Dust collection on the cheap

Get your self a 5 gallon bucket and used that to catch most of the stuff. This will cut down on how quick your filter gets pluged.

Try a Cyclone lid. Lee Valley sells one but there are others too.

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

Ok now you have my interest. What will the 5 gallon bucket do? how do you connect the vacuum to the bucket?

-- Brian, Lebanon PA, If you aren’t having fun doing it, find something else to do.

The Cyclone lid will give you a place to connect it

-- Scott - Chico California http://chicowoodnut.home.comcast.net

The Bucket will catch the big stuff. The small stuff that is clogging your filter will still get through. A pre filter will clog just as fast and you will just have to clean it instead of the filter. Most of the newer DCs have a rotating flapper that jiggles the fine dust loose off the filter medium so you don’t have to open it up as much.

It is the really fine dust that will do you the most harm (5 to .05 microns). The chips and sawdust that fall on the floor are an inconvenience not a health threat. The stuff that is floating in the air is bad stuff. There are a million internet articles about making a air filter with a box fan and a couple of furnace filters and duct tape and it’s probably not a bad idea for the cash strapped. Not the best but it helps. Use the best filter and keep them clean. Wear a respirator. Not the cheesy disposable masks but rubber mask, cartridge reusable type. You don’t have to get the kind that painters use for spraying lacquer, just something that that has readily available replacements that filter to the correct level.

I”ve used the pantyhose before, it works. It keeps the bigger chips from clogging the pleats. It also stops some of the finer dust. the best thing though is that it makes cleaner the pleated filter alot easier. My shop is limited for space, so I dont have a 5 gallon bucket to catch the bigger chips. my shop vac is a 16 gallon. I’d rather fill that 16 gallon shop instead of emptying a 5 gallon bucket 3 times.

-- Joey, Magee, Ms http://woodnwaresms.com

I’d go with Grumpycarp, the respirator is probably the most cost effective way to go…you really don’t want to see the sludge that builds up in your lungs as you breathe this stuff in. A paramedic colleague of mine likens it to wood putty… not nice stuff to try and breathe through.

-- ....next big purchase is wood for the next project, Mark