Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey Ed Welcome.

I'm dreaming up a little L-shaped box for the edge of my Laguna 18 inch Bandsaw with a dustport. When resawing, and especially the last cut when the blade exits the billet as you slice the last piece, it showers the top and floor with all kinds of small sawdust.

With a hose hooked to this cyclone setup, the L shape would catch sawdust along the two edges that matter, behind and to the right of the cut.

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hi Ed, thanks for joining and clarifying.

Please note that writing in all upper case letters(all caps) is considered SHOUTING and is very hard to read for some of us(others don't even notice <g>). My eyes literally hurt trying to read that....

Dang, now I have to buy another thing, but well worth it im my small shop. Most of what needed is for drill press, bandsaw and little sanders. I am like Mario, and quit worrying about dust collection of joiner and have a bag to the port. I like the smaller foot print of this rig.
What about on a small drum sander. Would this work say with Festool or shop vac. I am talking about a bench model or small 16-32?

Construction Notes on this thing:

The ShopVac cost 69.97 at Lowe's

Shop-Vac®
14-Gallon 5.5-Peak HP Wet/Dry Vac

Item #: 236625       Model: 9302411

Mini Cyclone is from Ed at clearvuecyclones.com

$120.00 plus $15 ship...

20 Gallon Metal Trash Can with Lid, ACE hardware

$16.99 on sale for $13.99, cheap.

I used Bath tub caulk and adhesive to seal the layers.

The plywood is 1/2 inch which makes the deck, and the inner disc used to beef up the trash can lid.

Here is a pic of the shopvac and tools, use the wheels on the plywood deck.



http://images.lowes.com/product/026282/026282930248.jpg

I have some pics of building it if anyone is interested.

Oh yeah, you need to sand down a male threaded PVC a bit and it plugs the hose hole by just screw-wedging it into place. I cut the holes with a fly-cutter.

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hi Ed,

Please, don't be a stranger. Many, many of us have been looking at ClearVue, and would love to have you pop in and answer questions. Many of us have champagne taste (ClearVue CV 1400, for our basement ceiling height) and a beer budget (ClearVue Mini CV06 plus a ShopVac.) I sure would love to see something between those extremes - something that could handle a one-man shop with only one dust collection line open at a time, to the drum sander or bandsaw. Maybe a mid-sized system without a motor, so we could scrounge up our own motor...

Anything like that in the works?

Sorry to hijack your thread, Bruce. And now back to Bruce!

Dennis

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Very cool Bruce - it kind of looks like R2D2.

[QUOTE=DennisLeahy] Hi Ed,

Please, don't be a stranger. Many, many of us have been looking at ClearVue, and would love to have you pop in and answer questions. Many of us have champagne taste (ClearVue CV 1400, for our basement ceiling height) and a beer budget (ClearVue Mini CV06 plus a ShopVac.) I sure would love to see something between those extremes - something that could handle a one-man shop with only one dust collection line open at a time, to the drum sander or bandsaw. Maybe a mid-sized system without a motor, so we could scrounge up our own motor...

Anything like that in the works?

Sorry to hijack your thread, Bruce. And now back to Bruce!

Dennis[/QUOTE]

Or something designed to fit in between the existing collection system and the present 1.5 HP, single bag collector unit, instead of the non-functional trashcan cyclone unit.

(i.e., the existing blower is providing the suckage - just need a better separator in front of it)

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Hey Bruce,
Thanks for posting a review of your mini. I am glad to read of another persons excitment with this tool and it helps to establish that I was not amped on caffine when I posted my review a couple weeks ago. Broc is stopping by tonight so maybe he will post a review of my "monster" system too ;) if it doesn't suck him in

_________________
tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

Dennis and Jim,
Ed does offer just the cyclones without the motor and impeller, etc. One is about $400 the other $425 check the site.

While existing lines etc are okay, reading the literature it's obvious that 6 inch lines are what's recommended.

Imagine trying to suck dust through a soda straw, that's extreme, but it demonstrates the idea that there must be an ideal size line for what we want to accomplish.

Same thing with the motor, they demonstrate the need for 3 HP and above on the motor and I forget the impeller size they recommend, but it's in the lit.

While all this is optimum, I think many of our existing dust collector motors and impellers would power a cyclone effectively.

The thing we have to keep in mind is we are after the deadly fine dust, the big stuff is easy to capture and move. The static electricity thing may just work greatly in favor of catching this small microdust?

I'm toying with exhausting outside after the cyclone, and providing incoming air through a window opening on the far side of my shop. It causes a disruption in temperature control and RH stability, but I just don't run the thing all day, so that would all come back to normal fairly quickly. It might not be cost effective though.

If we keep kicking these things around maybe some true safe systems will emerge. We all want health, cost efficiency, and performance.

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

I shouldn't speak for Bill Green, but that's what he does.  It seems very effective for his situation.  His shop is downstairs in his house.  I don't even think he has any particular additional entry point for air.  I know it works.  His place is spotless - not a speck of dust.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

This is a nice little unit, some good thinking went into this project!

Except for the wheels.  I'm a firm believer in putting wheels on just about anything I can in my shop.  What I've found is that big wheels are a must.  Shop Vac wheels are not up to the task of lasting, they're too small, get trapped on small debris on the floor (OMG! debris on the floor!) and generally don't roll well.  Good caster wheels are cheap enough.

I, too, would love to see a cyclone unit that works connected to a regular dust collector.  There's so much to learn about dust collection- and I don't know enough.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

[QUOTE=WaddyT]I shouldn't speak for Bill Green, but that's what he does.  It seems very effective for his situation.  His shop is downstairs in his house.  I don't even think he has any particular additional entry point for air.  I know it works.  His place is spotless - not a speck of dust.
[/QUOTE]

I should expand on that.  Bill does not have a cyclone, but a very large trash can with one of those dust collector lids on it.  He has a huge impeller and motor sitting on top of it, and it is giving him great CFM through full 6" system with a fairly short run.  All of his tools that need dust collection are along 1 wall in his shop.  I can assure you that his leaves no dust in the air. He even gets full pickup using a bench 4x36 sander with the 6" disc sander.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have been thinking about building a lower canister for a 1 1/2 hp collector unit (with a 1 micron top bag) and putting a 2 1/2 blast gate off the side of it so I could periodically empty the lower unit through the mini cyclone and empty only the cyclone canister. This would leave the dust collector always running at empty capacity and with 6" hose coming off of it I think for a small shop it would work very well. If I understand correctly, putting a cyclone between the collector and the tools would lower the CFM by half (?) and lower it past where it would be effective for small dust (assuming 1200 cfm at full strength). I could be mistaken about this, though. Does anyone see why this could be a problem? If not I think it may be the solution I am looking for.

_________________
Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

[QUOTE=WaddyT]I shouldn't speak for Bill Green, but that's what he does.  It seems very effective for his situation.  His shop is downstairs in his house.  I don't even think he has any particular additional entry point for air.  I know it works.  His place is spotless - not a speck of dust.
[/QUOTE]

  That would be Bill Greene.  Sorry Bill! That from a guy whose name is usually spelled with a "p" in it, incorrectly.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Imagine trying to suck dust through a soda straw, that's extreme, but
it demonstrates the idea that there must be an ideal size line for what
we want to accomplish.

But at the same time, going too large on the ducting, relative to your system's power, kills the velocity, ad therefor kills the system.

It all has to be thought of as a unit.

[QUOTE=grumpy] Mitch,  disconnected the dust collection at my jointer a few years ago, and I should have done so sooner. Much sooner. I simply placed a small box at the chute and let it fill. Jointer chips are large and heavy enough that they don't go all airborne on us, and instead of needlessly filling up my dust collector bags, they fill the little box, which I spread on the lawn or across the road, to become mulch.<div style=": ; width: 28px; height: 28px; : 1000; display: none;">

_________________
http://www.presnallguitars.com

[QUOTE=WaddyT]
[QUOTE=WaddyT]I shouldn't speak for Bill Green, but that's what he does.  It seems very effective for his situation.  His shop is downstairs in his house.  I don't even think he has any particular additional entry point for air.  I know it works.  His place is spotless - not a speck of dust.
[/QUOTE]I should expand on that.  Bill does not have a cyclone, but a very large trash can with one of those dust collector lids on it.  He has a huge impeller and motor sitting on top of it, and it is giving him great CFM through full 6" system with a fairly short run.  All of his tools that need dust collection are along 1 wall in his shop.  I can assure you that his leaves no dust in the air. He even gets full pickup using a bench 4x36 sander with the 6" disc sander.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Waddy, you've described it perfectly. I do indeed have my big collector exhaust run to the outside. For what it's worth, my shop is essentially 16 x 14. And if the collector runs for 30 minutes (which it very rarely does), it'll lower my humidity only about 3 - 4 percent. And because my shop is so small, my humidifier catches that back up in just a few minutes. So it's very efficient for me. How it would work in a big shop I have no idea. But because of my wife's severe asthma/allergies, having a bag system wasn't an option for me. In fact, based on what I've seen on this, and other, threads, I'm probably going to go the cyclone route for my shopvacs also. The absence of dust, in my situation, is a requirement, not a convenience. For just my tiny shop, I have the big collector, a Festool CT-22/hepa setup for work above my primary bench (awesome, by the way), 2 shop vacs, and a Jet Air Filtration system. Overkill for a shop that small? Probably. But my wife can come down to the shop to visit with me, and she cannot smell the belt sander, in use, while standing right beside it. Thanks again Waddy.

_________________
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

That's cool, Bruce.  I suppose you could use a 10 Gal or 8 Gal Shop Vac too, and maybe not be quite so top heavy.  Or, are they weaker in the suction category?

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Bruce - Thanks for sharing!

_________________
Steve Walden
Aspiring Builder,
Bartlesville, OK

TAS starting to kick in here. I'm not happy with either my standalone shop vac, or my 1.5 HP bag system (I do have 5" PVC pipe runs around the shop - not so bad) I'm nowhere near dust free yet.

Mario - you lucked out having a jointer that throws out its chips well enough to not need a collection system. Mine starts to clog if there isn't some suction on it. But you are right, it's basically a dust free device.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu