Bowling Ball material for pens

[Rudy Vey]

Turned seven pens yesterday out of the bowling ball pen blanks I got POC. After the first three or four I checked on my DC (the suction was not longer what it should be) and found that some of the shavings, they are really long(!)were stuck in the hose coming out of my drop box. Had to open the drop box and pulled the material out.
After the fifth or sixth pen the sound of my DC changed a bit to a howling tone. I continued to do the last one and then checked on the hoses again, did not see much shavings this time. Finally riped the whole thing apart and found several hands full of shavings wrapped around the impeller!! Anyone experienced that, too???
What can be done?? I am thinking of making some kind of collection basket that I place in the drop box to collect most of the shavings.

Any better idea??
Rudy

 

[William Young]

Rudy;
You could make a preseparator for very little money that cathes all but the finest dust before it gets to your impeller. I made this one and call it my poor mans cyclone preseparator because the top part does set up a cyclonic action with the placement of the elbowed entrance into it and the drop tube down the centre of the top part. I only empty my DC lower bag about once a year. I just keep emptying the 55 gal plastic drum when it fills up. Many a time I have opened the drum to retreive a part that got sucked in. I think when I start making pens (hopefully sometime next week) I will use a dust hood with a coarse removable screen that I can take out when working on big things with stringy shavings and replace when working on smaller items.

And here is a shot of the inside of the top part of it.
W.Y.

 

[Rudy Vey]

As a matter of fact, I use a similar setup like you, but the stuff is so light it does not settle in the pre-separator (or drop box as I call it). Guess the best would be a basket to catch it directly under the tube going into the separator.

Rudy

 

[William Young]

Thanks Rudy.; I didn't understand what you meant by your drop box. Keep us informed as to how you solve that problem . I have never experienced it yet but it is nice to know what to do if it ever happens.
W.Y.