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Reply to: rcreamer14: I see a lot of sinks and 36" looks right to me. If you've got the countertop real estate, get the largest sink you can. C-Tech makes great 16 gauge sinks. Have your fabricator strap your sink in place with a Hercules Universal Sink Harness (Braxton Bragg) or a Sink Strap or two from Regent Stone Products. Not only will you get a more desirable thinner front rail because you don't need room for clips, changing the sink went from a 12-impossible-to-get-at-clips job to one or two easily accessible nuts. Straps don't rust away; clips do.

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Reply to: It's not how much dust you collect , which dust you collect is most important. The stuff you can't see unless light passes through it at the right angle is what will make you sick. A powerful vac may very well blow more fine dust out the exhust and into the air than letting everything fall to the floor. You need a cyclone to catch the majority of big stuff that overwhelms and clogs filters. On the exhust of vac or collector,you need a 5 micron or better felt bag filter along with an overhead 1 micron recirculating filteration system. Without an overhead,2 or 3 micron is aproprate on exhust. If cost prevents aquiring the right equipment,build it your self rather than give up woodworking. A seldom recconized benifit of overhead is to use collector and overhead while sanding the project then turn collector off and leave overhead on while you are away on break,material run,lunch and over night (for long absences,a simple timer is reccomended). That has you exposed briefly while sanding then in clean air for assembly and painting later. If there is enough intrest,we could brain storm home made dust control ideas.

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Reply to: Some random thoughts... There are HEPA shop vacs. Fein and Festool come to mind but they're pretty expensive. Gore's CleanStream filters work pretty darn well. Another idea might be to run a hose from the output of your shop vac to the outside. Any dust that gets past the filter exits from the building. Somebody makes a dust collection system for hand drywall sanding that uses a 5 gallon bucket of water between the sander and the vac. The hose could probably be modified to work with power tools as well. I've used it to sand drywall and it works very well. The design sander itself probably makes a big difference as well. I used a Festool 1/4 sheet orbital that had amazing dust collection. When connected to my old Shop Vac, the suction was so great that the tool was almost stuck to the work surface. I had to modify the hose I was using so I could let a little air in so that I could move the sander around. That never happened with my Porter-Cable sanders. Whenever possible I sand with a vac. I think the sanding goes faster and the paper lasts longer because you're getting the dust out of the way. If memory serves, the P designation is for oily particulates.

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Reply to: Hi igloo, As a woman who started out not knowing pliers from a wrench, and has since done almost everything in our whole-house remodel, I'll give you my perspective. I think I remember you saying in the past that you're a small person? Even if not, these tools are made for men. They're heavy -- I've given myself wrist/thumb problems from using my drill a lot because of the torque when it stops. So check out any hand held tools for a while to make sure they're very manageable for you. Next, it doesn't seem to me that you need a table saw. That opens a whole can of worms: tools like TSs, jointers, planers, etc, need a very good dust collection system, and that gets complicated and controversial. It's the fine dust, the dust you can't even see, that is harmful to your lungs. You don't actually have to worry as much about the typical sawdust you generate, the stuff you're very aware of, because you kick it out of your lungs when you breathe. The fine stuff lodges in them. Given that, if you start wanting to build cabinets and/or furniture, you will need a TS, and I definitely recommend buying a cabinet saw (as opposed to a contractor's saw) that costs at least $2300 or so. The Sawstop is a very good saw, from what I've read. But you're paying $1000 extra for the stop feature. Losing fingers happens often enough to seasoned woodworkers, but danger from kickback is a lot more common, and it can't stop that. For $1K less you can get others of a similar quality (I have and like the Powermatic 2000.) The cheaper ones (contractor's saws) are inaccurate in any number of ways for cabinetmaking. I bought an $88 wet saw from HD a few years ago. I installed tile on three smallish rooms and it worked like a charm. Much better to buy than rent 'cuz they're not expensive, and you can take your time with them. I'm impressed by what I've seen of Festools, but I've worked with their vacuum and a Fein Turbo III vacuum, and I prefer the latter. (I encouraged my boss to buy the Festool vac and now I wish I hadn't, it's unwieldy.) The Fein, a little more expensive, with a HEPA filter, moves around easily and is less clunky. And its suction (see stats on website) is at least as good as on the Festool. You'd have to check out whether its hose will hook up to Festool tools. If you're doing only trim work, you don't need to worry about most of these things. I'd start with just the tools that are needed. If you find you need more, you can buy as you go. Buying tools never stops. Even tho I've got an 8" jointer, cabinet saw, etc, in my basement, that work very well for my household needs (building cabinets) they look like toys compared to the ones my boss uses. So spend your money selectively and try to resist buying all kinds of things you won't use much! Sombreuil said a very true thing: Great work can be done with a limited number and quality of tools, but it takes longer and requires more experience. Don't expect things like miter saws to work right out-of-the-box. They need to be tweaked and tuned. And for a beginner this will be even more potentially frustrating, but it is a wonderful way to learn. I'm far from a pro but I've found out that it takes a lot of skill to do good work! Crown moldings are among the most frustrating things I've ever done, because no angle in your house is 90 degrees. Best of luck and I hope you enjoy the work!

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Reply to: In the future, contain the dust to the work area, and dry-vac with a good shop-vac and a fine particle filter (the walls, too). As for the slurry that seems to have been smeared everywhere, I'd probably keep wiping it with damp cloths, mop, etc. until it's clean. While we're at it, find out which floor cleaners are proper for your wood floor. My flooring guy says "oil soap" is not one of them, although it's sold for that purpose. Good luck.

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Reply to: "It's just really hard to curtain off open concept." Containing dust in a residential remodel is not hard. We do demolition and construction in computer server rooms, and open floor plan office spaces, as well as ordinary homes. Dust containment is the top priority of the site preparation activies. If you create negative pressure inside the containment, an open floor plan is no challenge. Negative pressure is easy to achieve with the use of a HEPA vac. My whole crew has been trained for asbestos work. Industrial hygiene is not rocket science. It's very basic common sense. Dust will stay INSIDE the containment if you hook up a hepa vac hose to the inside of the space, and place the vacuum itself outside the containment. This creates negative pressure. Each time someone passes through the opening, fresh air is drawn inside and the dust gets pulled back in. If the workers will be entering and leaving the containment area frequently, it's prudent to set up a double entry. The intermediate space should be large enough for workers and materials to pass through, so the outer containment can be closed before the inner containment is opened. In an occupied building, construction dust is not acceptable. I would lose my job if my crew did not contain their dust. When I go into a regular home to do some dusty work, the customer is totally impressed by how well we contain our dust. 2 hours of preparation results in 1 hour of clean up. Poor preparation results in a contaminated mess. Even a professional restoration cleaning crew is not going to get 100% of the dust. Dust getting into the pores of a hardwood floor is a sign of inexperience. How long does it take to tape down red rosin paper and lay drops? Or maybe my experience in restoration and maintenance has beaten the concept of dust control so far down into my skull, It's just an instinct at this point. Hopefully you guys find this information helpful. I guarantee the HEPA vac method for creating negative pressure inside the containment really works!

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Reply to: Cover your HVAC returns with light guage sheet metal and screw them down and have supplemental heat for the drywall crew. You probably should have addressed who pays/supplies for the cost of heating beforehand though. If you don't cover your returns they will get full of dust and the occasional pop can in them not to mention small pieces of drywall. My HVAC installed covered them for me and I didn't even want the HVAC running until the drywallers were done..of course this was in July though but even in December I would have brought in supplemental heat before I ran the HVAC

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