J. Phil Thien's Projects

I am a complete newbie here and have been lurking around for the last few days looking at stuff.   I am thrilled to find this site because I like doing things myself.  Everyone's stuff looks pretty cool and my hat's off to Phil for starting this project in the first place and then sharing it with everyone.

I am planning to build a separator that sits in a garbage can for space reasons and because it looks easier.  Not lazy but not a lot of time either.

Here is what I am planning.

• The DC is a 2 hp King Canada dust collector with 4in inlet.  1200 CFM is the listed flow but we know that is likely high.


• I plan to use a 4" corrugated hose rather than piping because i simply don't have the space to run the piping the way the (small) work shop is set up. When I need it I will uncoil the hose and run it to the work.


• I plan to use a 16 inch dia by 29 inch high galvanized garbage can which is 25 US gallons.  It has corrugation on the sides. 



• I want to to collect fiberglass dust created by grinding fiberglass surfaces to clean them up for final assembly.


• I will be using 3" ABS plastic fittings because the hose fits on the hub well.  This will mean a 3" ABS 90 will be used to turn the intake flow to the Thien baffle.


• I am reasonably good with fiberglass and have made baffle out of fiberglass.   If I make a mistake I pour another one out of the can, throw in some chop and I have a new one.  Its about 1/8 inch think

Questions.

• Is the fiberglass baffle an okay material? If not I have some 16 ga stainless steel I can cut up but this stuff is a bit hard on tools and hard to cut.


• I have ground the corner of the 3" 90 hub on a bit of an angle so I can turn it towards the outside.    I assume this is the correct thing to do because it forces the flow to the side immediately.  How much should I turn it out.  1/2 the diameter of the hub?


• I can make the inlet elbow be tight to the top or drop it down.  Which is better and if I drop it down how much.  It looks like this is what Phil did ...  .  The 90 is 3" ID but the hub is 4" OD.


• I can make the inlet elbow touch the top of the baffle and from Phil's original design again it looks like this is what he did.   I read somewhere here that that was not a good thing and that there should be some clearance underneath. How much?


• Because I mostly want to trap dust I will initially make the drop slot only 3/4"


• The can has corrugation on the sides.  I would have liked to have use a plastic one because it would be a bit bigger but they all have reinforcing shapes on the side at the handles and are not smooth shapes.   Are the plastice ones okay?  Do the reinforcing shapes interfere with flow and separation? Is my current can too small for the size of DC?

Any help is greatly appreciated.   Thanks.

Colin