Angle grinder dust extraction for pointing work

[overlander matt]

Asking for a friend on this one... To date he has been using a grinder to cut out the old cement pointing on his home. I agree with him that the grinder can provide a more surgical approach to tackling repointing work where corners of bricks can easily be lost to methods involving hammers.

The question is whether the dust extraction shrouds on the market are a help for this type of work where seeing the cutting disk is essential to precision cuts. Any experience with these units would be very welcome - thanks.

 

[a twig]

I’ve tried one cheapo attachment which was ok - essentially to see the disc you have to offset yourself to one side to look “around” the shroud which takes a bit of getting used to but it’s not a huge amount more than the normal guard and it probably dealt with around 60% of the dust. Any transparent shrouds are a waste of time as as soon as dust starts going through them they are no longer transparent.

Obviously connecting hoses etc does make the grinder less manoeuvrable so you have to slow down and think a bit more about the cuts you are making, move your feet & body more.

I still used a mask as the cheap one I used didn’t reduce dust enough to make me feel comfortable not wearing one.

I suspect a more upmarket solution would be significantly more effective so not sure how helpful all the above is

 

[paulc]

I still used a mask as the cheap one I used didn’t reduce dust enough to make me feel comfortable not wearing one.

I've used a full face screen in conjunction with an air fed respirator. Needs an oil free compressed air supply and a long hose.
PPE technology has moved along quite a bit since, and you can now get self contained forced air respirator. Good quality ones are not cheap, but a lot cheaper than replacement lungs. Don't know how well they would deal with the ultra-fine dust a diamond blade kicks out.

 

[stuart45]

A mate of mine paid over £1200 for his. He's let me use it, and it's really good, a different world to your standard masks.

 

[s27y]

I have one of these mentioned in the video

Works extremely well and there is two versions of it, either for disc or rake tool.