J. Phil Thien's Projects

was finishing up my windows on my top hat and was using aquaseal to glue the plastic in. i got some seal on the window and used some denature alcohol. everything was set glued and clamped. within a minute o wiping on the alcohol i heard a pop and the watched spider web cracks form where i put the alcohol. who new.  i was using optix acrylic sheets i got from the big box. i wont be doing that again.  now regarding aquaseal it glues the acrylic really well and aheres to almost everything.  the down side is that there i not much that can thin it out. there is one thinner that they do use with but i cannot remember the name.  i think ist is toluene is sold with the aquaseal. the other downside is once it has hardened there is nothing that will disolve it

We all know that using a seperator causes a suction loss.  Is there a difference in the amount of loss between a 1T and a 2T separator, or are they the same?

Thanks much.  An increase of 10% would put it at 15.  And everything I have read so far is that rectangle is better than square.  A 3 X5 gets 15 square inches.  Two questions:  what is a good ratio of height to width, and if I go above a 10% increase at what point would I be doing more harm than good?  I am using a 1500CFM 2 HP collector. 

After all the lessons learned, I am getting ready to build a better one.  I noticed on retired2's project that for 5 inch pipe (19.63 square inches)  the inlet opening was 3 7/8W X 5 7/8 tall (22.76 square inches).  For a 4 inch pipe (12.5 square inches), what would be the right measurement?  Building a top hat side inlet

okay after a couple of days the silicon just peeled off both the wood and the lexan.  The 2 part epoxy and the aqua seal is still solid. 

Went out an took another look.  If you look at the photo the inlet tube is very large and it is heavy.  It was pulling the front down and lifting it off the barrel in the back.  I added weather stripping and repositioned till level and ran  the test again.  100% improvement.  Still tweaking the outlet tube.  Thanks for all the advce.  Now that I learned from my mistakes, the next build should be about perfect.

Mostly table saw and planer.  Very little fines

I am using a 1500 CF dust collector and I did rabbet the underside of the baffle so it is about 1/4 thick along the edge.  I was wondering about the barrel to separator seal. I bought some foam weather stripping last night and will give it a try.  Looks like I am going to have to build another one with the inlet on the other side to work with current dust collection configuration.  Do I gain anything by using a double height?

I had to order another cable for my camera.  Anyway here is the pciture.  The inlet was 6W X 8H. I ran about 15 gallons of sawdust and about 1 gallon made it throught to the dust collector.  The tornado was perfect and almost all the dust went down at the 3/4 mark.  Based on comments I readjusted the inlet tube to be 2 1/2W by 8H.  Perfect seperation but the CFM was severely diminished.  Based on other comments I added false floor in the inlet tube angled correctly.  New measurement is 4 1/2W by 5H.  In this variation the dust does not hug the sides and it takes for ever for the dust to drop.  Since it takes so long the fines stay suspended and almost 100% of the fines went on to the dust collector,  Looking for any advice

After all the posting about the best glue lexan to wood, I did my own non-scientific test.  I glued scrap pieces of lexan (Optix brand from home depot) to maple and let sit.  12 hours later more or less fully cured.  After 24 hours no additional changes

I tested 5 different types of adhesive and/or sealants. 

Test 1 and 2:  I tested two types of paintable caulking.  any caulking without silicone is useless for gluing lexan to wood and did not have any adhesion

Test 3:  two part epoxy.  adhered really well, but has the shortest working type and hardens completely inflexible.  It looked like there was a slight melting factor of the lexan but I could not be sure.  Not removable

Test 4:  Pure epoxy (comes in a caulking tube)  from Lowes/home depot.  Adhered really well easy to use and long working time and after the requisite time was still rock solid adhered and the nice thing about silicone is that it still remains a little flexible if there has to be any final "persuasion" in assembly.  If it has to be removed it could be with a little work

Test 5:  I had some aqua seal left over from repairing some of my dive gear.  has the same working properties as silicone.  When it hardens it is not near as flexible as silicone but adheres really well.  It is quite expensive.  Comes in tube but no matter how good the cap is put back on, it hardens. and have to poke holes in the bottom each time for the next use.

After all this, I will be using silicone once I get done tweaking the project

I will give it a try tonight and post the results

I finally got around to finishing the build.  Not pretty, used what I had around the shop.  Any way I built it 8 inches tall, bucket size is 20 inches in diameter.  I am using 4 inch pipe that plugs into the  inlet box which is rectangle (8 inch tall  by 6 inch wide and about a foot long).  the four inch pipe plugs into the top of the inlet box.  The outlet tube is about 2 1/2 inches above the baffle.  I can tweek the outlet and the inlet if I need to.  So as far as performance goes I put about 15 gallons of sawdust (way faster than a tool could generate) through the unit and about one gallon made it to the dust bag.  not the 100% I was hoping for but much better than it was. Does anybody have any suggestions on where I could tweek it to get better collection?  I also want to thank everyone on this forum for the help. 

I have a couple of more questions.  I did some searching and am even more confused than ever.  I am building a top hat, 8 inches tall on a 22 inch barrel

1.   It is my understanding that the inlet port should be about halfway on "non slotted" portion of the baffle.  Am I correct
2.  Should the inlet tube be inside the unit ( I read it would interfere with the air flow)
3.  Should the inlet be square or round.  Saw lots of arguments for both
4.  Finally, is there a reason I should not use OSB if I put the smooth side inside the unit

Thanks for the input.  Regarding your question, I am going to go with a side inlet.  Does that change any of the recommendations?

I have been searching and have not found an answer.  I am getting ready to build a top hat.  Will be using four inch connections, Penn State Industries 2.5 HP dust collector (1500 CFM)  and a 19 inch fiber barrel. 

1.  What is the optimum height of the top hat (for some reason 8 inch sticks in my mind
2.  How far should the outlet port go down inside the seperator?
3.  How far off the baffel should the inlet port be