A Thank you note to the members

[jnug]

I have just done a ton of reading here the last few days and have downloaded many pages of information and dimensions for a top hat Thien. Initially I had myself convinced that I would build the simplest design I could find here. But after conducting a fair amount of research i come away pretty well convinced that I can build a top hat with bellmouth output about as well as i can build anything and I think I will have more of a separator for the effort. Coming up with some of the parts I am going to need might be difficult.  But that was going to be the case almost no matter what I decided to build as you often don't know how fittings are going to mate up until you have them in hand and I often have to make Internet purchases as there is not much to choose from locally.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the board in general for the spirit of exploration and enthusiasm regularly exhibited here. I have a very simple dust separator attached to my DC now. I put it together using a commercially available lid it so that I would have a fall back separator as I endeavored to build a version of the separator lids discussed here with regularity. I am happy with servicing one power tool at a time with a dust collection system. So I am and will be using what on balance is probably middling sized equipment....a 1.5HP collector is at the heart of my system. But it is well made, quiet running and I have already equipped it with a canister filter. As I am sure many here are aware, canisters and cartridges are roundly criticized at some sites as simply accidents waiting to happen...that they represent a soon to be realized failure.

One reason I am taking the time to thank the members of this board is that before I did extensive reading here, I simply could not come to terms with what I was experiencing with nothing more than a modest lid, well sealed with appropriate accessories plus decent DC servicing a single tool and some of the comments you read at other sites. These are sites that would have you believing that the sky is falling or will be falling on you specifically unless you are willing to install a behemoth cyclone, likely cutting a hole in your ceiling so that those on the second floor could enjoy the top of your device. Of course according to some if you do not do this, you are in for massive clogging, massive rending of filters and a sure early visit to the morgue with lungs choked with dust. Now I don't mean to make light of a serous issue....respiratory problems do to woodworking dust. But I am more than a little disheartened by the degree some folks in the dust collection business will go to convince you that you stand no chance whatsoever of building even a decent 1 tool at a time system around a 1.5HP to 2 HP collector and a well made and sealed separator lid of the sort focused on at this site. I am not suggesting that we can without question claim we will suck up 100% of the finest particles and from what i have read here, people are very realistic here about what can be done.....what is possible. But I reject the idea that trying is futile. I reject the idea that the kinds of successes people here are able to achieve though ingenuity, cleverness, unfailing good spirit and hard work are not worthwhile just because they may not represent what $10,000 or more worth of commercial/industrial dust collection equipment and shop modifications is capable of doing.

I have work to do but it is work that will be fun, interesting and worthwhile and it will be work done along with other members of this board endeavoring to do the same or similar. There is something to be said just for that communal activity....something that rarely develops out of Internet based activity.

I just hope more people find this site before they get themselves all twisted in knots over what common sense and their own even limited experience seems to suggest and what so called experts insist is the only worthwhile thing to do with regard to small shop, big shop or any shop dust collection.

Anyway thank you all for this site, from the smallest contributor or member to the largest......thank you.