Built it Yesterday!

[Aardwolf]

I got it built yesterday, used 3' of 20" sonotube & MDF to make the 50 gal drum, made the baffle out of 1/8 hardboard, used a piece of plexiglass I had for a window, & piped in the Shop vac directly on top.

I even figured out how to easily make as many male & female adapters as I want, in about 5 min each, from 2" PVC pipe to match the pvc to & from the shop vac fittings.  This means that I was able to mount the Shop vac right on the top of the separator and still keep it removable & I can now run my shop lines in PVC pipe if I want to.

It works beautifully!!  Better than I expected, even after reading all the forums here.  I sucked up a heck of a lot both coarse & really fine stuff with it & even sucked out my table saw dust bin which was full. End result after about 3/4 hour of continuous use, under both light & very heavy loading, was that there was almost 8 inches of packed stuff (about 12 gal) in the separator &  less than a half cup of superfines in the vac filter & virtually nothing in the vac barrel & I was just starting to notice a bit of drop in suction because of the superfines in the filter.  If I had done this same stuff before, without the separator, I would have had to stop & clean out the vac filter at least 12-15 times!.

I have not weighed anything, but its really easy to see that I'm getting very close to 100% separation including most of the fines.

Total cost of materials including the sonotube & MDF was under $30 Cdn so it fit my budget & was exactly what I needed for the air & dust problem in my shop.  My wife even commented how much cleaner the air was than normal when she came down to get me for dinner.

I will take some pictures of what I built in the next day or so & post them.

Next I guess I need to pipe my shop.

Thanks

Rob   

[bennybmn]

That's awesome!!  I'd love to see some pictures. If I am picturing it correctly, it sounds great!

2 questions: Where did you get the 20" sonotube? (I only saw up to about 12" at Home Depot), and what is the actual inner and outer diameter of the tube? It's giving me some interesting ideas!!! THANKS! Looking forward to some pics :D

[bennybmn]

I've keept my eyes out, the BORGs only have 12" sonotube... Any other sources?