NZGBA – New Zealand Glass Bead Artists

I hope anyone making beads knows how crucially important good ventilation is!  Lisa has asked me to give some info about mine and I’m happy to share how I set up my ventilation, it was my main priority/challenge getting started, just a little disclaimer though that while i did a lot of research and put my safety very highly there is a lot of debate and differing opinions out there and i just chose what I feel comfortable with for myself… everyone’s health is their own responsibility!
I got a lot of info from the LE forum particularly about the merits of ‘funnel vs hood’ type ventilation, especially this bit http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=71995&highlight=funnel+hood . My partner Ben has worked with boro and actual ‘fuming’ a lot in the past and he prefers a hood type set up but personally for what I do, soft glass and a little bit of silver, I prefer the idea of a funnel directly in front of the torch flame, I feel as though all the fumes are being sucked well away from me and the incense smoke test appears to support that.
After reading a lot I had a mental picture of what I wanted but I also worked with what I had… (good ol kiwi no. 8 philosophy)…  the ventilation fan I used is a centrifugal… the sticker on it says securimax, I scored it from Ben because it wasn’t strong enough for him and he got a better one.  It sticks out the garage window through a piece of plastic tube, glass replaced with metal (from handy old dryer!) with a hole cut in it, and on the inside a layer of plyboard

the intake side has flexible ducting from the hydroponic store which was a bit delicate creating the S shape and hence the duct tape covering splits in a  few places

 and the actual ‘funnel’ was an old industrial lamp shade which flew off the back of the truck on the way home and got slightly dented! (another idea I saw was a metal bucket with the bottom cut out)

(don’t look at the messy bench!!)

Its not ‘pretty’ but it works for me. From what i’ve read the bigger that initial funnel is the better, the closest possible distance to the window or hole-in-wall is desirable, the outside exhaust needs to be a decent distance from a fresh air source, avoid 90 degree turns in the ducting, and then there’s a whole lot of complicated calculations about the size of the room and cfm’s (cubic feet per minute) which in NZ tranlates to l/s (litres per second) arrghhh!! of fan capacity. My workshop being in the corner of a double garage I ignored some of that as I don’t expect to replace all the air in the garage, but I believe my fan is strong enough and I make sure to have a source of clean air coming in, ie open the double garage door a bit.
Hope that all makes sense and is of some help:)