J. Phil Thien's Projects

I've been perusing this forum for a couple weeks now. I am slowly getting a shop set up in my basement and have been anxious to protect my lungs. Just finished building my separator and will try to get some pictures up soon. There is some fine tuning to do but I am pretty pleased with the result

Wow this is about identical to the one I just built! Right down to the same Grizzly components, which I recognized from your specs before even seeing the pictures. Your method for lifting the barrel into place is a little nicer than mine;  does it work smoothly? I just have the barrel sitting in a "cradle" held up to the separator with springs. I can step down on the cradle to remove the barrel.
I don't quite grasp all the top layers of yours... what is the function of the filler ring? It seems there are three layers on top. I just have one piece of ply over the top with the duct going through it.
Dumped a bunch of dust through it yesterday for the first time. Put in 2 lb 13.9 oz, and 2 lb 13.5 oz ended up in the barrel. Pretty good I thought! I am going to blow it all outside and forget about filters.
I'll try to get some pics of mine up in the next couple days.