Well, I have been debating for months about running my Onieda 3 HP dust gorilla through the outside wall of the shop, eliminating the filter.

Couple days ago I started sanding a bunch of park bench slats to refinish them. The DC hardly picked up anything. Barrel empty, ran compressed air over the outside of the filter, tapped the outside of the filter. This gave me a little bit in the bottom pan, but not much, so I removed the filter. It didn't really look all that bad at all. A lot less dust than I expected.

I decided to run a test, put some water in a trash barrel and wet the sides, to catch any dust in the system, put the barrel under the open 8" elbow where the filter goes and let 'er rip. Lots of air flow, but no dust, thank goodness. While it ran, I took a stick and rapped all the fittings while opening gates one at a time, to see if anything was clogged. Nothing.

Then I scientifically tested for suction, holding my hand over the gates, one at a time. Big difference from when the filter was on, noticably more flow than with a clean filter.

Soooo, I decided this was the time to do it or quit talking about it. Today, I took off the big yellow 8" elbow that the filter hangs on, and cut out all the spot welds with my trusty $15 HF muffler cutter, breaking it loose from the square to round adaptor on the DC. This will allow me to rotate it on the adaptor so that the elbow will be horizontal and aiming toward the wall. I plan to get it situated, then put some pop rivets on to hold it, covering the junction with foil tape. Then a couple of 8" elbows, and a three foot piece of pipe through the wall.

Tomorrow I will decide whether to cut off the flange for the filter, because it is in the way, and looks pretty silly, hanging there on its side. If I can get the spot welds without making it irreversible I will go for it.

What tipped me over the edge on this project was the 38" drum sander. Years back, I had an 18" Delta drum sander and a 1 1/2 HP Onieda with the internal filter. At that time, they noted that sanding dust would clog the filter much more rapidly than anything else in the shop, so I never used the Onieda on the sander, and used a bag collector instead. Don't have one anymore.

Stay tuned. I will let you know how it works out. If it doesn't, I'll 'fess up to that too.

Rick Potter

PS: It's SoCal, heat loss is not a problem, the windows are open most of the time anyway. I do have an AC unit in the wall, but seldom need it.