What's your setup look like? I've seen the generic "floor sweep" attachments, but like most things, there must be a faster, cheaper, clearly superior method.
[OP]
Member
What's your setup look like? I've seen the generic "floor sweep" attachments, but like most things, there must be a faster, cheaper, clearly superior method.
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Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.
Member
No better way to terminate a leg coming from the ceiling. I've got three outlets on mine that feed my combo.
[OP]
Member
Sorry if this makes me sound like an idiot, but what do you mean?
Contributor
A floor sweep is one of these gizmos, laying flat to your shop floor, attached to a duct run that you can sweep your floor into for cleanup of stuff the dust collector missed/can't get to. They are nice to have bit are expensive to purchase.
David
Moderator
I bought a floor sweep for my DC but never hooked it up. Instead I found it more useful to connect a length of shop vac hose and just vacuum up chips around the lathe and what my broom and dustpan misses. (using small hose needs a powerful DC suction plus careful attention to supplemental air flow) I have a long hose I connect on occasion that will reach anywhere in the shop. Fortunately, my occasions of obsession with cleaning the entire shop are not frequent.Originally Posted by Mike Dowell
JKJ
Member
I had a floor sweep similar to what David shows, but took it out. I replaced it with a vacuum attachment like this one :
http://www.rockler.com/rockler-dust-...ge-floor-sweep
I am very fastidious about my shop cleanliness and this is the better way to go. Mine is attached to 16 ft of flex hose so I can vacuum my whole shop from a drop in the main trunk line. I've heard that I loose suction with that much flex hose, but I can say this works for me quite well.
If I have a lot of shavings (e.g., turning green wood, leaving me 4+" deep around the lathe, I will use a small snow shovel to get the bulk up and put into a lawn bag (the ones you get from Lowes, et. al.).
Vacuuming is much better than the other method as I take the vacuum to the dirt rather than sweeping the dirt to it. Sweeping puts fine dust into the air. And all that dust in the air comes back down and covers everything, causing more cleaning!
Oh, yeah, I wear my Trend air mask when doing the cleaning. I'm only in my 50s, & I want to live a lot longer.
Rich
Moderator
I have three of them in my shop. One was a 5" floor sweep from Oneida and the other two I manufactured from a register boot which was similar shape. They are indispensable for shop cleanup. However, they should never be used unless there is a pre-separator/cyclone before the DC impeller because they WILL pick up small pieces of metal with adequate air flow and metal striking metal in an impeller situation can cause a spark.
Two of my floor sweeps server for general cleanup at each end of the shop; the third is near the lathe and serves to deal with piles of shavings disappearing into the cyclone bin "very quickly".
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
[OP]
Member
That's a nice looking one.
A floor sweep is one of these gizmos, laying flat to your shop floor, attached to a duct run that you can sweep your floor into for cleanup of stuff the dust collector missed/can't get to. They are nice to have bit are expensive to purchase.
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Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.
[OP]
Member
Interesting. Well, I just ordered a CV1800, so a cyclone I will have! I never thought to have more than one floor sweep. That's highly intelligent, but of course, after dropping 2k on the CV1800, now everything looks like dollar signs and makes that "cha-ching" sound in my head. 1 floor sweep + 1 blast gate looks in my mind more like "$ + $" lol. I like the idea of using a HVAC register boot.I have three of them in my shop. One was a 5" floor sweep from Oneida and the other two I manufactured from a register boot which was similar shape. They are indispensable for shop cleanup. However, they should never be used unless there is a pre-separator/cyclone before the DC impeller because they WILL pick up small pieces of metal with adequate air flow and metal striking metal in an impeller situation can cause a spark.
Two of my floor sweeps server for general cleanup at each end of the shop; the third is near the lathe and serves to deal with piles of shavings disappearing into the cyclone bin "very quickly".
--
Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.
[OP]
Member
I was considering one of these vacuum options as well. I was going to do either a floor sweep or the vacuum but not both. Sweeping the floor is faster, but it leaves a lot of dust behind, and also puts a lot of dust in the air which are two things I'm trying to control. However, with the vacuum setup, you've got the extra time to vacuum, plus a huge hose you've got to hang somewhere. Trend mask? Also, with regards to the vacuum method, I would need a 25ft hose. Wonder how much suction loss there would be on that run.
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Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people.
Moderator
My experience on the hose: I use a tiny 2.5" hose maybe 6-8' long near my lathe, plugged into a 6" duct coming down from the ceiling, split into two 4" with a ClearVue splitter:
http://www.clearvuecyclones.com/supp...ast-gates.html
The second 4" blast gate goes to a pickup at the lathe to catch sanding dust.
The cyclone is a 5hp ClearVue with an abundance of suction. I do NOT use it to vacuum big piles of chips but I use it to vacuum chips and sawdust left after I pick up the bulk with the broom and dust pan.
The suction through the short hose is wimpy, of course. There is not enough air flow through the 2.5" hose to pull all the debris up through the 6" duct to the main duct in the ceiling. Some chips tend to build up in the clear spiltter box. However, this is not a problem. What I do is open the second blast gate which provides the air needed. The clear box makes it easy to see if I need to open the second blast gate 1/2 way or fully.
I also have a 40' hose I plug into the short hose when I want to reach around the shop. The suction is enough to pull sawdust through the long hole and up to the junction box but again, I open the second blast gate to provide supplemental air to pull to the ceiling and all the way to the collection bin in the DC closet on the far end about 30' from the pickup. I only use this for fairly fine sawdust missed by the broom, not for chips (I only make chips by the lathe).
That said, I don't often use the long 2.5 hose. It is actually easier to clean around the shop with a backpack vacuum cleaner. I use a Rubbermaid commercial model. It is easier to drag a long power cord around than a long shop vac hose! I can't even imagine dragging around a 4" flex hose. Seems like the vacuum would cause it to compress and you'd be fighting it all the time.
vacuum_cleaner.jpg
JKJ
Contributor
I tried hooking a long length of shop vac hose to my DC for clean up. Worked okay, but what I wound up doing is attaching that long vac hose to my shop vac when I want to clean up. The shop vac sucks better with that hose than the DC.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Member
This is the Trend I was referring to :
http://www.rockler.com/trend-air-cir...ield-pro-34492
Contributor
Using a floor sweep to sweep up causes lots of fine dust to go floating around the shop. Every stroke of the broom puffs some more into the air, the nice fine stuff. Better off just vacuuming the floor and be done with it.
I took my floor sweeps out. If I have to sweep towards the 'floor sweep' I may as well use a dust pan and save the quicker fill on my DC bin. JMHO.
+1 on the vac for floor cleanup. I sweep/dust pan curlies from hand tools.
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".
– Samuel Butler
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