I have a 3HP Dust Gorilla in the shop, with a small barrel. Emptying is a chore, as I cannot physically lift the barrel to dump it. I always wanted to put a trash bag inside, and watched the various ways to keep the bag from getting sucked up into the DC. The way I chose was a copy of a system a member posted here several years ago.
I thought it might be helpful to some, to show a few shots of the build.
At first, I used way too small diameter dowels.
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The second try, used 3/4" dowels.....much sturdier.
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The layout of the donut. The hole is slightly larger than the 8" opening in the lid, and the dowels would not fit the holes my drill made, so I sanded the ends a bit and drove them in.
The height of the system is slightly less than the bottom of the lid. Notice the sanding spindle....I sanded out the holes a bit also. Note also the small circle cutout with all the practice holes in it.
Molly in the background is 17 years old.
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Here, the donut, on its legs is sitting in the barrel, with the trash bag already installed. You can see how tight the lid will fit above it.
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This shot is looking through the hole in the donut, into the barrel. You can see that I tried to form the trash bag to the barrel before inserting the fixture. Notice the dowels sitting on the trash bag. They will just slide right out of the sawdust when the bag is ready to be emptied. The bottoms of the dowels are smoothed a bit to avoid tearing the bag.
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Here is the barrel back in place, ready to go.
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Hope this is of help to someone. I have not emptied the bag yet, so far the system is acting exactly as it did before the modification. The hardest part of the whole build was getting the right size holes for those stupid metric dowels they sell now. I have a set of brad point bits that go 1/64 on each side of 3/4"...still didn't work. Total cost....about $12 for the dowels at HD. The rest is scraps.
Rick Potter
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