Thien Baffle with Dewalt 735 Planer (no vacuum)

[phallstrom]

Hey all - I picked up a lot of good information from this forum and wanted to post some pics/notes about the setup I built in case it helps someone else and because no matter how hard she tries to fake it, my wife doesn't think it's as cool as I do and I have to tell someone :)

tldr: Using the blower on the Dewalt 735 without a vacuum works great. no chips escape.

A couple weeks ago I planed a bunch of lumber and had to empty my 35gal dust collector drum three times in one morning. I'd seen videos of the thien and decided to make one. I wanted one that would also act as a stand for the planer.  I also wanted the overall height to be just above my table saw so I could use it as a longer out feed table. That didn't end up happening, but mostly because I made the baffle taller than my plans since I had the material and by that point didn't care as much.  This is also why I went with a 20 gal trash can instead of a larger 32 gal.  All in all though I like the height it ended up at. Comfortable to use.

The baffle is about 21" diameter and 8" tall. Inlet is 4" on top, but then elbows and has about 5" of horizontal before entering the baffle. Outlet is 4" and there's a 2" gap between the bottom and the baffle itself.  I didn't cut rings on the bandsaw like a lot of videos show, but ended up cutting dados with a 1/8" router bit in two sheets of plywood.  The vertical supports around the baffle are twofold - help hold the weight of the planer so nothing is resting on the lexan and because I had scrap lexan I had not one, but two seams so this made it easier to bend them around and have them stay in place while I screwed/caulked them in.  I cut a recess into the bottom of the baffle and epoxied in a framing nail. This seems to have eliminated any flexibility in that bottom baffle and doesn't impact things [much?].

After first run and a fairly decent shock from the hose coming out the planer I grounded that hose to the planer one it's end, then attached the other end to some bare copper that runs down the side, under the bottom edge of the baffle and then screwed to under edge of baffle.  The garbage can also has a length of bare copper epoxied vertically along the inside (set into one of the recesses of the can itself) and comes up and over the garbage top. When attached the two wires are in contact.  It seems to make a huge difference and I can't detect any static build up anymore.

The underside of the planer is higher than it looks. There's about a 3" space between the bottom of the planer and the outlet vent. Air seems to escape just fine.

The garbage can sits just inside a ring of plywood (scraps from cutting the baffle slot) and on some 1/2" weather stripping. Two cam levers press against the bottom of the can handles and hold it snugly to the baffle. Once secured there is about 3/4" clearance between the can and the ground. Pretty critical to securely attach the can. On an early test run the blower is strong enough it just pushes it away. Heh.

Anyway. Thanks for reading and I hope this helps someone!

Quick vid of it working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p99LIZz9PE

A few pics might show metal tape instead of the ground wire. While it worked, it didn't stick very well so I replaced it.

[Kelly Bellis]

Nice job! Thank you for sharing.
Just curious, was the epoxied 16d an after thought after the vibration was observed?, or was it put in place before the first running of the planer-w/baffle?

[phallstrom]

Kelly - The epoxied 16d was done before I ran it. Someone in a thread here mentioned vibration and I was able to move the baffle by pressing on it so I figured might as well do it before putting it all together.

I have noticed that the planer does put out some very very fine dust.  So have modified the outlet so I can attach my DC to it. Which as a nice bonus means I can swap the inlet hose with the jointer when I'm doing a lot of jointing.

I've filled that can 4 times in 4 days already :)

[Kelly Bellis]

I've filled that can 4 times in 4 days already :)

That's 20 gallons of chips each day? That's a lot of planing! Any idea as to how many board feet equals a gallon? Yes, it sounds like a silly question, but I was considering getting the DW735 and using a 10-gallon bucket beneath it for my small home shop.

On a related note, I see you're using the Dewalt DW735 with the extension tables, and was curious if you bought them after running the planer in an effort to mitigate snipe?

[phallstrom]

Kelly -

I was milling up a lot of wood. Not sure how many board feet to gallon, but next time I'll measure it.  Suppose it depends on how much I have to take off... hrmm...  and.. it's not at all a _compact_ 20.  It's fluffy.  I'd think 10g would be fine, just have to empty it more often, but it's easy to empty.

I got a deal on the planer that included the tables so have never used them without.

[Enigmadan]

Nice! And here I thought I had to buy a 2hp dust collector to replace my shop vac setup when I bought the 735 planer.
As to your grounding, is it all just connected to the planer as seen in that one pic? I'm planning to ground my system as well,  and haven't yet decided on how to do it.

[phallstrom]

Enigmadan - Yeah, there's a bare copper wire that runs up the inside of the garbage can, then screws to the metal wire in the short bit of dust hose. Then on the other end of the hose I connected a short piece of wire from the hose-wire and slipped it under the screw you can see in the pic.

I tested that screw for continuity with ground by touching hooking it up to that and the ground on the plug.

So far it seems to be working great.

[phil (admin)]

Very clever implementation!