New definition of blast gate

[Larryl]

I was setting up to drill holes for a mortise, and when I opened the gate at the drill press and powered up the dust collector I heard something travel through the tubing then KABOOM! I have found most of the pieces of the connection but still have not been able to determine what the missle was. All the drill bits are accounted for. Looks like I'll be building a two-stage system aka Thien seperator for my dust collector.

[LCHIEN]

that's gonna take a lot of duct tape...

[smorris]

Check for missing cats?

[LarryG]

that's gonna take a lot of duct tape...

... and a whole box of Tide to launder the pants he was wearing.

Larry, you have reconfigured your DC unit in almost the exact same way I am planning to do mine -- the principal difference being that mine will have the motor unit flipped over, with the inlet pipe running down and under the floor. Other than the problem pictured above, how are you finding this arrangement? Do you see a noticeable improvement in airflow with the impeller housing connected directly to the inlet ring like this?

[master53yoda]

with that damage you will need to look at the fan blade to make sure it isn't damaged as well. things like that are what the cross bars in the inlet are to reduce. I've read a number of comments about removing them and i wouldn't because of the increased ability to to what you see here.

[Rich P]

Not sure how you will be able to connect the fan housing to the filter ring without that broken fitting. I guess you can either epoxy it back together and tape it really well. Maybe HF has the spare part? Whatever, it would be interesting to know how the fan blades fared. I have had chunks of ipe get accidentally sucked up and scare the holy **** out of me but (TG) no explosions like you experienced.

[charliex]

I'm beginning to think this woodworking hobby is more dangerous than I ever thought it was. Did you by any chance anger the gods of oak,cherry,maple etc? I've contemplated removing the cross bars in my DC because the planer would plug it, but you have just removed that temptation. Thank you. I stopped using the DC for shop cleanup because of occasionally sucking up something not intended.

Glad there was no personal damage other than possibly temporary cardiac arrest.

Chas

[Larryl]

... and a whole box of Tide to launder the pants he was wearing.

Larry, you have reconfigured your DC unit in almost the exact same way I am planning to do mine -- the principal difference being that mine will have the motor unit flipped over, with the inlet pipe running down and under the floor. Other than the problem pictured above, how are you finding this arrangement? Do you see a noticeable improvement in airflow with the impeller housing connected directly to the inlet ring like this?

Larry, yes it seems to have helped quite a bit. I don't have any way to measure, just going by the sound and the fact that each station seems to be collecting more of the dust generated.

[herb fellows]

How many times has your wife told you to put the c-4 away BEFORE you start working in the shop?!

[bing!]

Dang, did you check if you threw an impeller blade? I hope you can purchase that part. Otherwise, a little fiberglass and epoxy will fix her right up

[Larryl]

Update on Dust Collector

First - thanks to all for the repair suggestions, second - thanks to all who had a humorous comment/suggestion as it helped to ease the pain. Below is my solution; I used a 6" to 5" sheet metal reducer and made a new flange from 3/4" MDF with lots of caulk. So far it seems to work well at least as good airflow as the original plastic one.

[LarryG]

Ah. Nice. VERY nice. Thank you ... now I know how I'm going to do mine!

(Right click ... Save Image As ... etc.)

[master53yoda]

did i miss what caused the problem in the first place, did you find the projectile.

[dbhost]

FWIW, You may want to, IF the impeller is damaged, be the guinea pig to try out swapping in a Grizzly 12.75" impeller. There is a lot of talk about trying it on the creek... Nobody will admit to actually doing it though. I'd love to see how it works...

Yeah, you have definately reconfigured that DC... A Thien pre separator or similar is a must if you cut out your cross bars...

[capncarl]

That kinda looks like what happens when the dust collector finds that lost allen wrench. Then there was the assortment of screws that it picked up. Maybe that is were the lost 1/2 inch wrench is hiding, laying in the bottom of the dust collector pipe waiting for a large piece of wood shaving to help it get to the fan. Yep, a cyclone in front of the fan is a good thing.

capncarl