Dealing with Sawdust

[Moho]

With the cold setting in here in Indiana, I'm finding moving my equipment outside more and more of a problem. I setup my sad 10 year old shop vac to start dealing with the sawdust in the garage and found the filter was clogging about as fast as I could cut. I decided to search the internet and Eureka! A Thein Cyclone was my answer.....



This is probably old hat to some of you but for the newer woodworkers, like myself. I though I would point this out. The Thein cyclone can be made at home quite easily. Basically you hook your shop vac up to it, set it on top of a bucket or trash can and it filters out the particles and major dust before it even hits the shop vac.

I used the plans from http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm and scaled them down for a 5 gallon bucket. The thing works WONDERS!

While I was at it I decided to pickup a new wall mounted shop vac to help give me a little more floor space. I got the Sears 5hp wall mount shop vac and got an extra extension hose. I wired a plug to a 3 way switch, one switch at my saw area and one at my workbench. I plan on putting a benchtop dust collector on a blast gate in the future and being able to turn it on from the bench would be a plus. I happened to have a 6ft vac hose that worked as well and used it for the connection from the shop vac to the Thein cyclone. I now have a wall mounted shop vac and a total of 35ft of hose from the cyclone. Loving this setup, I can collect dust in the other end of the house if I want

So if you find yourself choking on indoor sawdust I highly recommend building on of these for your work area. I'm sure it doesn't quite as well as a professional, commercially purchased dust collection system, but it helps a TON in my little workshop/garage.

[CliffinGA]

Moho I just cheat, I use an ezup outside and move extra stuff out of the garage every other week and sweep the garage out. Then I get the blower or and blow every thing off and move it all back in. Does it take time, yes a lil but I find all my tools that go missing that my 2 mutts have taken to play with or I dropped while moving the tear out , but its cheap and the wife is happy so I get to sleep in my bed .

Cliff

[cuyeda]

Nice! I opted making this version... see thread link:

http://www.mikenchell.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=806653#806653

I may connect it to a larger collection drum in the future.

[Shadow Catcher]

Cliff, there is BIG difference between Georgia and Indiana as far as temperatures are concerned. I use a BIG old Iron Fireman oil furnace in my garage and it sucks oil and $$$$ like crazy during the winter, and eventually I have to give up as it can not keep up with below 0 temps. Big uninsulated separate built for Model T cars.