Cheapskate wants dust collection

[Mark Burge]

Hello all: I usually hang out on the turners forum, but I have a dust collection question. I just got a deal on a dust collector with a 4 inch intake. Note the deal and the beginnings of my cheapness. It didn't come with any tubing, so I have been cobbling together a reducer and my 2" tubes from my shop vac. So, being that I'm cheap, I don't want to spend a lot of money on the tubing that is actually made for dust collection like at rockler or woodcraft. I'm wondering if I could use the drainage pipe bendable tubes that they sell much cheaper at lowes or HD. What do you all think? Pros, cons, and stop trying to save money comments welcome.

Thanks, Mark

[Bill Houghton]

but keep two things in mind:

1. Dust collectors gather the dust by creating suction. Suction isn't quite a vacuum, but the suction IS created by making the air pressure below atmospheric pressure on the hose side. You want ductwork that won't collapse under the suction.

2. You also want ductwork that doesn't have any spots where shavings can collect.

That flex hose might meet the first requirement - after all, it gets put under ground, often in areas where trucks drive over top of the dirt - but I'm dubious about the second. Also, from my experience using it for its intended purpose, it's hard to adapt other fittings to it.

[Myk Rian]

It all depends on how far the DC is from the tool.
Many people have a single hose on their DC and connect it to whatever tool they are using. If that is what you intend on doing, and can get the drainage pipe to fit, keep it short and you should be OK.

[Prashun Patel]

4" pipe is better. The corrugated pipe from HD might collapse under the pressure. Yr better springing for some reinforced dc piping.

Check out Harbor Freight, Penn State, PeachTree, or Grizzly. They have some decent prices on this stuff.

[Steve Jenkins]

I'd stay away from the corrugated hose stuff as it will create a lot of turbulance and loss of suction. You can use pvc sewer and drain pipe if you want and then a short piece of hose at the machine you are hooking to. the 2" hose from your shop vac will be close to useless for a dust collector. The difference is a shop vac moves a comparatively small amount of air at a high static pressure (Lots of suction), but a dust collector moves a lot of air at a much lower static pressure. In other words you can't suck enough air through a 2" hose to do much good.

[keith ouellette]

4" waist line "thin wall' pvc. I'm pretty sure you won't find any cheaper duct than that. When I priced it , it was even cheaper than the cheapest 4" flex hose.

Check a couple of plumbing supply places. Tell them how many feet you will need and when they give you the price ask them " can't you do a little better than that on the price?" and then tell them what you need it for. Prices aren't written in stone at places like that and the new guy they never saw before always gets the high price.

Find out what it goes for at HD so you have a base price.

[Stephen Edwards]

I agree with the OP who recommend thin wall S&D pipe. It's fairly inexpensive and so are the fittings. I would suggest getting one 50" section of this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000223Y0

You can often find it on the e auction site as well.

The cheapest blast gates that I've found are here:

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=97497

The cheapest wire hose clamps that I've found are 65 cents each from these folks:

http://www.kencraftstore.com/wire_hose_clamp.htm

Here's a simple solution for connecting the blast gates to your thin wall 4" PVC duct work:

For each blast gate cut a section of the PVC about 8-12 inches long........whatever works for you. Slip the PVC over ONE end of the blast gate. You'll notice that it isn't a tight fit. Never mind that. Remove the blast gate.

Now, put a heavy bead of caulk around the top and bottom portion of the one end of the blast gate, on the outside. Also put a heavy bead of caulk all the way around the inside of one end of your short piece of PVC that you've cut to the desired length. Put this heavy bead of caulk about 1" from the end of the pipe, again, on the inside of the pipe.

Slide the PVC over the blast gate fitting, all the way to the bottom of the fitting, until the caulk oozes out both on the inside and outside. Have a can or bucket of warm water a rag to clean up all the excess caulk, inside and outside.

Set the blast gate with the now attached PVC aside for at least 24 hours. I like to give it 48 hours.

To connect the PVC pipe to PVC fittings, use duct tape. It's cheap! And, if you want to change your configuration later you remove the duct tape and the fittings are still good to go for whatever new arrangement you might have in mind.

John Nixon taught me the caulking the blast gate to the PVC method. It's cheap, easy and works very well.

Finally, use a short piece of the black flex hose to connect from the blast gate to your tool DC ports, connecting it with the 65 cents fittings.

I don't know how many tools you have but it won't cost much to do the whole shop this way. Be sure to use a blast gate at each tool.

Grizzly also has reasonably priced fittings. A floor drop is nice to have also.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. You can see my "DC on the Cheap" at this page:

http://stephenedisonedwards.com/dust...seperator.html

Good luck with your DC system!

[David Hostetler]

Dude, I think I am King Bang For The Buck... I've got cheap son of a gun down to a science. Having said that, it doesn't make sense to put resources into a solution that won't work. DO NOT NECK THAT 4" DOWN!

The whole point to going with a 4" DC over a shop vac is to get better CFM out of the system, to pull and filter more air... Sorry for using the coastal Texas analogy, but why try to put Gulf freeway rush hour traffic on a 2 lane country road?

Now having said that, you want that traffic to flow down a nice multilane freeway to get home right? (into the bag...) Then go to your friendly neighborhood home center (Home Depot, Lowes, Sutherlands, McCoys, etc...) or better yet, get to a dedicated plumbing supply house and grab some 4 inch sewer and drain pipe, the kind WITHOUT the perforations...

Your 4" dust collection hose WILL fit onto sewer and drain hose. I have a youtube video up showing that this DOES work... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24gFgttTub0

Use as little of the ribbed hose as you can. And don't make my mistake. Do NOT get the Penn State Industries dust collection hose. They should be embarassed to put their name on this stuff...

[Stephen Edwards]

Hi David,

I haven't used the Penn State clear hose as seen in your youtube video so I can't comment on that. I can tell you that I and many other woodworkers that I know are very pleased with their black super flex hose. As a drop from the 4 inch PVC to the machines, I wouldn't consider using anything else now. I've been using my system for more than a year now.

I love the stuff! I haven't had any problems with it at all. With portable machinery it works great. I have one piece of the grey ribbed hose from HF and don't like it at all. I feel the same way about it as you do the clear hose that you don't like. It's way too stiff and a real hassle to use if you're moving a machine. I'm still using two short pieces of it and plan to replace it with the black super flex hose in the near future. In fact, I replaced one piece of it with the Penn State Superflex earlier this week.

Regards,

[David Hostetler]

No worries. Every MFG has a dud every now and then.

I like the hose due to its low cost, and the wire is nice and thick. But the PVC wall material isn't much thicker than cheapo WalMart shower curtain liner material... I don't know, maybe this stuff will hold up in the long run, but it seems really flimsy...

My 2.5 inch hose was sourced from Peachtree, and I can't say enough good about that stuff... Maybe I underestimate this stuff. I must admit, it DOES stretch out pretty smooth as far as flex hose is concerned.with at least shallow peaks and valleys compared to the Peachtree stuff I have, and the HF and Rockler stuff I have seen...

[Stephen Edwards]

The black super flex hose does indeed have a very thin wall. So far it has held up well.

The thing about the HF hose that I didn't like, though it's strong and well built, is that it cramps the portability factor when moving tools around. With the black super flex it's a breeze to move a tool into working position without having to worry about it disconnecting or being a hassle to put the machine right where you want it.

I need to find some good small diameter hose for my Bosch 1617 EVS router. It has the DC attachments but I haven't seriously looked for a hose yet that will fit it. I'll check out Peach Tree to see what they have.

Actually, I'd like to build a DC box to which I can attach hoses for the router and RAS, biscuit jointer, etc. I'm lacking DC for my hand held power tools.

[John Eaton]

I bought some cheap clear walled 4" flex on Amazon if memory serves a few years ago - something like 100 feet of it. Besides the vinyl smell it works fine. It's not as robust as the stuff you get at Rockler but it was super cheap. Rockler has 10' sections currently on sale for $25 - I think I paid about $50 for 100 feet with free shipping for the cheap stuff.

-- John