Help me by showing off your PVC ductwork

[Hoang N Nguyen]

First off, this is a long post so please bare with me.

I just ordered an Oneida 2hp dust gorilla and awaiting it's arrival. At first, I thought of just running a 15' length of 6" flex tube from 1 tool to another as needed since my workshop is in my garage and the wife and I still park our cars in it. Having said that, all my tools are on mobile bases and need to be moved in and out along the wall to make room for the cars. After careful consideration and thinking (head hurts), I figure I can position some of my tools along the wall in my garage workshop to where I won't need to move them when they are in use. My jointer, router table and planer can all sit along the wall and can still operate without having to be moved since material is feed from the side instead of front to back like a table saw. My table saw on the other hand will need to be moved from the wall to the middle of the garage when in use.

My plan was to have my jointer, router table and planer all on 1 wall. My dust collector will be in a corner of the same wall with a straight horizontal 6" PVC pipe coming from the inlet along the whole wall (or as far as needed). This run will likely be around 15'-20' long. From that straight pipe, I will use PVC wyes to drop 3 lines vertical pipes into my machines.

* The line going into the jointer will be a 6" PVC vertical drop then transition to a short run (2'-3') flex tube into the jointer.

* The line going to the table saw will also be a 6" PVC vertical drop (close to the floor) then transition to a 6" flex tube that will run about 10' to the table saw and then reduced down to 4" to fit the dust port of the table saw.

* The last line will be at the end of my long horizontal run. This line will be reduced immediately to a 4" flex tube that will be roughly 5'-10' long (will verify as soon as I can lay my tools out the way I'm planning) and will connect to the router table and planer, whichever is in use at the time.

I plan to keep my existing 1hp Jet dust collector and dedicate that to my miter saw as well as build a hood for it.

What are your thoughts on my plan? Any advise and suggestions are welcome as well as pictures of your PVC ductwork will greatly help me get a visual idea of things. I ask for only PVC as I'd like to see how your wyes and reducers look. This is my first time with ductwork so I'm a complete noob.

Thanks for reading and sorry for the long post.

[Steve Peterson]

Hi Huong,

I have a 1 car garage stall dedicated to woodworking. It is still in transition after a move, so I don't have pictures.

My lunchbox planer and 6" jointer were perfectly fine with 4" pipes. They produce strings/chips but not a lot of fine sawdust. My miter saw and lathe hoods were both 6" runs with no flex.

I probably should have opened up a 6" duct for the tablesaw, but got by with a 4" lower and 4" upper with a Shark Guard hood. The bandsaw and router table also each have a 4" upper and 4" lower connection.

Another weak link is the tabletop belt/spindle sanders. They only have a 2.5" port and don't really have room to open up to a 4" port. A 2.5" blast gate can be coaxed into a 4" to 2" PVC reducer with a small amount of sanding. I usually open a second 4" port somewhere else to provide good airflow into the cyclone.

It is really handy to have a Dust Right flexible vacuum hose to clean up a garage size shop. Get the 28' hose to be able to reach the far corners without struggling.

As far as PVC advice goes, buy a few extra Ys and 45s in 6" and 4" sizes to make changes later. I kept moving things around in my last shop. Don't glue the fittings. Most are fine with just a press fit. Add 2-3 small screws and a bead of silicone if needed to hold things together. This will let you take them apart later. About 50% of my ducts are 6" and the rest are 4". Also, it is OK to cut down the flare end of the fittings to squeeze them closer together. 6" PVC may need 3" of glue surface to hold water, but can be cut back to 1" for vacuum when needed. Look for sewer and drain PVC, instead of sch 40 or sch 80. It is about half the weight and much cheaper. It is still significantly stronger than needed for dust collection.

Steve

[David Ragan]

OK-What you see here is a re-work. doesn't look like much, but is about 16-20 hours of work--cause I put stuff together, then decided...take apart, and do it better, and so forth.

Joints have shrink wrap around them, heavy duty cable ties secured pipe to shop walls/shelves, etc. those small hex head self tapping sheet metal screws work great for joints.

this first picture is obvious. You want all your gates convenient.

That is clear 6" wire flex duct running right up to TS. Port in TS is 4"-it stayed 4"

DSCN0462.JPG

6" flex duct to BS also. the wye to the planer is hidden. It is only 4" and sometimes a few stray chips come out the end of the 12' length of 4" flex hose.

Am mulling over making the 6" flex hose to the BS applicable to the planer also.

Router not connected. It's mobile, of course.



DSCN0461.JPG

this here is going on round to the left. Just below the orange jointer push stick observe the extra port coming right @ you.

And, right above the roller stand is the bottom of Clapton playing-who always says two things when he plays...thank you, and good night.


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Never, ever throw out any of these pipes, connectors, no matter how small/short. It's unbelievable how often I dug back into the pile to re-work stuff.

And, always buy way more than you can ever use in a lifetime. I simply can't bear stopping something to go get an item I could have had on hand. Probably I have too much $$ in stuff in drawers, but that's me.

[John K Jordan]

?.. From that straight pipe, I will use PVC wyes to drop 3 lines vertical pipes into my machines. ...

I can't take pictures since my ducts are above the ceiling to the drops.

Advice I read somewhere, do NOT make vertical drops off a main horizontal duct. Dust and shavings moving in the main line may drop into the inactive verticals and clog them. Better to wye off the main duct horizontally then turn down to the machine.

I used 6" pvc running centrally in the ceiling and split off left and right to the drops. The end of the main line has a removable plug for inspection and clean out if necessary. I used no 90's since long 90's were not available. To turn 90 deg I used multiple 45's and 22.5's to make more gradual turns. My longest runs are over 40' and all seems to work well. I do have dual 4" to the TS but plan to cut a hole and run 6" to the cabinet.

This is a 5hp ClearVue installed in a sound-insulated 4x8 closet.

JKJ

[glenn bradley]

Just remember every little angle and size transition is murder on your airflow, I avoid all 90* turns with a pair of 45's and a length of pipe. Still, even with the best of intentions we have to do what we have to do to get there.

duct examples (2).jpg . duct examples (1).jpg . duct examples (4).jpg . duct examples (3).jpg

The AST-2729 that I chose is light and easy to work with. It has also doubled in price since my build. I curse my dad's S&D and SCHD 40 every time we have to make a minor change. that stuff is way-over-heavy but, he got it cheap at a place going out of biz.

[Hoang N Nguyen]

Awesome! Thank you all for the replies so far, please keep them coming.

[John Spitters]

Here's mine, 3hp grizzly with 6"PVC thin wall S&D

[Robert Engel]

In a shop that small, I wouldn't worry about ductwork.

[Roy Harding]

In a shop that small, I wouldn't worry about ductwork.

Why wouldn't you worry about it in a small shop? Seems to me that, when considering dust control, a small shop would have a bigger problem per square inch than a larger shop.

[Mike Chalmers]

In a shop that small, I wouldn't worry about ductwork.

Good duct work would be even more important, a efficient design would be crucial in a small area. Size would not be the criteria I would use to determine if duct work was appropriate, the amount of dust would be a more determining factor to me.

[Kent A Bathurst]

. . duct examples (4).jpg .

Glenn - educate me: the bins for small pieces: What distinguishes Exotics from Interestings?

Versus the Floor Stock?

[Hoang N Nguyen]

Thanks for the continue replies fellas. I agree my shop is small but if it's worth anything, I hate cleaning up saw dust after a project so if duct work helps with any of that then I'm game!

[Hoang N Nguyen]

What are you guys using to connect the 6" pvc pipe to the dc? I can't for the life of me find a coupler to do that. I measured the inlet of my dc and it measures 6" O.D. I went to the big box store and found a 6" rubber coupling but it's way too big. Turns out it was intended for the O.D of a 6" PVC pipe and I need something that will fit the I.D instead. Can you guys show me what you use and where I can find it? Thanks

[James Gunning]

Hoang,

If you are like the rest of us, you will no doubt have to use a mixture of fittings to get the job done. If a PVC fitting won't fit, try a metal version. In this post: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...se-6-quot-pipe I showed how I adapted my machines to use 6" pipe for hookups. One of the things I used extensively were 6" metal crimped fittings as shown in the photos. I measured them and they are just under 6" in diameter over the crimping. Uncrimped they are right at 6" or a bit over. The metal version might just slip inside (or over) the outlet pipe on your DG. On my SDD, I used a big box 5" to 6" adapter and it fit the SDD outlet perfectly. I don't have a piece of 6" PVC to measure, so I don't know how the metal would fit with it. The air seal will likely not be perfect using the crimped pipe, so the use of sealant in the joint would be prudent. I sealed all mine with a combination of silicone sealant and tape over the joint.

I believe Oneida makes an adapter that directly fits their cyclones and allows direct connection to other pipe types.

I can't urge you too strongly to use 6" pipe the entire way from the DG to your machines, to include the DC ports. The airflow you will have with that size pipe is so much higher than 4". In the thread I linked, you can see how my machines were adapted to 6".