Shop Vac Duct and Gates

glenn bradley

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SoCal
I keep putting off running my shop vac duct as I know I can come up with a better plan. Meanwhile all the parts are in my way and I have to keep swinging the hose back and forth. Not a big deal but I know myself and if I put this off till "genius" strikes, it'll be next year if I am not careful.

Put a wye at the vac. The Rockler wyes wouldn't quite accept the standard vac fitting. I have adapters that I have picked up here and there but this was so close a few swipes on the spindle sander yielded a good friction fit:

shop-vac-duct-1.jpg

A gate at the DP:

shop-vac-duct-2.jpg

and a gate at the smaller BS:

shop-vac-duct-3.jpg

This is one of those $20 Black Friday vacs that I got at the BORG last Christmas. I picked up the gates, Wyes and so forth during a Rockler "red dot" sale and got out of there for about $20. The clear Woodcraft hose was on sale for $15 and free shipping. the DP and the BS are hooked to a box that turns the vac on when either of them are powered up.

I just try to keep a picture in my head of where I want the shop to be headed. When a sale comes by on something that fits that picture I can take advantage of it. At least now I can use the gates while I ponder a design of perfection. Translated that means it will be like this for a long, long time ;-)
 
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Does the shop vac have a dedicated space it sits in? If so is it possible to run pvc pipe to these areas to get rid of all the flex?

I sometimes will set something up if I'm at an impass just to get the thought peocess going and see how it functions and if I can make it better.
 
The vac just sets between the scroll saw and one of the DP's. I am working up to a re-org of that end of the shop and plan to include a muffler-box for the vac. At that point I would have a short flex whip to a fixture attached to the box and some PVC might be possible. The current runs are both under 6' so no need to address that yet. Good idea for the next "phase" though, thanks. Are we ever really done designing our shops ;-)
 
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