Location, location, location!

Hello, We produce parts in the trucking industry and one of our products are the sidestep to get into the cab. This is a tooled part (blank die) and with this process it leaves a burr. The process we use is deburring with 120 grit sand paper on a belt sander. Now because this is a part that is visible to the end customer, we cannot put the part through our edging machine to remove the burrs. The problem is where they have this station set up it is spreading aluminum dust all over our shop and inside some of the machines. What are some suggestions that we can look into to have this segregated to an area that it will not spread dust to the machines.

P.S. I understand nobody can physically see where we have the station or our facility layout. Just trying to get ideas on other points of view. Thanks.

 

Enclose it somehow and use a dust collection system. We have a separate grinding room to keep dust contained. Each grinder connected to our Torit system. Could you add water to the process to help keep the dust down?

 

No, water cannot be added due to each part is deburred by hand. I had suggested before for them to close this station off but had no luck. Since I am doing 5S though, this might help in convincing them to build a small area designated to this process, since the dust is affecting the performance of the surrounding machinery (only proving to Top management after doing 5S and documenting before/after photos the effects it has on machinery).

 

Have you tried aluminum magnets?

 

No, I haven't looked into those. I am not sure if they will work for this station but I will definitely research this.

 

Maybe deburr with a pneumatic grinder instead of a belt sander, and use water mist.

 

At first I thought this was a joke. I had never heard of such a thing. Learned something new today.

 

It was meant as a joke. If it's real, it's news to me too.

 

Yea I realized that afterwards. It's like hunting for blinker fluid.

 

Well....Al is probably not magnetic enough to be able to attract its grinding dust with a practical magnet, but it is paramagnetic and interacts weakly with strong magnets. https://terpconnect.umd.edu/~wbreslyn/magnets/is-aluminium-magnetic.html