5 gal bucket DS

[rinthesun]

I wish to make a 5 gal bucket ds for my miter saw.  Elsewhere in this forum, such separators have been built, but I did not see any pictures. Maybe I just missed them. At present I am building a CMS cabinet similar to the following and wish to place the vacuum and separator inside.

http://mikefromwinton.com/mtrsaw.html

None the less, I will try my version of the DS using a HD bucket and some 1 1/2" PVC plumbing parts. First I will try a design without the baffle and then if I can find the tempered hardboard I will add the baffle. I will add pictures as I progress for anyone who might be interested.

I have a small shop for which I have a blog of my projects.

http://workshopprojects.blogspot.com/

My real interest is in the design of a CNC router. See

http://cncrouterbuild.blogspot.com/

[rinthesun]

I am only using the Shop Notes as a design idea, but adding my own ideas. When I am done it will be the same physical size, but with full wings and  adjustable fences. Check this one out.

http://local.americanwoodworker.com/Mobile_Miter_Saw_Stand_Sun_City_Center_FL-r1332837-Sun_City_Center_FL.html

Do you have pictures of your 5 gal design?

[retrowood]

I've a 5 Gal. bucket DD/Vac system and while it works very well for small tools, it fills up very fast for anything else. I believe there are same size diameter buckets of 6-7 gallon capacity which will add considerably to your overall chip storage. The extra 1-2 gallons will give your separator extra air space at the top of bucket instead of blowing chips over into your fines container. This might be something to consider if you're doing a clean sheet build. I believe a business in Lima Ohio can supply these, US Plastics.
Good luck,
Retrowood

I wish to make a 5 gal bucket ds for my miter saw.  Elsewhere in this forum, such separators have been built, but I did not see any pictures. Maybe I just missed them. At present I am building a CMS cabinet similar to the following and wish to place the vacuum and separator inside.

http://mikefromwinton.com/mtrsaw.html

None the less, I will try my version of the DS using a HD bucket and some 1 1/2" PVC plumbing parts. First I will try a design without the baffle and then if I can find the tempered hardboard I will add the baffle. I will add pictures as I progress for anyone who might be interested.

I have a small shop for which I have a blog of my projects.

http://workshopprojects.blogspot.com/

My real interest is in the design of a CNC router. See

http://cncrouterbuild.blogspot.com/

[Bulldog8]

I've wanted to build a 5 gallon separator ever since completing my tophat build last year. I wanted a side inlet, but hadn't figured out a good way to provide support the inlet without investing in more metal working tools. Here is what I came up with, it's a typical baffle with 1-1/2" piping that I will connect to a 5.5hp shopvac.


Here is a shot of the inside of the bucket. I roughed out the hole with a drill and jig saw and then smoothed the edges with a die grinder and a round file.


Nothing new about the baffle, 1/4" hardboard and 7/8" drop slot.


I plan to build a cart to hold the bucket, vac and some sanding tools and supplies over the holidays.

Steve

[galerdude]

Wow, that is some extra craftsmanship there! That really looks good! I need to do this exact same thing. Mine won't look as nice but I thank you for the inspiration and incentive !!!
Very cool!

Gale

[Bulldog8]

Rinthesun, here are a couple of things that I found during my build that may help you. I wanted to ensure that the inlet pipe was square to the opening so that the incoming dust stream smoothly transitioned to the wall of the container and wasn't aimed towards the center of the baffle. To accomplish this I laid out the bucket and inlet pipe on a piece of plywood. Obviously this isn't to scale, but is just to show what I did.


This allowed me to easily and accurately layout the cut line for the pipe. I then used the pipe (after smoothing and refining) to draw the inlet location on the bucket. I traced the outside of the pipe onto the bucket and then went back and traced an inner line that was the thickness of the wall of the pipe. This provided a glue surface where I could epoxy the end of the pipe to the outside of the barrel. After gluing the end of the pipe to the bucket, I secured the outer end of the pipe with the wood that you can see in the picture. The last step was to refine the transition from the pipe to the bucket with a hand file to ensure there were no obstructions to impede air flow.

I just picked up a new filter for the shop vac to use for testing. I have a few end grain cutting boards to finish for Christmas, so the baffle will get its first test with a little shop clean up and some fines from sanding.

Steve

[Bulldog8]

Well today I used the 5 gallon separator for sanding. I built the 5 gallon model to primarily use with hand sanders, router table and some shop clean up. Previously when sanding I would rapidly clog the filter on the Shop Vac. Today went much better.

I finished up with the last of my Christmas work with these cutting boards.


Sanding end grain isn't easy, the dust produced is very fine. The filter on the Shop Vac would normally clog up enough that I would have to clean it after each board. Today, I sanded, routed and cleaned up after two boards without cleaning the filter.

For comparison, I left the Shop Vac alone after the last board I made and used a different one today. I started with a new never been used filter. You can see that the results are pretty dramatic.
The filter on the left is a couple of years old, but was blown clean prior to sanding and routing one board. The right hand filter did two boards.



I have hard piped the separator outlet/vac inlet.



Steve

[Bulldog8]

Didn't we all copy Phil's design?

[retired2]

Didn't we all copy Phil's design?

Steve,

Don't lose any sleep over the previous post (now deleted).  This forum operates on the same premise as other on-line forums, i.e. it's members share their knowledge, experience, and ideas unselfishly with all other members, and they do so without the expectation of anything in return.  There is only one person I know on this forum who doesn't seem to grasp that concept.  And the truth is there is nothing so unique or original about his designs that they didn't already exist previously in countless other variations.

Happy Holidays

[Peter]

/begin rant.

I saw the Thien separator somewhere (maybe it was SMC) and thought to myself: "Self, that's a mighty neat idea. You should find a way to use it."

So I did. I "invented" the top hat. Of course then I found this site and discovered that about 78 bazillion other guys had already "invented" the top hat, and if that wasn't amazing enough, there are 32 oodles of threads all about how to make them work better. Or differently. It's getting to the point where if you have a hankering to become thoroughly confused, seek out dust collection forums and try to come up with some single solution for your particular condition.

My friends: there ain't no such thing.

But of the myriad solutions possible, some of them are damn good, and of those, there will be duplicates. Yep. Copies of that "very cool design" you just came up with because if you're like me, you're too damn lazy to go do hours and hours of research necessary to find that you've just reinvented someone else's wheel.

How many hours have YOU spent on your design(s)? I've spent hundreds of them. Are my solutions unique? Hardly. But you know? When you go about inventing the wheel, you're gonna come up with a circular device that pivots on some sort of axle and if you're concerned about comfort, may have a tire. Or if you're concerned about aesthetics, it may be chromed.

But it's still a wheel, which, last time I checked, was in the public domain.

Now Mr. Thien's designs are probably not completely in the public domain, but those modifications of it we all make in hopes we'll solve our particular problems (cost, available materials, time, energy, motivation, brand of shop vac or dust blower) will make the design different.

I've lurked in this place awhile. I've posted a couple of times. But whereas the separators people here have built all work on a similar principle, they all differ from one another that there is NO plagiarism.

And if anyone wants to copy my design, I say GO RIGHT AHEAD...and while you're at it, see if you can find a way to make it better. If you do and tell me about it, I will be forever grateful.

/end of rant.

Thanks for reading. :)

[Mike Goetzke]

I made a bucket baffle a few years back and it works great for my track saw (I replaced the experimental styrofoam baffle with a sheet metal one):