Metal shop application

[metalfab_101]

Hi all,

I'm don't do a lot of wood working, and if I do need to rip a sheet of ply or route some edges i'll mostly do it outside. In my shed most of what I do is with metal, and subsequently I end up with grinding dust and swarf. I have a little 500CFM dust extractor on my sandblasting cabinet and I was thinking of using that in a central vacuum system and was going to put a cyclone before it so it would seperate most of the rubbish and let the filters last longer. Now that i've read about Phil's baffle plate setup I think that will be a cheaper and easier way to go.

I have some fine dust to pick up, in the form of grinding dust, but i'll also have heavier chips (steel and aluminium) from my milling machine and lathe. Is Phil's setup going to work for me? Are my requirements for airflow and vacuum going to be different to those of a wood shop?

thanks!

Damo.

[metalfab_101]

OK so I missed something when I searched earlier :o according to this thread metal should not be a problem.

I do have a couple of questions about my setup in particular though. The DC that I have has a 100mm intake. My sandblaster takes a 100mm hose so I was hoping to keep that for simplicity's sake. Also, with the sandblaster moving a larger volume of air is more important than suction, so a bigger hose makes sense. For vacuuming chips off the lathe & mill I wanted to use a normal (about 50mm) hose. Also it's going to be much easier for me to run 50mm PVC compared to 100mm PVC. Considering household ducted vacuum systems use pipe about this size I figured I should be able to get away with it too.

Assuming 50mm ducting is going to work I just have to figure out some way to have 50mm duct and 100mm duct into my seperator. Any ideas?

[alan m]

i dont see why it wouldnt work.
but i think moving metal will require more suction than wood dust.
althow you should get better seperation because of the extra weight.

i would only consider making it out of fairly thick steel plate. all that metal hitting the seperater is going to be like your sand blaster. it will wear a hole in the side.
maybe put some form of sacrafitial piece where the first impacts are going to be.
have fun and report back