Thien Separator

I built this Thein separator to go with my HF 2 HP dust collector a while ago, before I had even joined LumberJocks. I actually never ran the dust collector without the Thein separator and Wynn filter cartridge. Both have proven to be good additions. The separator takes care of 100% of the chips (as long as the can isn’t full) and a lot of dust, but quite a bit of fine dust still ends up in the Wynn filter, so I’m glad I have it. The separator is made of MDF, hardboard, and a few dowels and screws. The joints are glued and sealed with silicone. The frame is made of the cheapest pine 2×4s I could find.
The work I did today was pretty simplistic, but I thought I’d post this as an overall project. I don’t have any photos of the Thein separator under construction, but today I added eye bolts to the separator and eye screws and cheap carabiners to the frame to hold the separator up while I remove the (usually full to overflowing) can for emptying. The separator is shown suspended above the can in the fourth photo. This is much more convenient as, before, I had to support the separator and try to juggle the full can of chips/dust without spilling it everywhere.
A future mod to this setup will be to make it mobile, but I’ll save that for another day. I just have a small basement shop, which will eventually move to the garage, so I prefer the simplicity of a mobile separator over permanently installed ducting. This also results in as short a run of ducting as possible for improved air flow. This works best for me.

-- Brady