recycling the family vacuum cleaner

ken werner

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3,377
Location
Central NY State
Our household vac was no longer useful inside. The on-off switch broke, the handle broke, the wheels were precarious - time to get a new one. But the thing still moved air just fine.

So I made a little dust collector for my sander. The vac is always on, plugs into a power strip that also turns on the light, and supplies power to the sander, which is still switchable.

Not sure yet how well it'll work, but it's off to a good start anyway. And one more item is NOT in the landfill.

sander.jpg








sanderw-vac.jpg



dustcoll.jpg
 
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Vac dealers and repair shops are usually full of these ole derelicts. Iasked about one a few years back, and was taken into the back room and told to take as many as I wanted - there musta been fifty of them in various shapes and sizes, and most of them had bad switches, or broken handles, but still ran.

I used one on my sander and tried (unsuccessfully) to use one for my router table (too many chips, too small a bag). It was a canister type, so I just stood it on end next to my bench, and used it for quick benchtop cleanups.

Gave them away when I moved...
 
I've got four vacuum cleaners at my shop and I only bought one of them, the other just found on the street tossed away, the easiest one to fix was one that had seen little use and its problem was a fuse gone! now it is fully devoted to my bandsaw.:)
 
Recycling the family vacuum

In looking at the pics, the vacuum appears to be a Sears Kenmore which is
the type my wife uses. It was rated by Consumer Reports as being a better
vacuum than the Electrolux, but it is not as durable because we are on our
second one. The same problems noted about the broken handle, switch, and
wheels are the very same problems that plagued our first one, and now are
appearing on our second one. That said however, I will utilize it in my shop
when the time comes to purchase another one. I would purchase an Electro-
lux for my wife except I can't justify the far more expensive price.
 
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