ShopVac = Poormans' dust collection system?

D

dmelton

Joined
Jan 2, 2001
Messages
164
Anyone else out there use a shop vac for a poor mans' dust collector? I was looking through my Grizzly Industrial catalog yesterday and noticed some attachments you can buy to turn an ordinary shop vac into a rudimentary dust collection system. I hooked up my hose near my grinder last night and WOW, SO MUCH less dust!


Derek Melton
Jackson, MS.
 
Derek, it works pretty well if you can get the intake in just the right spot, but I always ran into one problem or another. Be careful. I was grinding away one day when I smelled smoke. I had vacuumed up some wood dust and chips from my table saw and forgot about it. The sparks from the grinder set them on fire. By the time I got the vacuum shut down and opened I had a nice little fire going. Gee, that was fun! The next time I caught my filter on fire. I tried putting a baffle in the vacuum and water in the bottome of the container to kill the sparks. I still ended up with burned spots on the filter and really nasty water in the bottom of the vacuum. I finally decided that the problems were worse than the solution.

I have found that a large quench bucket placed directly below my platen works almost as well for steel dust, but not for wood, micarta, etc. For me, living with a respirator perpetually on my face has been easier.

Fox:D
 
Poor man's air filtration system would describe my system.<lol> I sprung for a *new* 20in. box fan, and put a furnace filter on each side. Hang or set this near your grinder and it will catch a lot of airborn.
 
i and a friend built a box with a blow hole on top, to roll the shop vac into to cut down on the noise. then ran pvc tubing down the wall to give three intake spots. i plug the other two when using each machine.
i work a little slower, but it helps alot. i also have a bucket of water under the grinder and a resperitor on.
 
I went for the box fan through the wall. Works a lot better than the shop vac. Talk about fire, I build up a lot of metal gunk that looks like fine steel wool. I've set it on fire three times now. That burns HOT!:D
 
Just be careful and try to run the vacuum in short increments. Shop vacs are not meant to be run for long periods of time like dust collectors are.

Nick
 
Find the belt carries a lot of dust, some gets thrown on the wall behind the grinder, some finer stuff drifts/accumulating on the floor across the room. This is with a 2 stage collector that pulls hard enough to accumulate sintered metal at a 90 degree metal elbow 26" from the grind point and sucking the belt about 12" after the grind point.

A good respirator is a must! My doc says metal dust accumulation in the lungs is a cummulative problem and doesn't just go away. Keeping a clean shop essential to avoid kicking the stuff up each walk thru. Some swear by ceiling shop filtration systems, helping the clean shop thing a great deal, by filtering the air 6 to 10 times hourly.

The good news is any dust collector will show its benefit quickly by keeping the respirator exterior filters clean much, much, much longer than without collection.
 
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