Vacuums, brushes, sticky rollers, baskets, fans...?

[Bimini15 0]

How do you guys manage to keep your benches clean of clippings and all other kinds of fly tying trash?

I wonder if someone has a better solution. Maybe I am just messier than most, but putting the trash can near the bench and using a sticky roller is not really doing much.

Thanks.

[skeet3t 0]

Put all the tying stuff away and vacuum the table and floor.

[Philly 0]

I probably have got you beat on being messy.  This is a picture of my tying area in one of it's more orderly moments.

I have a trash bag stapled to my desk.  That takes care of most of the trash I produce when I'm tying.   There's a sticky roller next to my thread.  I use the roller mainly to clean my pants and shirt of any debris that I've gather while tying.  When I'm cleaning the desk top, I pull a sheet off the roller, fold it and use it to pick up the bits and pieces I can't get when I use it in the roller mode.  I sweep the floor with a magnet, probably not often enough, to pick up dropped hooks and other metal pieces.  I still find hooks in my bathroom, on the stairs to the first floor and living room rug.  I don't vacuum the tying area but do sweep it with a broom, and carefully exam the the dust pan to see if I swept up anything useful.   The trash can is a couple of feet away from my desk.  When the trash bag on my desk get's full, I just dump it into the trash can and replace it with a new one.  

[mikechell 0]

I cut a hole in the top of my bench.

I made sliders for a plastic trash can, so once the bag is somewhat full, I can pull the whole can out to get to the trash bag.

When not in use ...  It's got a lid.

 

[flytire 0]

 

 

 

 

[DFoster 0]

My desk is in a corner of my wife's office, some of her customers are in the medical device and high tech industries.  Feather fluff, fibers and hairs  included with formal letters and samples would probably leave a bad impression.  So to that end I keep my tying area very clean and neat.  I have a small hat box that I got at a flea market.  When possible I do my cutting over it.  It has a lid and is lined with velvet and that does a really good job at holding onto small fibers.  The hand vac gets used at the end of every session. 

 

[jamieofthenorth 0]

I have an old school Dust Devil that I keep beside my desk, but it doesn't see much use. I just wipe off my desk when I'm done tying. The additional weekly vacuuming of the house in general takes care of any scraps that have fallen on the floor that I hadn't picked up already. 

[knotjoe 0]

Little plastic garbage can fitted to the desk under the main vise.  Small shop vac from Menard’s takes care of the rest.  You can buy the mini’s most anywhere these days under some brand name.

Some of you are brave with those handheld compact vacs, I tried one years ago and made a horrible mess out of my tying room.  They’ve got some serious suction power, but the backdraft out of the rear is like a tornado at the tying desk.  Tilt it the wrong way and the feathers fly!  Funny in retrospect, but at the time I was seriously PO’d.

I lack much vacuuming discipline and thus opt for a few feet of separation between the sucky end and the motor housing itself.  As long as the windy end is far enough outside of the project area I do alright with things.

[Bimini15 0]

There has to be a way to put together your portable vacuum with Mike Chells desktop trash port.
I can imagine a sink drain, flush with the desk and connected to the hose under the desk... Hmmm...

[Poopdeck 0]

Must just be me but i don't find the process of tying a fly that messy. Any trimming or cutting I usually do over a can that sits under my vise and its typically very minimal. The can isn't even there full time since must of my cutting is with material that's between my fingers. The only exception is spinning deer hair which I don't do very often but even that isn't to bad for me. 

When I'm done tying it might take me a minute to clean up what missed the can which is next to nothing. No special cleaning gear/set up required. 

[jcozzz 0]

I have my own tying room and i am the only person that uses it.Lots of storage and rod racks bows guns treasures and trinkits..I clean it when i feel like it which isn't often.I tie on a big old roll top so i can just close it so stuff doesn't get far.My problem is not putting away my carefully organized materials that i finally labeled after 20 years.My other problem is tying 1 pattern then deciding i need it in 3 sizes and 5 colors.It really becomes mad scientist kind of stuff at times.But it sure is a lot of fun.Then comes spring,time to fish.After a few outings i decide that half the flies i tied are crap and start making adjustments or i observe the fish have changed their behavior since last year and are on to me and i need a completely different line up of flies.

[Guest]

My problem is dropping/ launching something because I sit at the bench and not over it. Vice is clamped to table edge. It usually goes in the trash can underneath or somewhere.   Then gotta find it and have to check the trash can.  Been putting white cloth over it.  If I ever build another desk/table it’s gonna have a U shaped indention so I’m well over it and it goes around both sides of my body.  You guys that have desks where you get under and pedistal vice slid over don’t have that priblem as bad.    So unless It flies away it can only hit the desk and not the floor...I see others are up to the desk and not under it and clamped to table...

[Moshup 0]

@DFoster Handsome vise setup !

[mikechell 0]

I don't remember which member it was, Bimini, but one of the regulars has a vacuum system for the tying desk.  Vacuum under the desk, an open port near the back, that anything can be swept into, but just far enough away that errant dropped materials don't disappear.

 

[Bimini15 0]

1 minute ago, mikechell said:

I don't remember which member it was, Bimini, but one of the regulars has a vacuum system for the tying desk.  Vacuum under the desk, an open port near the back, that anything can be swept into, but just far enough away that errant dropped materials don't disappear.

 

I kinda sorta remember that, made with pvc pipe, perhaps? I might be mixing hobbies and thinking of someone else’s table saw dust collection.