Thread: Hand plane shavings and dust collection

Originally Posted by mwells

1. Months from now when I have a ClearVue cyclone setup, is it reasonable to sweep those hand plane shavings into a floor sweep that is connected to the dust collector?

Absolutely.
An alternative is to connect a bit of flexy to the ducting and add a length of 4" ducting and use it like a vac. This is better than a broom which generates heaps of fine dust during the sweeping process. I also use it to clear tops of benches etc
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The shavings are more like a rag than a wood chip, so I wonder if they might clog the ducts or get stuck in the impeller.

This won't happen on a cyclone because the chips should be separated by the cyclone before the shavings get to the impeller.

As far as single stage DCs go, shavings might look like a rag but they are usually more brittle so the impeller will tend to mince them up a bit. The only time I have seen them get stuck is when heaps of them are dumped into a air intake and flood the impeller probably because it not able to mince them up.

They are quite fluffy, so I assume I would need to empty the dust bin often.

Yes. DCs, both cyclones and filtered bag systems work better if they are emptied when they are about 2/3rd full. If the collection bin is let get too full sawdust will get up into the impeller.

2. If I had a 3 HP, single stage collector, is sending a bunch of hand plane shavings through the impeller a big no-no? Will they just wrap around the impeller?

Even a 2HP system will pick them up especially if the DC is modified according to teh stick shown at the top of the dust forum.

If you only use hand tools, and have some form of forced shed ventilation to vent fine dust, and all you want is to collect chips, then a big DC is not required.
DCs are filthy things and actually make fine dust from large chips, plus they tend to leak so the simplest way to deal with this is to locate (or enclose them in an airtight chamber and vent) them outside the shed.
The leakiest DCs tend to be those that are towed around inside a shed so to get the DC venting outside the some form of fixed ducting is required.
If you have a big shed that requires long ducting then a small DC won't cope so well. As a general recommendation I recommend 2HPs be used with no more than about 3m of 6" ducting and a short (1/2 meter) piece of flexy. This does not mean they will not work beyond that length - they will still pick up most chips but be less effective at fine dust collection.

I have given up sucking up long shavings with my (non pre-seperator) DC. Long shavings kept getting wrapped around the impeller, necessitating the need to manually clean it out.

Now I just sweep them into a big pile, pick up with my hands and put in a shavings bin, them vacuum up the left over dust and little shavings which don't cause an issue.

The bonus is that we have a constant supply of clean, fluffy shavings for the chickens.

The hand plane shavings just spiral around in my Clear Vue - some don't settle to the bottom until I turn off the DC but they do get there in the end.

Pat, that behaviour is normal as the shavings basically get suspended due to their size and lack of weight.

Originally Posted by LanceC

I have given up sucking up long shavings with my (non pre-seperator) DC. Long shavings kept getting wrapped around the impeller, necessitating the need to manually clean it out.

I'm back with a report. Right now I have a 1.5 hp bag collector with a 10" impeller. As an experiment, I tried sucking up hand plane shavings.

Small, narrow shavings from addressing an arris (sharp corner) with a spokeshave worked fine. However, big shavings from using my jointer plane instantly wrapped around the impeller and I could hear the impeller sound change. I had to disconnect the inlet and pull the shavings out by hand. This happened almost every time with as little as one shaving, so I definitely won't be sending my hand plane shavings through a single stage collector.

Mark

Originally Posted by mwells

I'm back with a report. Right now I have a 1.5 hp bag collector with a 10" impeller. As an experiment, I tried sucking up hand plane shavings.

Small, narrow shavings from addressing an arris (sharp corner) with a spokeshave worked fine. However, big shavings from using my jointer plane instantly wrapped around the impeller and I could hear the impeller sound change. I had to disconnect the inlet and pull the shavings out by hand. This happened almost every time with as little as one shaving, so I definitely won't be sending my hand plane shavings through a single stage collector.

Mark

When I had 1HP with 10" impeller I had similar problems but using my DC uses a 13" impeller ad 4HP motor I've not had a problem with hand plane shavings. The other significant factor is I'm using 6" ducting so the air/chip ratio will be way higher than for 4" ducting.

Originally Posted by mwells

Months from now when I have a ClearVue cyclone setup, is it reasonable to sweep those hand plane shavings into a floor sweep that is connected to the dust collector?

The only snag I ever had with my Pentz designed cyclone was when green turning bowl blanks... which rapidly produces a great volume of very long damp stringy ribbons of wood that twist together into ropy lengths that knot together in the cyclonic air stream and then won't feed into the drop bin. I now position the DE duct intake to avoid the green shavings getting fed into the cyclone... and just shovel up off the floor later.

I wouldn't expect the same issue with dry thin shavings.