Sealing Fiber DC Drums

[Phil Thien]

We're not talking major leakage of the sort that blows chips into that expensive filter. In fact, if I didn't want to use bags (and the Oneida bag retainer) it would be in the undetected department, not enough of a leak to matter.

Any ideas?

D.

Are you talking about the bag retainer that goes inside the plastic bag and is round and is designed to hold the bag against the wall of the drum?

If that is the one, I've read about this before.

I think any air already trapped between the bag, and the drum, will cause the vacuum inside the bag to eventually collapse the retainer.

Looking at the Oneida design, it seems they use connectors to turn their retainer into a hoop. While I'm sure that makes using it more convenient, it also means that it isn't likely a perfect fit, which means you're starting with air trapped between the bag and the drum.

I'd ditch those connectors and allow the relaxed retainer to push the bag flush to the wall of the drum. Or just make your own retainer from rolled up plastic or laminate.

Put your bag in the drum, roll-up the retainer a bit and put that in the bag and allow it to relax against the bag and push the bag tight to the drum wall. Make sure you get rid of as much trapped air as possible, then roll the bag edges over the drum.

If the retainer is close enough to the lid, you could even add a hoop on the bottom of the drum (UNDER the bag) and another hoop fitted to the top of the drum, to provide some additional support to the retainer.

Let us know if you try any of this and how you make out.

Good luck!

[Dan Case LR]

Are you talking about the bag retainer that goes inside the plastic bag and is round and is designed to hold the bag against the wall of the drum?

If that is the one, I've read about this before.

Yes, that's the one. I'm less than enthralled by their design--the directions say the fasteners cannot be removed once fastened, but one of my first attempts found me sifting through the sawdust looking for two of the three sets. There are two different sets of holes to accommodate different diameters, and the one that fits mine leaves about a foot of overlap that doesn't want to stay with the curve. The plastic is springy enough, but that end wants to be straight instead of conforming to the curve of the drum.

I'll try losing the fasteners and see if it behaves better. I may also try reverse-rolling the plastic (inside-out) as it might tend to spring more toward the sides of the drum that way.

Thanks, Phil--I'll let you know what happens.

D.

[Phil Thien]

Yes, that's the one. I'm less than enthralled by their design--the directions say the fasteners cannot be removed once fastened, but one of my first attempts found me sifting through the sawdust looking for two of the three sets. There are two different sets of holes to accommodate different diameters, and the one that fits mine leaves about a foot of overlap that doesn't want to stay with the curve. The plastic is springy enough, but that end wants to be straight instead of conforming to the curve of the drum.

I'll try losing the fasteners and see if it behaves better. I may also try reverse-rolling the plastic (inside-out) as it might tend to spring more toward the sides of the drum that way.

Thanks, Phil--I'll let you know what happens.

D.

Yeah whatever you can do to make the retainer conform to the sides of the drum. If the connectors cause the retainer to be smaller or larger you will get gaps which I think would eventually lead to failure.

If you'd like to use the connectors, drilling new holes may help. Just drill some holes on one end, install it, and use the holes you've drilled to mark for the mating holes. You should be able to get a near perfect fit.

[Chris Padilla]

I envy you guys who can carry your drums outside and dump them. The subdivision would not take kindly to such behavior.

I do it late at night in the park across from my house.

[Rod Sheridan]

I do it late at night in the park across from my house.

LOL Very funny

[Prashun Patel]

The concerns about a fiberboard drum are overblown, I believe. We receive toxic chemicals in fb drums at my business. If they were porous enough to leak air, and hence dust in appreciable quantity, I doubt they'd let them be used.

I use a Thien baffle on a fiberboard drum for my tablesaw, and I also use on a Dust Deputy for my shopvac. I've never had issues with either. I use a metal container on my CV mini cyclone with another shopvac and don't notice any better performance vis-a-vis my fiberboard binned units.

If you are really concerned with air leak on the FB drum, then paint it or varnish it or sealcoat or drylock it.

If you go plastic, then beware. Standard plastic drum stock for plastic can very thin and isn't always perfectly round. This makes compression and getting a perfect lid for it a challenge vs a fb drum.

[Jim Andrew]

I have a plastic drum, it is heavy enough to have no problem with being too thin, it has a rounded top edge, and I used a steel lid, that needed a little work to fit well. Using a piece of foam weatherstrip on the drum, and spring clamps to hold it down works very well. I can watch the dust just flow down into the drum when I put a trouble light on the lid and plane some boards. Really looks like a cyclone in action.

[David Ragan]

I started out with a darn trash can. LOL. What a joke. Leaked like a sieve. Got fed up with it, went over to U-Line here in Atl, (no shipping made all this possible), and got the 30 gallon metal drum. Major improvement. Then, the issue was how to empty it. That thread is in workshop forums. Finally got it all squared away. If a plastic drum will hold up, that's what I would do, I was just wary of the wall being too thin.

[Jim Andrew]

I've been using the same 50 gallon plastic drum for 10 years.

[Dan Case LR]

Yeah whatever you can do to make the retainer conform to the sides of the drum. If the connectors cause the retainer to be smaller or larger you will get gaps which I think would eventually lead to failure.

If you'd like to use the connectors, drilling new holes may help. Just drill some holes on one end, install it, and use the holes you've drilled to mark for the mating holes. You should be able to get a near perfect fit.

After fussing around with thing for far too long, I've reached a couple of conclusions about the problem.

As Phil noted earlier in the thread, any air trapped between the bag and the drum is a problem. With a fresh bag carefully installed to minimize that air, it's remarkable how after a few minutes runtime the bottom of the bag inflates--more precisely, the two far points of the bag bottom. Without a flat-bottom bag, I don't see any way of avoiding this without applying vacuum between the drum and the bag.

Oneida's documentation stresses the importance of having a tight seal in and around the drum in order to prevent the retainer cave-in. Having sealed, tested, rinsed and repeated multiple times, I'm confident that there are no leaks. I've done the "plastic bag test" both with and without the bag and retainer, and it passes nicely in both cases.

The real culprit here IMHO is the material Oneida uses to make their retainer. It lacks the "spring" of an alternative like Formica or some of the other flexible plastics I've used before, and it has far too much of what I'll call "memory"--meaning that once it's been deformed, instead of springing back it tends to stay in the deformed position. Once the bottom of the retainer has bowed inward, getting it back to its original shape is difficult--and it''s far too willing to return to the deformed position. I tried removing the pins and letting the retainer "spring" to hold the bag tighter. It doesn't have enough "spring" to do that. I managed to improve that using rubber bands to force the retainer to unroll. This helped, but didn't stop the retainer from collapsing in operation.

Sad to say, my conclusion is that the Oneida bag retainer is an absolute fail. It annoys me that I've wasted money on it, and I doubt Oneida will take it back. As much as I like Oneida's cyclone (I have a V3000 resin), this fail deeply disappoints.

For now, I'm working without the bag/retainer. It's messy transferring from the drum to a bag, although I've found a bag that fits the drum rim tightly and helps minimize the mess. It's less hassle than I've experienced trying to make this retainer work!

D.

[Frank Pratt]

What about running a small hose from the cyclone to the side of the barrel, close to the bottom. Would that not create a vacuum outside the bag that is equal to the vacuum inside the bag? I've read about this & it seems like it should work. Some use a separate vacuum pump to ensure the bag stays tight to the drum. Some kind of porous fiber material is needed in front of the hose to keep the bag from plugging it

This subject is of interest to me because I'm currently installing my DC system with a V-5000. I didn't order the retainer because it didn't look that good to me & it seems like a hassle to deal with every time the barrel is emptied.

[John Donofrio]

This subject is of interest to me because I'm currently installing my DC system with a V-5000. I didn't order the retainer because it didn't look that good to me & it seems like a hassle to deal with every time the barrel is emptied.

I too am interested in this as I am in the process of setting up a V-3000. I got Oneida to throw in the bag retainer but if it doesn't work I will still be VERY disappointed. The one difference I see though is I went with the steel drum and the retainer does fit pretty closely to the inside of the drum. Not perfectly but closely, haven't measured the space though.

Dan, how closely does the retainer fit the inside of the fiber drum? Did you have to set the retainer to use the holes for the smaller radius or did the larger radius fit?

[Phil Thien]

It is a shame that what likely amounts to the least costly component of the install is the one that leads to the greatest frustration.

I know Dan has (at least for now) taken a break. But if anyone else experiences the same problem...

Frank's question about whether a hose on the barrel would equalize the pressure certainly reminds me that I've see units with aux. hoses going from the cyclone, to the bin, to do just that. But if you look at a manual for Grizzly units where they do this, they have a sort of elaborate "bag seat" funnel that prevents the bag from just covering the hose inlet (I've included a pic from the manual). So not as simple as just attaching a hose to the drum.

One possible solution would be to make hoops that attach to the bottom and top of the drum. The purpose of the hoops would be to create a channel into which the bag retainer could fit, to provide some additional support. The bag should be able to fit over the bottom hoop, I'd think.

The hoops could be as simple as discs cut from MDF or plywood.

It is funny how guys with single-stage DC's can't stand dealing with the bags and want a bagless drum, and the guys with cyclones seem to want bags.