getting small slivers of metal in their feet. And that is no good!

I was wondering what you all use as transition from your shop to your house to make sure the metal stays away from the living area. My shop is directly attached to the house, and I was thinking about a magnetic floor mat, but can’t find anything that doesn’t cost $2k. Do any of you use a different kind of mat to transition from your shop to your house?

Thanks a bunch for reading. I appreciate your time and responses. 

 

-Josh

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How about a magnetic sign blank, like those that some businesses use on vehicles. Apply it to the floor magnet side up with double stick mounting tape. You should be able to get one at a sign shop. I don't know what they cost but I'm sure it's not near the $2k range.

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it is not just the floor you have to deal with.  Those wire wheels will stick slivers into your cloths from head to toe.  When you go inside the house they can shed from your cloths.  Also they can ride through the laundry and attach to other peoples cloths.  

Your options are 

1. shop shoes.  Change your shoes when coming in/ leaving the shop.  

2. shop overalls.  When you are grinding or wire wheeling wear the overalls.  When done, take off the overalls and leave them in the grinding area.

3.  try to keep the grinding wheeling in one area of the shop.  The majority of the debris will be there and less likely to be tracked through the house.

4. if possible keep your shop floors cleaner. Less mess means less stuff to be tracked into the house.

5.  Think like a farmer.  What would you do after spending time milking cows in the barn? Would you just wipe your boots off at the door, go into the living room and sit on the couch?  Cow dung or metal shavings, it doesn't matter.  You don't want either in your house.

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Wear coveralls and/or dedicated work clothes and work shoes in the shop. Take them off before going in the house. Everyone in the family will thank you for it.

This also keeps your regular clothes from all becoming ''work clothes'' 

It also helps to keep your work space swept up and to install a dust exhaust system in your grinding/ cutting  area. 

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Excellent advice. Thanks very much. 

That’s two votes for overalls in the shop area. I do grind in a hooded sweatshirt that stays in the shop, but I guess I just wasn’t thinking about my bottoms. I will definitely get some overalls and only grind/wire wheel in those. Looks like dedicated shop shoes are also key. Thanks for the advice. 

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Think like a Farmer Now That's Funny :huh:   yep I do work for a few Farmer's that's the funny part ! they tend to cost them self's more time & money Thinking !! :P

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Speaking of those pesky wire wheel wires - Ive always wire wheeled in the middle of the shop (36x54) and one day after a large railing job - while opening the sliding door that is insulated with 2" foam board - I noticed these little partially rusted wires stuck in the foam, They were from wire wheeling the railing - All over the door (16ft wide slider) - so they went thru the air 15ft or more to hit and stick in the foam insulation - I just looked at that and said to myself - WOW!!!! - found them stuck in a sweatshirt I wear doing that days after being done with projects - they do get everywere. I try to do a full look over on clothes before leaving the shop - as I have also found them in the house and even still stuck in my flesh.

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12 hours ago, RobS said:

shop shoes.  Change your shoes when coming in/ leaving the shop.  

If that's not an option, you could use TYVEK boot covers like I used on the P.D. They are reasonable in cost and disposable when worn out. Because you are not collecting evidence they could be worn multiple times.

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 Make yourself a little bench and a couple of hooks. Put it by the door to the shop . Change your shoes/ boots and  regular/ work clothes on the bench. Go to work, go home.

In my shop billable time starts when I'm dressed for the job. Keep the nasties out of the house as much as possible. 

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We have goatheads (AKA "puncturevine" out here; so each door to the house has a piece of open steel grating---like used on cat walks---to scrub the bottoms of your shoes on and it's still suggested to keep a pair of slippers by the bed to wear to let the dog out in the middle of the night.  Anyway they really help with the steel pieces too.

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You can usually find old lockers at various sales for cheap, keep your street clothes hung up in the locker. The main rule is shop clothes in the shop, street clothes elsewhere. The wires, shavings, grinder dust, etc. is in your clothes as well as on your feet. Learn to keep your eyes closed when you first hit the shower until you've shampooed your hair and rinsed it a couple times.

Did that many times but cutting steel roofing with a carbide blade in my skill saw put REALLY sharp cuttings everywhere. I wore goggles over my trifocals and took them off with my eyes closed after the first rinse in the shower. Buzzed hair really helps.

Forget magnetic mats, that's one of those sounds good but doesn't work idea worth spit.

Frosty The Lucky.

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As for magnetic mat - you can get a bunch of little neodymium magnets, and attach them to a plank. You get a STRONG "cleaning station". You can make one for your shoes and a vertical one for your clothes,

Just be careful with magnetic cards around these things.

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Please warn any one that comes into the shop/smithy that may have a heart pacemaker (or defibrillator).

It would be an unlikely problem but a serious one in the rare instance where it could happen.

SLAG.

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Round the corners and outside sharp edges of the steel cat walk grate so it does not cut into the soles of your shoes. Does not take much to knock off the edge.

You will be surprised how much dirt and debris they collect in just a short time. 

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On 4/6/2018 at 8:45 AM, Meridianfrost said:

I was wondering what you all use as transition from your shop to your house to make sure the metal stays away from the living area. 

Josh, I use a magnetic 'broom' consistently every time I finish for fear of the little one getting something in their feet. 

broom.jpg

Not sure what you call it but mine is just a big long magnet attached to a long handle a bit like a rake. Some have wheels to keep it above the floor, others like mine has no wheels and I take it back and forth picking up everything in it's path. You can hear it getting all the little bits, and best of all even the filings from the grinder. It's amazing how much metal you can pick up after just one day of work. 

As for walking in and out of the house, I leave the working boots at the door. 

 

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Change area and work clothes are the key, but shop cleanlyness also helps.

For magnetic brooms wands or plates, just make them out of steel, your choice of section, and place a strong magnet on it away from the working end. Once you have completed your sweep hold it over a swarf bin and pull the magnet of, a quick tap and it will all unload. I use this method to clean my lathe bed and seperate steel and brass swarf I've vacuumed out of those presky little inaccessible crevices. (I use the brass chips for heat treatments.)

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Two things come to mind. Don't use compressed air to blow off debris. It finds its way into everything. Second there are sticky mats used in construction sites that border finished areas. The mat is taped to the floor and it has layers of sticky plastic film that faces up. Once a layer us loaded, it gets peeled off to expose a fresh one. 

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  • 1 month later...

I pretty much run a think like a farmer attitude too ;) We have a side entrance to both the front and rear sides of our house. Once all of the redecorating is finished we are going back to the old method of coming in. If you're dirty you use the side door. There is a spare set of clothes and a set of shoes by the side door so I can quickly change and stop the spread further than the entrance. Magnets do sadly do squat if the material you drag in is not magnetic, most of what we would have on us probably is but coal dust, brass wire, general muck from the floor will still follow us in. I had this issue from gardening mainly... stinky rotting grass being used as a mulch/fertiliser was not a nice thing to bring in! 

Having the spares on hand has saved me a few times, cleaning the drains out and realising I couldn't get back in without dripping nasty black drain goop everywhere was a solid trigger to have a plan :)  

For the meantime, my house is being painted/sanded and my life is dust... 

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Living in a semi rural area, I'd had the wife tell me to strip on the back patio and turn the hose on me before she would allow me into the house to head to the shower...

(Of course we now have neighbors behind us and are talking about putting up a wall.)

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Our Bedroom window faces the neighbors back yard. Running a swamp cooler means we need to keep it open if we want any cooling in that room.  The "new" neighbors have goats, a pig, a tom turkey, and 5 dogs in their back yards---one of the downsides of semirural life.

Last time I was trying to work in my shop all 5 dogs lined up along the fence 10' away from the 10'x10' roll up door open in my shop and barked for 2 hours straight, made it hard to concentrate. When I talked with my neighbors they said they could put up a privacy fence, which I don't think will deal with high winds and the dogs well.  So I talked with my wife about running a stuccoed concrete block wall on our side.  (Fairly common out here as labour is cheap.) I, of course, would prefer a curtain wall with machicolations, a fighting platform, drum towers, etc but there are some budget constraints...

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