Home made Dust collection?

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Chasboy1

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Jan 11, 2019
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Hi folks, I have a 'basic' dust collection/vacuum setup in my shop that uses a set of clear plastic tubes with a number of elbows and slide gates for attaching a vacuum hose. It's all supported by my shop vac in another room.
Over the years the clear plastic has dried out and the joints are not tight. I'd like to re-create it with PVC for the main runs but the problem is I cannot find a way to adapt PVC to 2 1/4 vacuum hose/fittings.
Has anyone found a way to get around this?
Thanks!
 
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monophoto

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You have a lathe......turn your own adapters. after all, they are round!


Duh!

Almost every hardware store sells 3" PVC or ABS piping, and various fittings including caps. It would be a no-brainer to cut a hole in a cap to match a smaller-diameter vacuum fitting either on the lathe or using a hole saw. The problem would be to get a tight, completely sealed joint. Does it have to look pretty? I suspect that you could get a good seal with multiple applications of silicone, but it would be fairly ugly.

Actually, I've been noodling over a similar problem - making a dust hood that I can mount behind my lathe for sanding, and have it mate with a shop vac hose. I want to use a plastic container that originally contained blank CDs to make the hood. My shop vac hose is the same diameter as a sink trap, so I know I can buy a compression ring fitting that will match it. And I have a set of hole saws that I know can be used to cut a round hole in the plastic container. So the challenge is to find or fabricate some kind of fitting to mate the compression ring fitting to the hole.
 
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Sly Dog

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Boise, Idaho
I made my own cyclone style dust collector with PVC pipe and a 5 gallon plastic bucket from Lowe's based on several YouTube videos that showed how to adapt the pipe to my vac using a heat gun to soften the PVC and create a slip fit with the hose fitting. Works great. Hope that helps.

Russ
 

Chasboy1

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Morristown, NJ
Thanks, everything helps.
Regarding the fact that I have a wood lathe, I've not figured out how to mount a fitting to the head stock to turn it to the size I need. I only have a 1/2" chuck. No faceplates or 3-4 jaw chucks, just the drive center.
Home Depot-reducers...forgot that one.
Didn't post this before. I did try silicone on one joint and it didn't seal! Even duct tape was better.
The cap=reducer/adapter idea is another good one!!
I have the cyclone dust collector I found online. It does a great job. I once went an entire year without cleaning the vacuum filter.
Edgar, that Woodcraft link is awesome. I have some studying to do now, and they have a store only an hour away.
FWIW, I used to have a sleeve that allowed me to attach one 2 1/2 hose to another. I had it for 40 years. For some reason I can't find it. I contacted ShopVac who manufactured the unit it came from and they sent me one that matched the size of the hose ends. When I questioned that and returned it I was told that the 'never made' a product like that. I eventually realized I'd get nowhere.
Seems that Woodcraft has everything I need, but one of my biggest beefs is leakage, hence my desire to use as much PVC/fittings/glue as possible.
Opinions welcomed!
 

dogcatcher

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Find some HDPE blocks and turn your own. You only have to get them close, then duct tape the parts together. No HDPE, you can make it, but a few chunks of 2x4 glues together will also work.

Get a cyclone collector to go between the vacuum and the collector. Unless you have a HUGE system, I would forget trying to hook up multiple machines , get some flex tube and hook as needed. The more length, corners and other stuff just causes the system to lose efficiency.

Also buy or make a seperate air cleaner. Lots of plans on Google, or there are plenty of manufactured versions to take your money.
 

Chasboy1

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After more years than I care to figure out, I ordered the "Nova" chuck package from Shopsmith. Now there will be no excuse!
 

Edgar

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Like dogcatcher said, you should also have an air cleaner. You can build a fairly effective one very cheaply if you don't want to spring for a heavy duty one.


Here's a link to a discussion from 2014. Scroll down to post #9 for a photo of the one I made from a 20" box fan and a 2-filter grill from Home Depot. I use a coarse filter and a 1 micron filter sandwiched together. The grill is duct taped to back of the fan to hold it in place and seal the seams. Total cost about $75.



http://www.penturners.org/forum/f30/air-cleaner-121113/
 

monophoto

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monophoto;2011748 Actually said:
Stopped in at Ace Hardware this morning, so I'm passing along this description of how I solved my problem - perhaps it will suggest solutions to problems faced by others.

I found a slip/compression fitting designed to go on a sink drain that matched my shop vac hose. The 'other end' of that fitting is a standard female PVC glue flange. Also found a matching PVC cap with a matching male flange. Mounted the cap in a scroll chuck and turned an opening in the end. Drilled a hole in the end of the CD sleeve with a forstner bit, and reamed it out to the diameter of the male PVC fitting with a sanding drum.

Then put the male portion of the cap flange trough the hole in the CD sleeve from the inside, so that the male portion extended outside the sleeve, applied PVC cement on the male extension, and pressed the female portion of the slip/compression fitting onto the male portion, locking the CD sleeve in that glued joint, with the compression fitting on the outside of the sleeve to receive the hose from the shop vac.
 

Chasboy1

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Louie, a true example of necessity breeds invention!
I visited HD today after watching a few videos where various people found it possible to stretch/shrink pvc to make it fit the various shopvac fittings available. I have a system of clear thinwall plastic tubes with friction fit wyes and elbows bought a long time ago. They've never been as air tight as I would like and now have dried/fatigued. Included in that kit was a bunch of blast gates which are still fine, so I discovered with a little finagling, I can use 2" pvc for my main lines.
However, just to be sure, I'm going to a Woodcraft store about an hour away to see how they handle the problem as well as getting some 'other goodies".
 

Crayman

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Hopkinton NH
I forget who's site I found a few years ago on dust collection, but they showed how to reduce and enlarge PVC pipe by heating with heat gun. I have made adaptors for my 2.5 hoses, connected 4" thin walled PVC to Black dust collection fittings, and the metal blast gates.
 

Chasboy1

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Morristown, NJ
Thank you all for the ideas, folks. When I visited Woodcraft on Tuesday I got flex hose and some fittings, and it worked out great. Trying to use the blast gates I had was counter productive because the interior diameter was actually 1 1/2". Now everything is 2", no leaks, the improvement is significant and I don't have to make any adapters.
 

MDWine

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I'm glad it worked out for you... I haven't been quite successful yet..

I recently ran into a problem that appears to be pretty common.

Shopsmith ran a special on replacement hoses, no fittings. I got two. When they arrived I was pretty perplexed, they were very different from the original hoses, but seemed to be sturdy.

The problem is that the fittings from the old hoses did not just "screw" into the new hoses. I tried LITERALLY for hours, over and over, to get the fittings to screw into the hoses. I tried heating the hose, cooling the fitting... didn't happen.

Now I have those huge thumbscrew clamps on the fittings and I hate it. They are bulky and get in the way, and uncomfortable when trying to get them to snug into a machine, or pull it apart.

Interestingly, about a week later, the new issue of WOOD magazine came out with an article about how dust collection is NOT universal! Wow... really? :eek:

So my caution is to pick your poison and stick with that companies products. I want to run ducts and get new hoses. The only worry I'll have is the connection between the DC and the ducts...

theoretically! :wink:
 

Chasboy1

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Jan 11, 2019
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Location
Morristown, NJ
I'm glad it worked out for you... I haven't been quite successful yet..

I recently ran into a problem that appears to be pretty common.

Shopsmith ran a special on replacement hoses, no fittings. I got two. When they arrived I was pretty perplexed, they were very different from the original hoses, but seemed to be sturdy.

The problem is that the fittings from the old hoses did not just "screw" into the new hoses. I tried LITERALLY for hours, over and over, to get the fittings to screw into the hoses. I tried heating the hose, cooling the fitting... didn't happen.

Now I have those huge thumbscrew clamps on the fittings and I hate it. They are bulky and get in the way, and uncomfortable when trying to get them to snug into a machine, or pull it apart.

Interestingly, about a week later, the new issue of WOOD magazine came out with an article about how dust collection is NOT universal! Wow... really? :eek:

So my caution is to pick your poison and stick with that companies products. I want to run ducts and get new hoses. The only worry I'll have is the connection between the DC and the ducts...

theoretically! :wink:

I just looked at the Shopsmith site, and I saw some hoses with ends....
However, the compatibility is why I chose to use all of the materials I found at Woodcraft.:)
 
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