Making a Simple Box With Plywood

Mike Turner

Member
Messages
361
Location
Laurinburg NC
I am going to make a sort of planter shaped simple box ..maybe 24" long and hook a 4" hose from my dust collector up to it and use behind the lathe for when I am turning the flutes I make.

I have some 3/4" plywood in the shop and was wondering how to put the box together w/o it looking so bad with the edges of the plywood. Doesnt have to be beautiful but functional really, along with simple and quick. No hard joinery needed. Maybe I should go get some shelving board ?
 
I ahve been thinking about such a box under my lathe. I am wondering, though, what is the best place to locate it to maximise the amount of shavings it catches. They fly everywhere. I don't want to extend it in front of the lathe, as it may interfere with my movement, but how much can I go in the back to be effective in catching the stuff?
 
I ahve been thinking about such a box under my lathe. I am wondering, though, what is the best place to locate it to maximise the amount of shavings it catches. They fly everywhere. I don't want to extend it in front of the lathe, as it may interfere with my movement, but how much can I go in the back to be effective in catching the stuff?

I've mostly given up trying to capture shavings except for sanding - for really small stuff like Mike's flutes I think it could work but for larger stuff the power square suction loss of a larger hood starts to kick in (power squared roughly means that if you double the opening area the suction goes down by the square of the area).

For bulk shavings, imho hang shower curtains or tarps from metal EMT conduit and get a scoop shovel.

A variant of robo hippies setup as been on my TODO for ~3 years maybe someday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZsVc7qVx7A
 
Like Ryan, I gave up on trying to capture shavings at the lathe. I do use a Big Gulp scoop mounted on a stand behind the lathe to try to capture most of the sanding dust, although I also like to use an air nozzle to blow the dust off between grits, and as a result I still have dust that gets past the scoop. That's why I wear a Trend Airshield and have overhead air filtration running when I'm sanding. (And when I'm turning, for that matter.)

And I'll third the suggestion to use Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty to treat the plywood edges. :thumb:
 
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