Pipe options for DC

[r.palmer]

Got a HF DC, ordering a Wynn conversion with poly felt canister kit today, trying to finish a shop in the swamp, mildew and dust are like little horses and riders, or tiny floating loaves of sour dough bread in my opinon, in damp areas. I have been a little driven crazy by the DC talk, and going to Bill Pentz's site, and the 4 or 5 or 6 inch pipe questions, tryiing to get a HF unit to do an optimum job when in reality, its going to be as OK as I can manage. I admire the engineers on the site, and listen.

As artists, my wife and I have had issues with very toxic materials for years, from mineral pigment dusts, to sanding grounds, to fixatives, and now I work with pure suspensions of pigments in water, mixing with waterbase binders, to get maximum color, and then fix it with homemade air brushed acrylic fixatives sprayed with a HF compressor and airbrush. I had to stop using the commercial stuff. Which can be deadly, and cause liver and bone marrow damage. Molding for frames, is even worse on dust, and boat and paddle making, with the added danger of fillers as nasty as fumed silica.

Durham's Rock Hard, is a nice epoxy filler by the way, if you add a bit of cabosil, to keep it from running, its a nice glue that can be colored with kids dry tempera paints, which are just talc and pigments. Darn, off focus here....


The DC issue, was more important to me than the new saw, its walking beam base and the new Shark Guard. Both of us have to use the space. Locating the DC outside? Use 5" to increase the suck? Return air to keep air condioning in the shop. You would have to buy at least, the paper filter Wynn canister for the return air, adding 75 bucks. a 55 buck 10 ft. section of hose, So you have two Wynn filters, large holes in the wall, a structure to build outside, a run of hose, then the extra work on custom plenums because the 5" has no fittings, or mix and match HVAC, and go nuts. Then get the HF hose kit? Or buy more good hose at 5" from Wynn?

Here are some local prices on pipe, Graybar has 10' by 5" schedule 40, and sweeps only as fittings. 24 bucks in Tampa, for a 10 ft section, sweeps are the only connectors made for the 5". the hose could be much easier.

The return for the extra work would be 5" might get you a chip collector that works, and some better performance, but it gets more complex as a hook up. If its put outside, it gets even more complex.

The inside the shop option is best as far as I can figure, six inch SD pipe here was cheaper in a 20ft length, 42 bucks for 20 ft. Of course, 4 inch is under ten bucks a 10 ft section at Lowes. If you want larger pipe, it just seems the way to go. At least, you can drop down to 4 and get fittings.

Sorry about this long blog, or this possibly stupid idea.

I wonder about going off a round of MDF with a plenum, directly to two 4 inch PVC pipes, running side by side down the center of the shop, and use one drop off each, two per tool, since thats the minimum that most tools need. Keep the air flow up, and it makes me wonder if a chip collector could work with 4" dual pipe inlets and outlets. If one was wanting to use 4" and had just, a bandsaw a BT3, shark and wants a good homemade a vac table. The CFM ought to reach near 6 inch level, but the horizontal runs would stay clean? Sanding boat bottoms, is mean, hanging some sweep like hoods that could be moved, might really be nice but max airflow for that kind of sanding
is critical with the fillers in the epoxy.

Dual exhaust 4", Insane?

I have a long narrow shop, 25 ft by 11. Use bench tools, and table saw, bandsaw, router in BT. Nasty glues. Pull it up fast, and into the DC, or would the two fours make for some issues at the DC? I will use no other heavy tools, but a vac table is critical, plus the ability to move suck around a boat in progress.

Need tin foil for my cowboy hat to keep Bill Pentz voices out of my head. maybe too late.

thanks.

[LCHIEN]

I have often thought that dual 4" pipes might be better than a single 6"; about the same cross section for flow and velocity and yet the height, profile, cost, convenience and availability might be better for home use.

I've also been thinking that dual 4" hoses or piping to a centrally-located plenum box would be good. Then put a series of blast gates (or incorporate them into the box) on the box, and have combinations of 2.5 and 4" hoses going to the various machines as needed.

[r.palmer]

Loring:

I was thinking about the connection to the DC, for a plenum box hookup, just to get smooth air flow in, but one big one for the saw makes perfect sense! The 4 inch is closer to the overhead too. I am leaning toward trying it. I have the hardware, it may take weeks to get close to finishing it. I do not want hose all over the narrow
shop floor to stumble on. Perhaps there is a way to keep it near the shop center, on a rolling plenum box, hung like a cable car. I looked up one of your posts where you discussed two 4's, it is a bit clearer after reading all the posts, and I just do not see the advantage of a big horizontal run of six. Not being sure of about the HF and heavy, sticky, epoxy coated dust. One thing, PVC is better for that than metal. This is real nasty dust that might clump and hit the fan hard.

When working on a boat, and ripping stock out the door, It might makes sense to have your universal plenum box on a little tracked car, that rolls down the center line of the shop, just in reach and over head that you hook up to blast gate connect stubs using rubber quick connects. Might make short stubs of hose, that hinge down and up and stick up with magnets, with blast gates on them. So you could reach that just over head plenum box to hook it up, then get lots of dust hood options over a long canoe to be sanded. If the box moved overhead, had a clear plastic bottom, one could see how it was working, on a long object, you have to work up and down the piece, so why not have a DC system that gets you up and down the one long overhead run without hose on the floor, when you just have enough space to walk. Maybe three drop options, ends and middle. The BT3 has to stay on one end once you start a boat in a long narrow shop, the band saw needs less footprint and can rip down a side path, then be rolled back. The rest is hand tools, and more sanding than anyone should ever do, so why not have a rolling dust hood on the same track, an extra HF kit, you could reach all areas of a boat with custon sanding collection if the hood moved up and down.

Roll the box, to the tool, or the box moves over a long canoe.

The one issue, the talk about not being able to do a chip seperator, on a six inch run. If one staggered the inlet and outlet ports of the chip separators two 4" tubes, played with some baffles, perhaps one could make one? A can? Or just a taller can? Or a box with baffles to slow the air down from each outlet without restricting the flow too much?

I got to try the two fours and the traveling Plenum box! Some castors on a U shaped cleat, box under it, castors run on a girder,
out of ply screwed to the overhead.

Trying for a plan, waiting on the Wynn stuff.


thanks.

[LCHIEN]

If you worked a plenum box right, it could serve as a chip separator.
Thus usual method for such a separator is to make the plenum wide so the cross section is large compared to the cross section of the hose/pipe.
Then the velocity slows enough to drop out the bigger particles.
It helsp to have a u-turn around a baffle with a catcher bin below the bottom of the U, that's where the big, heavy particles will fall out.

At least,that's the theory I've read.

[r.palmer]

I am making a mockery of the KISS principle

Drawings with a trolley plenum box, off dual pipes, got too complex. Its just that memory of rolling a shop vac down the cluttered narrow aisle next to very little left over floor space, tripping over hose, stepping over the vac, cursing, and mashing the epoxy coated dust to my boots till I walked funny, that made me think of center line overhead dust collection, for working on a long narrow boat. Free hand power sanding is never nice or clean on big objects. Boat work in a garage is a very toxic thing. Little talk of DC issues on home boat buiding sites. I hope to do it cleaner so I can be of use to others.

I will just use simple drops on the center and bitter ends of the run, when big tools get stuck there on the corners, during a long build. so its pretty normal, except for the dual pipes and a disaster preventer plenum box, on the wall near the DC, just to catch the screw or bad bit of Okume ply with glass cloth on it, if I can figure that out in process.

I still think, a dual 4" might move that sanding dust better, the shop gets hot when I leave it, for weeks at a time, and amine blush sanded off is tacky dust from ****.

I am not sure a six might not work just as well. Its a proven concept, so this feels a little 'bleeding edge'.

Too much imagination, not enough reality check. Might as well be
trying to teach a Bob Cat to put meat in a blender. Feel like I
lost the simple plan trying to re invent the wheel. Old Bob Cat
says, "I am a blender boy, just push my on button and see evolution
at work".

Dual pipes, double trouble, or better flow? Going to see.

[Derrick]

I would really like to see pics of your set-up when finished. We have the same floor plan basically. I really wanted to use the dual pipe plenum box idea but I only have around 7' usable ceiling area. My shop doubles as a retired garage and I have to work around the overhead door tracks. Being over 6' tall myself didn't leave much room for my noggin and the plenum box. I,m all for better suck, though.

[pierhogunn]

talk to an HVAC guy, they could probably help out with the plenum thingy, and hey, they may have access to some less-expensive, but just as good working stuff you can use to route the air around the shop

and most of the good ones, enjoy a good challenge from just outside their everyday work

Dan

[r.palmer]

Yes Derrick, long narrow shops, have nice options for ripping and assembling, if the tools roll to the edges, and you leave floor space clear, over head garage doors....Fine for cars.

I have old fashioned gate style garage doors I hand built with wood, foam and epoxy core out of Meranti luan underlayment, so when open they provide some protection under an awning, like swinging partition walls. That way I got rid of the garage door rails. I use four heavy cane bolts for Cane season, but the door works well, and I can open half of it at a time. It would be 'stupidity by truck' to get in there with a straight face. My overhead is 8ft 5", which is a plus. Lets me store ply on end, but a big shed is a good addition to a shop. Some of it, can go in the shed. With 7ft, you do not want to drop much at all down the centerline.

The one BIG mistake I made was not planning for DC up front, I put in a wall mount ventilating fan, a wall air unit, and had the old shop vac. Doors, an awning. I have worked outside for periods of my life under sheds, or in large shops with poor DC design or NONE. Most of the DC in those spaces was dead, clogged, and not working, some had massive fans and doors for positive suck the old fashioned way as a back up, and lots of brooms. And a lot of coughing.

I developed a bad attitude about big DC. I had never seen one work for long without a lot of pain. I was in denial, it just seemed like you worked, sucked a handful of water up your nose, snorted like a wart hog and got on with it. As a result, at 58, I have lost most of my sense of smell.

I think the kind of work intended, size, scale, and toxicity of materials is important when thinking DC. What is the most time consuming toxic activity you will do. How big is the work piece, where will sanding take place, and what kind of dust is produced.

The overhead trolley car, I saw one once, had the DC built in the car, a bag unit on a rail, it ran down a wall, where the main DC did not reach, leaking dust like a dying bagpipe. It was shop made, it had suck, but it was nasty, the filter was not a fine dust one. It was not perfected, and at that time, filter bags were voodoo doo doo
spreaders. Some still do it.

Trolley got complex, when I thought, of all the hookups off a two tube system, it just was....better as a cartoon. I still like it as a cartoon, but the hanging hoses, the head whanging, but if it were shaped like a halloween skull, or a happy wart hog. Oh, my, hose on the wart hogs nose, going into a Shark Guard, it makes me high.

If you have one drop in dead center of your space, lots of things can be rigged for sanding a large surface with ten ft of hose, one 5" Wynn hose looked nice, but does 2 4's give two fast sucking drops that can be placed opposite one another while I sand in the middle, between lay up's or epoxy coats. I think it might save me some pain on large flat panels if I play with some sanding toys to use in process. The idea of it picking up the worst dust I sand, is driving the issue. How sticky it can get, and PVC is pretty slick, and I might swab mine with some mold release wax before I put it up.

Could the old bagpipe on a rail work, if it was a one HP HF unit with a better filter rig, and a bag? it goes down track right along the boat hooked up to the sander? No hose in the way, but it is limited in suck, my overhead is still a bit too low, It would be in the way somewhere. Again, it tweaks the imagination but its not a 10 ft overhead.

The dual tube has limits, think where its flat to the wall, and one pipe has to overlap the other...NSF 4 may be cheap, but that is not the issue, it depends...

If I planed to work with a big planer and jointer I think no matter what the suck of a 4" some of it might choke. I still think a six inch run down the back wall, to plenum box connections, fixed ones with varied blast gates connectors for different tools is the way to go if you plan to have lots of heavy tools and up grade to a larger DC.

I know what I will make in the shop, so I stay focused on the process of buiding a long narrow boat hull. With strips or tack and tape, its the sanding and fumes, its not big boat building or a large production tool set up.

I use a Patten 14" three speed, rubber mounted in a box, with a lid and hinged filter, using a 16" automatic vent. I can get three speeds and just enough suck with the air on, to control the fumes and maintain a stable temperature for epoxy, so I can have longer or shorter work times and not poison myself. Crack a window, and use low VOC one to one resin, or one to two. In a small shop, using a one to four or five resin with no mechanical ventilation, will kill brain cells, faster than a case of beer, thats for sure...Open garge doors, rig a big fan, but then it gets so hot, or cold you cannot control the work time with when laying down glass cloth.

With seven ft, you want to stay against one wall, you can run hose, that overhead is low, and with lights, it gets tough to carry ply or move things. Not having ideal spaces, makes for interesting puzzles. You will hate it if you cannot keep as much clear overhead as possible. Play planning is important, but a lot of guys on this site, have done it where it works, they KNOW home shop DC, I just have a narrow use issue that is driving me to keep the floor clear of hoses and sand better. Its driving some thinking, and play. Look
at some threads by Bolson, Leeway Workshop, all the HF DC threads.

I am still open.



out

[Derrick]

Thank you for the input..Didn't mean to hijack the thread. I did use the 4" main line down one wall tucked into the rafters. I am just trying to get the most bang for the buck. My shop is attached to the house and my wife has chronic asthma. Dust collection is a higher priority in my abode than wood working. It is either figure this out or give it up. I do have an industrial Dayton 30" fan. I believe it is 4700+ cfm. However, the only airflow comes thru the open garage doors. I think the dust gets sucked back in almost as fast as I blow it out,not to mention the humidity and the fact that my ears start popping. I was also thinking of possibly building a rectangular plenum that fits inside the rafters with a 6" main line with 3 or four inline ports for the drops. I am also considering installing a filter bag on the fan. I have access to 1.5" thick tightly woven polyethylene sheets (Resilium) that I can make a bagpipe the size of a Lincoln Mercury from. Overkill? Probably.. but heh, this is fun! I only hope I enjoy woodworking as much as shop building when I have no more shop to build. Thanks again.

[r.palmer]

I hear you, dust is serious for your family. Two fours are maybe a 5 plus but with the extra resistance of more pipe its something of a mystery. if you have a four, why not try it? Of course, I am not running yet until a week after I get that Wynn, I hope this next week it will arrive. I can be a test rat for the system.

It seems like you need to put the filters on the fan, and build an air cleaner. 5% left over dust, is plenty for asthma, and is easily sucked into the house by the central air. You could put one drop off that plenum to a box with some real serious filters in it, and run it for a while after you stop working and while you are cleaning up. Your wife opens the door, or stands in front of a window that has a leak, you blew it outside, it gets in with the leaks. How would you clean that giant bag? Could scare the neigobors, might be good on halloween.

I made a dozen canoe paddles once in the yard, had a three foot pile of dust, found it all over the house. Sanding...for days. Open the door, the big sucker Central unit in my laundry room, sucked it in. five years later, I still find paddle dust, it was a good vintage.

I have a main house I live in that was an old Fire Station, it has high overhead, but the shop was killing us along with the art painting process stuff. DC, what DC, I had a vent fan and a shop vac, and the saws had nothing but a bag under them.

I cannot use a shop anymore, unless its got a good clean air exchange, so I moved it 80 miles away under a cabin I hand built 25 years ago in the swamp, its taken 18 months, to frame in and build it myself.

I got epoxy sensitized fifteen years ago, and my skin started breaking down and it scared me to death. I will drive 90 minutes and build for two days, and drive back before I leak the heady smell of epoxy getting happy into the main house again. I can stand an ugly shop, as long as it lets me make a pretty boat.

It ain't the shop its the boats, but the shop keeps on eating my life, and the shop is sort of becoming my Ark, except all I got is palmetto bugs and I do not know which sex they are, and ain't going to look at the back end to find out.

Never give up, its a journey.

[r.palmer]

I did a plenum, (U path baffle) box test, to see if a you could slow down the air enough with dual 4 inch SD pipe to not suck the box dry, and perhaps catch something before it hit the fan, and it just has too much air flow to do it, so I did not build one in. Its a lot of fittings, and more complex to run pipe side by side, and I do not recommend it for ease of installation, and the over head plenum box idea, just will not work. The amount of suction from the dual pipe sure looks good. Lorings portable plenum box hookup idea with dual hose or pipe, with any kind of outlet size you want would be nice, if I had a shop big enough for one more thing on the floor. Have to keep 8 ft of overhead for turning over a boat, and I have 8 ft five inches, so the dual 4 is about what I can stand. If I had to use a smaller DC, I might mount it on a rolling plenum box, with lots of blast gates built in. That would be a nice replacement for a shop vac.

The Wynn filter, poly wool, looks like its going to work fine. Have to see how it takes cleaning. Put in a neutral vane, as close to Lorings picture as I could figure it out. Have to see how long it takes for that filter to get slowed down by dust.

Dual four, lots of trouble, cheap is not the issue, single pipe is lots cleaner and looks better, but..It looks like it will eat Epoxy dust and keep on ticking and stay clean. It does give a lot of suck at the tool with two 4 inch hoses, but if I had lots of big tools, I would go six. Pictures when I get it all done.

I was Epoxy sensitized once. This does make me feel better.

[LCHIEN]

thanks for the running commentary.

[r.palmer]

I am thinking of using aluminum tape on the inside and outside of the plastic pipe, with some wire and zip screws bonding the tape together as I assemble the runs, any extra added issue is doubled, but I have a vague memory of a thread about using aluminum tape in an industrial setting, on larger plastic pipe used for DC. The guy pulled it though the pipe on its back, hung on a stick, stuck it down lightly, rolled a smaller piece of pipe inside the main, till it was flat. Taped over the top of it on the outside and put screws into both pieces at the end of the pipe, but I think the tape is thin enough to use it in the fittings as well, Anyone try this? I seem to remember he said that it worked far better than wires inside and outside the pipe, and the tape provided a larger surface area of conductive material. Seems like a clean idea? I am going to give it a try, HF has a good deal on the tape. Any warnings, Ideas?

Sorry for the running comemtary, but it keeps me on task.

[LCHIEN]

The necessity for grounding is overblown... I hear.

[r.palmer]

I finished the setup, no tape, no worry about static, just wanted it done. Works fine, like the high drops, have enough to get to most of the shop without using a vac, and its flexible.