Finished my Top Hat with 6" ports

[ORBlackFZ1]

Thank you to everyone that has posted on this forum for sharing their ideas and experiences.  A special thanks goes to Phil for hosting the forum and Retired2 for his great posts.

I finished my Top Hat last week and have been testing it out.  Here are a few of my thoughts.

1. I had already been using an in-the-barrel separator for a couple of years, thanks to Phil for the web pages on the idea years ago.  It worked very well, but my jointer and surface planer created too much dust/chips for the 4" hose to keep up. 

2. The motivation for creating a Top Hat design was to create better chip/dust collection at both my 12" Jet JJ-12 jointer and my 20" Grizzly G5850z surface planer. 

3.  I decided to change my flexible piping from 4" to 6" diameter for all my equipment.   First the jointer, then the surface planer, band saw, table saw, etc.

4. Using the larger 6" hose between the DC and the new Top Hat has improved the chip collection at my jointer.  I have been jointing 10" to 12" by 8' to 10' long boards over the last week and I have not got any chip clogs at the jointer!!  This is using only a 5" diameter flexible hose to the jointer.  I will be switching to a 6" hose at the jointer as soon as I get another one.

5. My dust collection bag has gotten very little dust and the filter has stayed clean!

6. The only clog I have gotten is in the Top Hat.    The 1-1/4" wide slot is not wide enough for the chips created by the jointer.  I may have to widen the slot or create another Top Hat with a wider slot.

I have not used the Surface Planer with the Top Hat yet.  Now that I have all the lumber jointed, I will be using the planer to finish the third side.  I will post those thoughts after some planing time.

Thanks again to everyone for contributing to the forum.

[ORBlackFZ1]

Here are some photos. 

[BradD]

Very nice! Pretty barrel.

Bungee cords will free up those clamps.

Just posted results of my first emptying.
http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=1080.0

Regards,
Brad

[ORBlackFZ1]

Very nice! Pretty barrel.

Thank you.  I made that barrel a couple of years ago when I was testing out the accuracy of my table saw.  Each barrel "slat" side has an angle of 11.25 degrees to make a 16 sided barrel.   I only had to make one test cut to get it correct.  I have a lid that fits inside the barrel perfectly, in any of 16 positions.  That is what I love about woodworking, there are always many different ways to do something, you just have to open your mind and think about it for a while.

Bungee cords will free up those clamps.

That is an interesting suggestion.  I was waiting for a more creative method that is easy to use.  I can't decide which suggestion I like better.  I will probably use these:

http://www.rockler.com/trunk-tool-chest-table-catch

or

http://www.rockler.com/classic-oblong-catches-select-finish

Actually, the only reason the clamps are needed is because when I glued up the two (2) 1/2" thick plywood bottoms, I didn't clamp them to a flat surface, so they warped a little bit.  I will eventually put some weatherstripping on the bottom to seal the Top Hat to the barrel.

Just posted results of my first emptying.
http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=1080.0

Nice to see your first emptying.....I have already emptied my 44 gallon barrel three (3) times since I finished the Top Hat  (over the last week) and the barrel is full again.  It looks like I will have to go fill up a couple of neighbors "green recycling bins", since we only get curbside recycling every other week and my bin is full.