It has begun and some nice progress was made over the weekend. The two key Oneida fittings I was waiting on showed up last Wednesday and I now understand why they cost more. They are of excellent quality.
With most of the parts I'll need in hand I was able to dedicate most of Saturday and part of Sunday to the shop. So far I'm really pleased with the progress. Speaking of hand, I think every digit has at least one cut or nick. Yes, I know, wear gloves when working with sheet metal. I did (some) but you know how it goes... just need this little bit done, ouch, go get another band aid then put on the gloves. Repeat.
On the blastgates I implemented Bill's magnet in the hole idea and also used some CA gel to keep the magnet flush to the downstream side. Works really well, thanks Bill.
Going one step further, I noticed when the gate is fully closed the two opposing detents tended to center the gate which seems to me it would keep it from sealing, or make the seal worse than it had to be. To get around this I filed a small round notch where the downstream detent hits the body. This allows it to slide a little farther which in turn causes the upstream detent to force the gate flush to the body. Hopefully the pics make this a little clearer.
IMG_20150430_202617.jpg IMG_20150430_202951.jpg
I also experimented on one blastgate using this same principle to get the gate to open farther. These non-self cleaning gates don't open fully; there's about 3/8" of the gate still exposed in the flow. The experiment was to file opposing notches to allow the detents to disappear into the body thus allowing the gate to open more. It works but I was getting concerned of having to file too much creating a hole in the body. The blastgate I did this on does open a bit more but I decided it wasn't worth the effort.
Referencing Dan's thread I learned using two 45's to make a long radius 90 is fun, NOT! Anyway, what I didn't find anywhere was a quick way to get to 45. After experimenting on one the magic number appears to be roughly 3" between seams for a 6", four gored adjustable elbow. Unless you want an offset in the turn, always make sure the seams line up.
IMG_20150501_194355.jpg IMG_20150501_194427.jpg
Here's the progress after this weekend. Not sure how much time I'll have between now and next week to get some more installed. On top of that I'm out of town part of next week and into the following week but I'll follow up when there is some more noticeable progress.
IMG_20150503_172002.jpg IMG_20150503_172033.jpg (the far vertical in the second pic will be from a floor sweep, the pipe to the left is just sitting on the floor.)
I am really looking forward to having real dust collection.