J. Phil Thien's Projects

I made a bucket baffle a few years back and it works great for my track saw (I replaced the experimental styrofoam baffle with a sheet metal one):

I had great success applying a Thien baffle to my Jet dust collector. I have been using a Eurekazone rail cutting system which uses a circular saw. I had been using a Ridgid shop vac then bought a Festool CT-33 thanks to MS cashback, but, the bags just fill up too fast. I was thinking of buying a Dust Deputy but then thought about a Thien bucket. I had a 10 or 12 gal. chlorine bucket (free) and added two fittings ($3) by drilling two 2" holes with a Forstner bit. I glued them in place with some JB weld. I just made the baffle out of a piece of styrofoam I had laying around that I made to fit tight at the proper depth. I was worried about the stiffening ribs in the lid but below results show they didn't hurt the performance. Oh, plus I didn't use a seal on the lid - I just twist locked the lid like you do to re-seal it with chlorine:






I didn't have too much dust to try it out on - just what was in my CT-33's bag. It was 14.3 oz. of dust, mostly fine sanding dust:



I weighed the Festool dust bag before/after and the dust from the bucket and all that got to the bag was 0.75 oz.. This makes it about 95% efficient! This is going to reduce my bag changes significantly.


Help/suggestions needed. I like the styrofoam insert but even though I formed it to a sharp edge I still got dust stuck on the edge (I looked closer at this photo - ends up the dust stuck to the edge ended up being a piece of electrical tape:




Thanks,

Mike

Quote from: D Romano on January 27, 2008, 02:30:57 PM

1) The pop rivets sound a bit too permanent, what if you need to take the baffle out?



2) I actually find it easier with the baffle, because the ring fits nicely in a spot sized just right for it.
David

David -

(1) if needed, the rivets can be easily removed by drilling them out, but, other than try a new design is there a reason to remove the baffle?

(2) your ring must not fit as tight as mine. Mine is so tight I need to slide one end at an angle 6"-8" up into the metal ring to be able to attach it.


Also, I added a fastening point to the free end of the baffle - to tame down the vibrations. The baffle is now rock solid but I still have a different sound from my DC than w/o the baffle. Must just be the change in turbulence. I added flour to the DC - some have said this helps release the wood dust more easily. I can see the bottom of my baffle is white and the top is spotless. If I crank the paddle on the cartridge filter I don't get but a trace of debris. This seems to be an early sign that the baffle is performing it's scrubbing action?

Mike

Quote from: D Romano on January 27, 2008, 09:57:50 AM

Hey Mike,
That sounds like a good design. I would say that a stiff sheet of steel is the best permanent solution. How'd you cut it?

It's possible that fastening it only along the 120 degree arc is causing the low frequency humming though. It's probably vibrating, acting like a big bass kick drum. The pop rivets sound a bit too permanent, what if you need to take the baffle out?

David

David - I suspected the same thing about the resonance and indeed I can see the baffle moving on the unfixed side. Oh well - looks like it needs it's first mod. Those that are familiar with the ring that holds the bag in place on this DC know it's easy to apply if you insert the ring deep on the far side of the ring and then bring it down to the rim. Without a support in the 270 deg portion of the baffle I can still do this. If I add a support it may be a pain to c/o the bag - what' your experience David?

I used my Bosch jig saw to cut it. There are some small gaps where the baffle meets the DC that I need to fill but that should be no big deal.

Mike

David/Phil - I made a baffle like David's for my Jet DC1100 w/ canister. I had a piece of 14ga. sheet metal that's been around for years just waiting for this application. It took an hour at most to fabricate and fasten - thanks to the great directions shown here. Since I used thin metal stock I was able to form 3-tabs that I later bent and used to attach the baffle to the DC. I used pop-rivets in two locations and a bolt/nut in the third because the rivets I had on hand were not long enough. The three fasteners in the 120 deg larger diameter arc seem to be plenty. When I fired up the dust collector it does have a sort of low frequency resonance tone that wasn't there before, but, it's doesn't seem to be any louder and it's not an annoying tone. Of coarse time will tell if the performance has been improved.

Thanks for the post,

Mike