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Actually, it was Rennie's fault. Here's my version of his Shop Vac / Dust Deputy cart...
The cart is just a piece of unfinished scrap T-111 siding, with scrap pine milled to 1 x 1 and glued around the edge for stiffness. In the true Norm spirit, I also shot 1" staples about every 3" or 4" around the perimeter into the stiffeners...until the glue dries, of course.
I was previously using the blue and white steel 5 gallon bucket with a HF separator lid. This metal bucket was screwed to a piece of scrap plywood, and I had mounted wheels on it. (Pulling that bucket with the Shop Vac trailing behind it has always been a pain. The 5 gallon bucket was too easy to tip over with that arrangement.) Since that bucket already had screw holes in the bottom of it, I used in as the bottom bucket for the Dust Deputy. The plywood that was already mounted to the bucket is now attached to the cart with t-nuts.
I removed the wheels from my Shop Vac, and stole Rennie's bungee cord idea to hold it onto the cart. The wheels under the new cart were previously under the old 5-gallon separator bucket.
Enough talk about the fine craftsmanship and exacting standards of the cart. How well does it work? With my old separator lid, I'd say it caught 80% of the solids, but most of the 20% that did make it past the separator was filter-clogging dust.
I vacuumed a bunch of nooks and crannies around the shop tonight and got about a half bucket of lathe debris and dust. Here's the separator bucket...
And here's how much made it past the separator into the Shop Vac. I should note that I did not wipe the dust off the inside of the Shop Vac before running this test (and a couple prior to this one)...
There was a small amount of dust that did make it past the separator and onto the filter, but it's very minor compared to what I'd see if I didn't have at least some kind of separator on the Shop Vac. Plus, it's a CleanStream filter, so it's easy enough to clean.
I like what I'm seeing so far. I believe that in time, the Dust Deputy will pay for itself by greatly reducing the number of filters I'll need to buy in the future. Many thanks to Rennie for the inspiration. His idea really sucks.
The cart is just a piece of unfinished scrap T-111 siding, with scrap pine milled to 1 x 1 and glued around the edge for stiffness. In the true Norm spirit, I also shot 1" staples about every 3" or 4" around the perimeter into the stiffeners...until the glue dries, of course.
I was previously using the blue and white steel 5 gallon bucket with a HF separator lid. This metal bucket was screwed to a piece of scrap plywood, and I had mounted wheels on it. (Pulling that bucket with the Shop Vac trailing behind it has always been a pain. The 5 gallon bucket was too easy to tip over with that arrangement.) Since that bucket already had screw holes in the bottom of it, I used in as the bottom bucket for the Dust Deputy. The plywood that was already mounted to the bucket is now attached to the cart with t-nuts.
I removed the wheels from my Shop Vac, and stole Rennie's bungee cord idea to hold it onto the cart. The wheels under the new cart were previously under the old 5-gallon separator bucket.
Enough talk about the fine craftsmanship and exacting standards of the cart. How well does it work? With my old separator lid, I'd say it caught 80% of the solids, but most of the 20% that did make it past the separator was filter-clogging dust.
I vacuumed a bunch of nooks and crannies around the shop tonight and got about a half bucket of lathe debris and dust. Here's the separator bucket...
And here's how much made it past the separator into the Shop Vac. I should note that I did not wipe the dust off the inside of the Shop Vac before running this test (and a couple prior to this one)...
There was a small amount of dust that did make it past the separator and onto the filter, but it's very minor compared to what I'd see if I didn't have at least some kind of separator on the Shop Vac. Plus, it's a CleanStream filter, so it's easy enough to clean.
I like what I'm seeing so far. I believe that in time, the Dust Deputy will pay for itself by greatly reducing the number of filters I'll need to buy in the future. Many thanks to Rennie for the inspiration. His idea really sucks.
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