budget dust collection

[James_Terrio]

Recently I saw a pic here of someone's kick-butt dust collection set-up they just finished. Mighty nice but looks a bit out of my range, both in cost and fabrication skills.

So what can I do for cheap in the meantime? Can I run a hose from a small shop-vac to my grinder or will I just burn it up with sparks? Use it only with wood/micarta etc? I need something I can adapt to use on the bench too, when I'm using the Dremel, the most productive dust-making tool I've owned yet.

 

[Will Leavitt]

I saw a review for an attachment that went on the end of your shop vac and should perform like the large dust pickups that a "serious" dust collector would. I'm sure you could probably cobble something similar out of sheet metal and an unused shop vac attachment, just basically make a funnel and pop rivet to the shop vac nozzle and attach under the grinder.

 

[James_Terrio]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking.

What about sparks? Forgive me if that's a dumb question, I just want to make sure I don't blow myself up. Shop's in the back corner of the basement, a fire would be bad bad bad

P.S. Yes I have a fire extinguisher

 

[jim moyer]

Forging under a large Oak tree.

 

[miden]

I made something like you gents are talking about and hooked it up to my shop vac. It is not pretty but it works pretty well and up to now, no fire! I also work in the basement and a fire extinguisher is close at hand.
I will post some pics tonight, I am not at home right now.

Mike

 

[miden]

 

[James_Terrio]

cool miden, I can jerry-rig, I mean creatively-engineer something like that.

 

[miden]

James, I have a few other pics but they come out very big, even though I tried to resize them in "Imagecave".
Yes, my catcher does need a coat of paint, it is one of those things that one makes and tries it out with all good intentions of finishing it later and then it just never happens.
Jerry rig or creatively engineer all you like, it works.
If you are interested I can send you the other pics via e-mail.


Mike

 

[Patrickknives]

I set up a inexpensive system using a blower from HF and flexible metal pipe for dryer ducts. Here is a link, they also have a top for a bucket that you put water in to remove the hot particals.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=94029

 

[miden]

These seem to have worked.

The bottom piece is connected to the sheet metal with 3 screws. It is plastic that I machined to the same taper as the shop vac hose fitting so it just pushes in.

Mike

 

[Bill DeShivs]

Aluminum disposable cake pans work very well. They are a little safer than rigid metal, too. And they're cheap!

 

[A C Richards]

Ive melted a plastic hose used for metal dust/spark collection. I would recommend using the metalized hose for dryers rather than the plastic. Also make sure you empty that shopvac every night. It would be better if you run it through a metal container to give the sparks a chance to go out. A water cyclone collector is the optimum but pricey. And yes have that extinguisher handy.