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I purchased one of the dust separator lids for a 5 gallon bucket several years ago from HF (I can't find the link now, but it's very similar to this http://www.woodcraft.com/Product/200...Separator.aspx). It's way overpriced at Woodcraft, I seem to recall paying less than $10 from HF. I'd heard that these lids were junk, but the couple of times that I'd used mine it seemed to do a good job.
I suspect that many of us have purchased one of these at one time or another. I used mine a few times and then it went on a shelf - it was a hassle to set it up, the bucket was tippy, etc. I told myself that the next time a wheel broke off my shop-vac, I'd build a little cart for the shop vac and a bucket separator. (Why do they use such crappy wheels mounted into molded plastic "outriggers"? - it seemed that I'd need to do an epoxy repair job every year or so). I put together a quick cart with some plywood and casters from my scrap supply and made a short hose to go from the vac to the bucket. The bucket separator lid that I purchased from HF several years ago was totally ineffective, (my initial assessment was wrong - my shop vac filter must have been clogged or something.)
So it was time to try out one of the Thien baffles that I've seen dozens of people raving about online. The bucket separator lid can be easily modified to work very well with a Thien baffle. (Here's a link to a plan - http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodw...ien-separator/ - I made a couple of minor changes to their plan). I did a little bit of unscientific testing with various shop cleaning - it appears that adding the Thien baffle to the separator lid made the little 5 gal. bucket separator at least 90% effective. There were a lot of fines in the dust that I sucked up, so I'm sure that typical sawdust from the table saw, miter saw, etc. will be better. Thanks to Phil for designing this and making it available.
I suspect that many of us have purchased one of these at one time or another. I used mine a few times and then it went on a shelf - it was a hassle to set it up, the bucket was tippy, etc. I told myself that the next time a wheel broke off my shop-vac, I'd build a little cart for the shop vac and a bucket separator. (Why do they use such crappy wheels mounted into molded plastic "outriggers"? - it seemed that I'd need to do an epoxy repair job every year or so). I put together a quick cart with some plywood and casters from my scrap supply and made a short hose to go from the vac to the bucket. The bucket separator lid that I purchased from HF several years ago was totally ineffective, (my initial assessment was wrong - my shop vac filter must have been clogged or something.)
So it was time to try out one of the Thien baffles that I've seen dozens of people raving about online. The bucket separator lid can be easily modified to work very well with a Thien baffle. (Here's a link to a plan - http://www.evenfallstudios.com/woodw...ien-separator/ - I made a couple of minor changes to their plan). I did a little bit of unscientific testing with various shop cleaning - it appears that adding the Thien baffle to the separator lid made the little 5 gal. bucket separator at least 90% effective. There were a lot of fines in the dust that I sucked up, so I'm sure that typical sawdust from the table saw, miter saw, etc. will be better. Thanks to Phil for designing this and making it available.