Morning…
I’m stepping up my knife making and will need a good dust mask. Unfortunately none of the local shops have any fit testing ones, plus with a beard the bog standard ones don’t work. Short of spending a couple of hundred on a full face breather what does the hive mind suggest?
Cheers

if you want it to work – a shave.

Esme…. Perfect!!! Trail rat…. If I could and not look like I’ve been through a meat grinder I would!

xtreme knife making ?

You could get an airhood version of the airsuit trailrat has posted above.
We use both at work.
Full beard = no face fit.

Look at what the guy in Great big giant swords on discovery uses 🙂 has some sort of contraption with mouthpiece and pipes leading to filters sat behind his neck. In fairness it looks like he welded it together himself.

Looks like it’ll have to be the visor type with positive air pressure then. Bugger.

daftvader – Member
Looks like it’ll have to be the visor type with positive air pressure then. Bugger.

I would have presumed you already owned something appropriate

Be patient and watch for something coming up on ebay – I bought a welding version for a a job that involved 200m of seam welding – saved about £400 waiting for something new and un-used coming up at auction.

Theres pluses and minuses with the forced air ones – the head-mounted blowers/filters are tiring to wear. – The belt mounted ones are more comfortable but more of a faff to get on and off – you need to organise your day into batches of work that require the respirator otherwise its too annoying and you just work without it. Also if you have a little windy-pops the fan sucks it up and blows it straight in your face.

Perhaps look at good dust extraction instead – maybe rig up something like a down-draft table to work over. Don’t get your beard sucked into the table though.

Must have a twin somewhere. But that helmet gets a little stuffy in the summer 😆 as it is I went to wickes for some bits and tried their own brand one and it fits extremely well. So until I have some spare cash I’ll give this a go. Cheers for the replies.

LIKK

You might find my my latest experiment of interest. HSS blade blended with stainless steel.

Irish Mike from big giant swords explains his beard compatible mask. Also there’s a quick clip of the commercially available version.
[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-HDDLN5wSKQ[/video]

Very nice Griffiths is that normally welded or forge welded? Looks good. Did you acid bath it for contrast or just go for the polished look straight away? I’ve got a few designs I will be making over the next few weeks, 2 bushcraft /hunting knives and a couple of neck knives. In the process of rebuilding my forge too so I can heat treat properly.

Whole story documented here. LINK

Nice write up…. Hopefully will have something similar here when I’ve finished a couple of my designs off. I’m using O1 steel as it’s easy to get hold of and great for the knives I will be making. Would like to do a couple of filleting knives in stainless but that’ll have to wait a while.

Thanks daftvader, i would like to try a RW34 stainless fillet knife sometime but not so easy to whip one up, need a pre treated blank or send it away for liquid nitrogen treatment. Nothing wrong with O1 carbon steel, Post up yours when you get it finished.

In fact most the stuff i use is high carbon scrap, leaf spring and the like- such as here: LINK

cant find scrap round here for love nor money (except for the vastly overpriced scrapyards!) ive been messing with knives for years, but only in the last couple of years rally got into making and handling. the last one was a rather fine enzo i did in english walnut with brass bolts and liners [/url]DSC_0106 by daftvader77, on Flickr[/img]

and the last one i made was a couple of years ago (had no spare time of late!) made out of bronze with an antler handle. not the best pic in the world! [/url]Untitled by daftvader77, on Flickr[/img]

Very nice job daftvader.

thanks. the ones in the pipeline will have basic wood (probably ash as i have loads of it lying around) scales as they are all full tang. of the 2 neck knife designs only one will have mini scales the other will be a bare blade. looking forward to starting.

Be good to see a pic when you get them done. Good contrasting light dark grain with ash.