Phil - Thank You - newbie with 8 questions here

[Howard In Toronto]

Hi Phil -

Thank you for providing so many of us so much practical information.

I'm hoping I can get some answers before I start buying supplies and fittings.

My projects are almost 100% made out of mdf so fine dust is my big challenge.

My DC is a Delta 50-850 on which I ditched the twin 4" hoses and modified the plate to accept 6" hose which goes to my main machines.

My idea is to build a top-hat-style Thien Separator to be positioned over an as-yet-to-be-determined size of fibre drum - I want to put a bag into the drum to make emptying easier.

I'll want to mount the blower directly over the drum and keep the whole thing mobile rather than attach it to the wall.
There are two configurations that have given me ideas. One is where the blower leads directly into the bag tree sort of like this -
- http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=346.0;attach=710;image
The other would be going directly into a FARR cartridge filter and leave out the bag tree and plastic bag (I already own the FARR filter from a previous mod)
- http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=294.0;attach=565;image
(with just a piece of pipe or something....)

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND ALMOST 100% OF MY STUFF IS MDF!

So now my questions are -
(1) will a 30-gallon drum be the right size to control the fine dust? Should it be bigger? Smaller?
(2) will the 6" inlet into the top hat work ok?
(3) is the dropslot at 1 1/8" okay seeing my current output is almost 100% MDF and I do get the occasional chunk from the TS
(4) is 3/4" MDF ok for the top-hat's bottom or do I improve performance with 1/4" tempered hardboard
(5) should I still hold things together with all-thread even though it's a top-hat configuration
(6) I intend to buy bendy plywood to form the top-hat - how much does it matter if I run the plywood into grooves in the top and bottom or run the top and bottom into grooves in the bendy plywood

Thank you all for your help here.

Howard