making SAWDUST!

[Schleeper]

I thought that was just woodworker-speak for working in the shop, or using your power tools. Appropriate, too, if my past experience using routers, drills, sanders, and various types of saws, is any indication. Turns out, I had no idea...

I've been playing with the new Ridgid thickness planer I just bought. OMG!!! I planed one side of a couple of the maple boards I'd picked up, and I was working on a few short boards of other hardwoods to give LOML something to compare to. I was already stopping frequently to clear the shavings, but then I started getting a lot more of it thrown at me. I turned off the planer and "dust collector" (shop-vac,) and disconnected the 4" hose so I could connect the 2-1/2" hose to suck up the stuff from the floor. The hose was full. No wonder the sawdust was flying all over! (So I thought.) Cleared out the hose, and went to re-connect it the the shop-vac. The hose port was jammed, too. Took the lid off the vac. The bag was so full, I thought I'd never get it out! What the heck am I going to do when I start doing some serious planing?

I'd already resolved myself to the fact that I need a collector with more CFMs. My local HF has a couple of models, and I've been eyeing one that sells for $89. http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=94029 It produces over 900 CFM, but now I'm having doubts about the size of that bag.

They have two bigger models that sell for about $200 and $250. I seem to recall Loren saying he has a HF DC. Might this be the one?

http://southjersey.craigslist.org/for/679114006.html

I'm not looking to create Another Yankee Workshop, but I clearly need a DC. How do the HF models stack up to the competition? I assume they don't come with everything you need; what else will I need to buy?

[Thom2]

I used a shopvac with a 55 gallon drum and a homemade lid for quite awhile before finally investing in a real DC. It actually worked rather well with the planer, but less than satisfactory with the jointer.

Since going to a real DC I'd never go back, but this may hold you over temporarily.



the HF DC for under $200 is a very well respected purchase, I personally got a helluva deal on a used Grizz G1029, but would have ended up with the HF had the Grizz not come along.

[docrowan]

I used a shopvac with a 55 gallon drum and a homemade lid for quite awhile before finally investing in a real DC. It actually worked rather well with the planer, but less than satisfactory with the jointer.

Thom2,

You're teasing me with your picture of your stopgap measure. How about more pictures, details, etc? Or perhaps this is in a previous post? I like your accessory organizer strapped to the drum. Any more information would be greatly appreciated.

[Thom2]

Sorry, I think that's the only pic I have.

Not much to it tho' ... MDF lid with 2 holes cut for the hoses, 1 in the middle, 1 toward the outside. I did glue about 8" long 3" diameter pieces of cardboard tube under the lid to kinda direct airflow, but I'm not sure it was necessary.

It did, however, work a lot better than my initial "DC system" which consisted of dragging the planer to the driveway and keeping one of these handy....

[BigguyZ]

Rockler and Woodcraft (and many other various online sellers) have a Chip separator lib that can attach to a garbage can and separate a large amount of chips before it get's to the vacume. I'd try that.

[Uncle Cracker]

There is nothing in a typical tool arsenal that will make more shavings than a planer or jointer. The problem is compounded by the fact that the shavings are stringy, and do not compress, hence they take up much more space than they did while still part of the board. You need a high-volume DC and minimum 4" hose to really have at it. The only way to deal with any sort of DCD (Dust Collector Deficiency) is to plane in smaller increments and make more passes.

[Schleeper]

Actually, dragging the planer out on the driveway has some appeal. I'm using it in the garage, and I was planning on dumping the dust and shavings on the mulch beds around our trees and shrubs, anyway.

Nevertheless, I need a DC. I'm working in the garage now, but that's temporary. I normally work in the basement, and LOML is tired of having a layer of sawdust on everything that's stored down there. (Not to mention the health hazard it creates.)

I'm already making multiple passes with the planer, because the instructions say you should limit the amount removed to 1/16" inch or less.

Even if I introduced a chip separater between the planer and the shop vac, it wouldn't increase the amount of suction I'm getting. The shop vac doesn't move enough air, at a fast enough speed, to remove the cuttings before they can get between the board and the table or rollers.

[LCHIEN]

...

They have two bigger models that sell for about $200 and $250. I seem to recall Loren saying he has a HF DC. Might this be the one?

http://southjersey.craigslist.org/for/679114006.html

I'm not looking to create Another Yankee Workshop, but I clearly need a DC. How do the HF models stack up to the competition? I assume they don't come with everything you need; what else will I need to buy?

yes, that is the one i have, usually referred to as the HF 2HP DC.
An infamous unit.
Here's the brief scoop:
they run around $179 on sale frequently nowadays.
Overrated, more like 1.5 HP, and the airflow they claim 1600 cfm, most reviews I see it does about 500-600. But most 1200 CFM units only make about 600-700 in those tests, so most units are overrated but the HF is more overrated than most. The impellor is a bit small for the claimed HP and CFM against comparable units.
Bags are useless, have 30 micron cut where 0.5, 1, or maybe up to 2 is recommended for good health reasons. You need to replace the bags ASAP.
Instructions have always been kind of bad.

The summary? For the price, an barely OK unit even after you replace the bags with better bags or canisters, not the greatest CFMs.


I put on a grizzly 1 micron cut canister ($165), fit perfectly and got a set of plastic bags (easier to empty) for the bottom, added a neutral vane and probably have better airflow than the HF stock units for less money (about $350) than the competition (around $450 for 1200 CFM with pleated Canister filter). But I think a 1.5 to 2 HP Penn State or Jet unit would have better airflow (more CFMs). So I got what I payed for.

[Schleeper]

Wow, that driveway idea is looking better and better all the time!

Loren, HF also has a newer, 5 micron model: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=97869. Know anything about it?

I notice HF sells a DC accessory kit, too. Necessary?

[LCHIEN]

Wow, that driveway idea is looking better and better all the time!

Loren, HF also has a newer, 5 micron model: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=97869. Know anything about it?

I notice HF sells a DC accessory kit, too. Necessary?

Looks like the same 2HP unit with better but still not great bags.
I persoanlly would avoid 5 micron and go straight to 1 micron or better if I was going to all that trouble to improve the air in my shop.

The DC accessory kit at HF is a pretty good deal. I got one, it has two hoses in it (contrary to the pic they used to have) which alone is worth the price, i think, plus all kinds of gates and clamps ports and wyes.

Bear in mind that flex hoses have considerably more pressure loss (and corresponding CFM loss) than fixed smooth wall pipes, but if you are going to be doing movable equipment for a while, unavoidable.

[JR]

Oh, Schleeper, you poor boy. You don't know how steep or how slippery this slope is.

The good news is that you're already doing the right thing by collecting dust. The bad news is that you are either going to have to learn to like what you've got or upgrade fairly substantially.

I started out doing exactly what you are doing. I also frequently had gobs of sawdust all over the place. It's just too much hassle to always find the shopvac, get it hooked up, make sure it's empty, etc.

I now have the HF 2HP DC, with permanent plumbing gong to my main machines. It has a Wynn 1 micron filter (search this site for lots of info). I have bought two of the HF DC starter kits over time. I also now have an overhead air filter to collect the fine dust that still appears in the shop.

My advice is to chart a course for good dust collection and start going in that direction sooner rather than later. You don't need to go the whole nine yards all at once. Start with a good DC (shop Craigslist while waiting for a HF sale to come around). Plan to upgrade the filter when the budget allows. Slip in a starter kit while LOYL is looking the other way. This is a $1,000 dollar problem, but unlike some other shop needs, it can be done incrmentally.

This is not just a question of shop cleanliness. It's about your health (LOML bought off on that excuse/reason when I bought the air filter - Loring helped with the business case!).

JR

[Schleeper]

Thanks, Loring and JR. I'm off to a good start. I just bought a new HF 2HP DC on eBay for $100, which I'll pick up this weekend. In the meantime, I'll pick up a kit at HF, and look for better bags.

[dkerfoot]

I am very happy with the $95 Wynn Environmental paper blend cartridge on my HF DC:

http://www.wynnenv.com/35A_series_cartridge_kit.htm

[LCHIEN]

I think Grizzly has some .25 micron bags for 20" rings for not too much coin.

Going with pleated canister filters has some advantages...
1. much greater filter area like 10x for lower restriction and
2. also allows you to use only top filtration with a catch bag on the bottom.

a catch bag (plastic) is much easier to empty than a cloth bag which the airflow has pushed fine particles into the weave. You either tie and dump the bag (cleanest) or you can slide the contents of the bag out to a compost pile or other receptacle and reuse it. Heavy bags (7 mil) are recommended for the pressure and wear factors.
The Wynn filters are nice and inexpensive; thePenn, jet or grizlly cansiters all fit the HF with little or no mods and cost a bit more but have built-in beater bars to make chips and dust caught in the filter pleats to fall into the catch bag.

A Neutral vane (home made DIY) will make more stuff fall into the catch bag intially.

[cgallery]

A Neutral vane (home made DIY) will make more stuff fall into the catch bag intially.

Better yet, add one of my baffles! Just need a piece of 3/4" MDF, and the reduction in dust going to your filters will be substantial. Makes a single-stage DC a viable alternative to a cyclone, even for busy shops.

From David Romano (at www.cgallery.com/smf):

To test the effectiveness of the baffle, I did something that I thhought would normally clog the canister. Having previously milled alot of Ipe and then cleaned the pleats of the canister the best I could, the inside of the canister was clean and yellow in color. So I took a 1x6 pine board, 5 feet long and milled on the jointer from a thickness of 3/4" to only 3/16". It made alot of white shavings that should be very easy to see.

After milling the board, I carefully took off the canister expecting it to dump a bunch of sawdust on my shoes, but I was amazed that there was hardly a spec of pine sawdust in it! The 4th photo is shows the inside of the canister after the test.

*****

From Greg Cole (at sawmillcreek.org):

Added the "Phil Special" baffle to my Jet DC1200CK this Saturday morning. Spent about an hour cleaning the filter to as clean as it'll ever be....

Spent the rest of Saturday jointing mahogany & curly maple stock for a bed project.... progressed through some resawing, re-jointing, planing and ripping to make S4S boards.

After about 12 hours of usage over 2 days with the added baffle, there was all of about 2 hand fulls of fines in the filter!!! No real chips from jointing or planing. The mahogany dust from resawing is a good test as it's bright red. The resawed mahogany dust would have previously caked up the filter to where I'd have to have spent another hour cleaning it to get the DC back to decent flow.

Seriously, a piece of scrap MDF and a couple of minutes while ya have your DC apart will give more benefit to keeping the DC's performance up than you can imagine!

Thanks for sharing your ingenious solution Phil!!!

*****

From Mike Goetzke (at sawmillcreek.org):

The dust residue (laying on top of the DC ring and baffle plate) is what came out of the cartridge filter. From my past experience, I got maybe 10x that amount w/o the baffle.

*****

More from David Romano (at sawmillcreek.org):

I have a Jet DC 1200, with the cartridge from Wynn and Phil's baffle built right into my separator ring. It works like a charm. No chips go into the canister, only some fine dust, which is unavoidable even with a good cyclone.

...

The original design is a trash can style pre-separator, but I built the baffle right into the DC ring and my canister is as clean as a whistle. Others have done the same thing with equally great results. This configuartion does not "pre" separate though, so I still can't suck up screws, nuts or big chunks of wood. You will lose some airflow of course, we don't know how much, but it has to be alot less than you would if the cansister pleats were stuffed with sawdust. This baffle is a must have.

*****

From George Lesniak (at ncwoodworker.net):

Before the baffle mod, every time I used the collector I needed to give the filter cleaner few spins to pop the dust loose from the filter pleats. I experimented by sucking about a 1/4 of a bag of sawdust into the collector and took the filter off to check it. There was NO significant dust in the filter! Only a slight colored residue of mahogany. Seems to work quite well. I'll keep you all updated as I use it more.

*****

From Mike (at woodnet.net):

I'm working on a futon made of red oak I milled from rough sawn lumber. I filled a bag of dust from my jointer/planer/TS/BS/ROS and drum sander. The bag had 22.9# of dust and the cartridge had 6.3 oz.. Only 1.7% of the dust found the filter:

I don't notice any performance difference right after I clean the filter, although, I'm sure there are some losses due to the baffle. But, I don't see the performance drop off like it used to as the plastic bag fills - I didn't even feel the need to rotate the pleat flapper for this entire bag full.

*****

From Miser (at woodnet.net):

I couldn't wait for the weekend so worked into the wee hours last night and built Phil's baffle for my DC1100. I've done some testing but can't quantify any changes in air velocity or air volume impacts (positive or negative) with the baffle in place.

BUT, I can say only a small fraction of the dust is making it up to the filter after the addition. What a tremendous change!

There's little cyclonic air movement in the bag. I was planing and jointing soft maple this afternoon (about 20 bd ft of 4/4) The chips and dust floated to the bottom of the bag (as in a gentle snow fall.) This made me somewhat skeptical as I thought the majority of it MUST be moving up to the filter...it wasn't.

Without the cyclic air movement, the collector itself is MUCH quieter (no waste material shooshing around the bag.)

Here's a shot of the filter before the mod and another of the donut holding all the junk (I hadn't cleaned it for quite awhile but the debris collects quickly at the filter. I used a leaf blower to clean the filter...let there be light!)

What a great addition. The filter will stay cleaner longer, emptying the bag is easier and significantly less messy and it's quieter. I no longer have the same contempt for this DC. Now, I believe I'll hard-pipe it in and upgrade to a 12" impeller (one of these years.)

Phil, Thanks for the design!

*****

From Alan (at woodnet.net)

I admit I was initially skeptical, but having made one I now think that every single-stage DC should be equipped this way. That's assuming it hurts airflow as little as it appears to.