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Here are some pics of the first branch of the duct work system. The jointer in the middle is not hooked up because I have not made a port yet but there is a 6" blast gate on the drop. The BS is hooked up temporarily with no blast gate.
The branch runs from one side of the garage to the other under the door rails so it is unsupported for 16'. There is a little sag but not too much. It doesn't seem to move when the DC is running but I thought over time it may start too sag a little more ( like the owner). I also think some of the sag is built in because I just eyeballed each segment from the ladder instead of backing away and taking a good look. I took some 8" pieces of 30 gauge snaplock pipe and zip screwed them over the 26 gauge joints hopefully adding a little more stability. It took about 1/2 hour to cut screw and tape them.
When installing under the rail I put straps around the piece I was installing and anchored it to the ceiling with self tapping drywall anchors. This allowed the piece to hang from one end if I needed to work in the fit of the connection.( Some of the HD 26 gauge wyes needed some persuasion.)
All the snaplock pieces are 2' so I thought I could beat the system by screwing a few together then bring them up the ladder to add in. This did not work because it became hard to get the connection to come together with my arms spread out 4' pushing on one end and trying to hold already completed portion steady while on top of the ladder. The strapping keeps stuff from falling down but it does not resist the pushing. So one piece at a time. All the straps were removed after I reached the second rail.
One other thing to note. The reducers and elbows are only fitted together so the weight of a few pieces could separate them. Guess how I know. (Think 8"-6" reducer second piece from the DC; at least I learned this early and there were only a couple other pieces on.) So tape those joints or support those pieces well.
Each end that is directly under the garage door rail is strapped onto a 2x3 that is lagged onto the length of steel L that the rail is attached to. Luckily these L's were already predrilled.
I've included a photo of the 6" planer hood that I made and one of the chute which you can buy from Delta as accessory. Don't buy this it jams into the machines existing chute and creates a jamming point. I could never run my planer for more than a minute without it clogging. After switching to this homemade one even my old 1 hp Busy Bee DC would keep up pretty well when attached with 10' of flex.
I am hoping this branch will not sag due to vibration, weight and age ( again like the owner) but if it shows signs of this I was thinking I could attach a 16' deck board on edge to the pieces of 2x3 one each rail with metal right angle braces then strap the branch to that.
The other two branches should not have this much aggravation as they can be anchored to the ceiling and wall. Dear WW Gods that is a hopeful observation not a challenge.
After initially hooking up the planer with no blast gate and the other side of the wye had a cap pressed in ( the other wyes for other branches also had caps pressed in) the DC was pulling small chips off the planers auxillary bed from a foot away from the planer. After adding 2' more pipe and a wye to the jointer, with both openings of the wye open I tried the DC again. It was still pulling stuff from a foot away from the planer. I cannot wait to get this thing up and running when its sealed tight.
Hopefully anyone getting ready to do this by themselves can use this to help or improve on it and help someone after they do it.
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