[Regia-NA] Re: BONE, HORN, ANTLER, AND SKELETAL REMAINS

[rmhowe]

PADRUIGTHEUNCLE@aol.com wrote:
> BONE, HORN, ANTLER, AND SKELETAL REMAINS
> 
> There is a website that is linked to Regia Anglia or one of the other 
 > British reenactment society that goes into great detail about working
 > with these materials.

Wow. If you see it again post it please.
I've been collecting most of the books and articles in the
craft/archaeological literature - mostly British and Scandinavian.

 > Just remember to work out of doors wearing
 > a filter mask, goggles, and good tight work gloves because bone dust
 > can do real damage to your eyes and lungs.

Up to this point I've been doing it with hand tools excepting for
slabbing the material out on a bandsaw. The lungs I definitely
agree with. I put wheels on the small bandsaw so we can take it
outside.  I also have a rolling table for anything else. The
dust penetrates everything.

 > You can also get a
 > special box that allows you to work without the goggles or mask
 > because it is sealed with a plexiglas top and has attached gloves.
> 
> Pagan

This sounds a bit like a goldsmith's box for containing all the
sweeps so the metal won't be lost. Or one uses it for carving so
the stuff won't be slung into your face when using a Foredom or
rotary tool like a Dremel. My thought is that the bone dust,
which I have a fair amount of experience messing about with is
going to electrostatically stick to the surface. A simple way
to make a sling guard would be to cut both ends out of a two
liter plastic bottle, wash it, and do your work inside it. Rinse
it when you get to the point you can't see through it.

One could certainly make a box. I used to make special equipment
like this when I worked for the plastics companies doing
fabrication - mostly scientific or large scale plating equipment.
I hadn't even thought about it until you mentioned it.

I do have several fume hoods without gloves, a goldsmith's box also
without gloves, and a sizable sandblaster with gloves. The gloves
are the standard electrician's type and fit into it with large
arm-sized washers through holes in the side. I can't say that I'd
want to use electrician's gloves to hold tiny objects though.

Wood carvers these days who use rotary tools have come up with
several solutions, though bone dust is so fine it might well go
through the smallest filters. One is a small fan you set on the
far side of your table with a filter in front of it and three
pieces of plexiglass - top and two sides - attachable with duct
tape I imagine.

[The problem with reversible rotary tools is that all the usual
accessories are predominately made for the uni-directional ones
with the exception of structured tooth carbide bit and grinding/
sanding attachments. The tiny dental toothed cutters and regular
toothed Dremel type cutters teeth are in the wrong direction.
Diamond bits which are quite cheap really don't care. If these
structured or diamond bits load up you simply burn the load off.]

Another is a camera stand with a small squirrel cage fan on it
with a filter bag - most often used with a hose attached and a
funnel like end fitting. In one case there is a board that attaches
to one of these things you set on your lap to work that has a hole
in the middle with a screen over it.

When I was visiting http://www.leevalley.com/ a few weeks ago I
bought a five micron filter bag to use with a newer dust collector
I bought a while ago. Having had pneumonia that may have been
related to bone dust I want the most proactive elimination system
I could find. I bought an oversized bag because the five micron
bag is six times finer than the usual wood dust bags available.

There is a newer Foredom machine that is reversible. The advantage
to these things is that it throws the dust AWAY from the user -
hopefully into a collection device. A variety of these things may
be had from Woodcarver's Supply or http://www.woodcraft.com/

The cheapest and most practical solution would be to work outside
on a mild breezy day and we all know how rare those are.

However, a cheap solution, assuming you are not air-conditioning
or heating on an extreme day, is to simply get a bathroom vent
fan and place it on a table sideways on the far side of you from
the workpiece and run a hose outside through a piece of plywood
or cardboard, or what-have-you, set into a window opening to the
outside - blocking the gap between the windows with some foam.
These things remove about 90+ feet per minute. Hooding them a bit
would help. The process is used commonly industrially and is refered
to as Down-drafting.

When I get the jewellery area set up in the corner of my downstairs
shop I intend to run a stove vent duct through the brick/block wall,
disassemble a variable speed stove hood and install it into a
metal cabinet with a middle shelf, run the electrical controls to
the outside, and hook various suction hoses from the fume hoods,
dust collector, or soldering fume collector to it with blast gates
in the unoccupied area under the bottom shelf with the newly cut
intake hole below the vent hood's new fan installed in the middle
shelf. The upper part of the cabinet will be vented outside.
All this mess I already have. Rearranging the stuff in the way
is the problem when you're disabled. It isn't small, or light.

Variable speed range hoods are commonly available for $10-20 used
at charities or Habitat for Humanity Stores. Metal cabinets you
sort of have to look for. I intend to have an air inlet through
another pierced wall (upwind) so I won't be sucking the generally
60 degree air out of the workshop which is ground level only in
the back of the house. Having the outlet run to the work area
will keep the better air in while the fresh variably heated or
cooled air will hopefully supply the exhaust to some degree.

For the fume hood for the burnout oven I intend to run an outside
air inlet directly into it and seal the front.

Since I am losing the ability to use hand gravers very much
my next purchase is probably going to be a GRS pneumatically
powered engraver.

Magnus