my home-made cyclone dust separator

**doug the slug** · 24th June 2006, 10:14 PM

Today was a big day in the shed. I connected my home-made cyclone separator up to the dusty for the first time. In short its basically a scaled up "Sturdee" bucket made with 200 litre drums instead of 20 ltr buckets. thanks go to Sturdee for the original design and the inspiration.

Ive used 2 x 200 ltr drums, (photo 1) the metallic one is the collector (bottom) drum and the blue one is the top one with the funnel in it. the funnel (photo 2) was made and installed by a mate with a sheetmetal working business, I could not have made it anywhere near as well as Ken did.

Photo 3 shows the top drum with the holes cut in the lid; central hole for the vertical extraction pipe and the inlet pipe angled at 45 degrees hence the elongated hole. the vertical rectangular holes in both drums are covered with perspex to allow visual inspection of the inside of the drums. thisallows me to see how full the bottom drum is, watch the cyclone action inthe top drum and allows for early detection of fire inthe unlikely event a spark gets in. After the photo i cut a hole in the bottom drum beside the window which has a rubber grommet in it so that i can insert a hose or fire extinguisher if the need arises.

photo 4 shows the inlet and extraction pipes fitted to the topdrum through a disk of 12 mm MDF glued and screwed to the top of the drum for stability and airtight connections.

3 more photos to go so i will start a new post in this thread.

**doug the slug** · 24th June 2006, 10:21 PM

ok heres the photos for the prev post dunno what happened on first try

**doug the slug** · 24th June 2006, 10:36 PM

First pic shows the dusty itself attached to a beam under the house suspended above the cyclone collector. I am in the process of linking the two with flexible hose. the exhaust ventis behind the dusty and the next job was putting a long piece of pipe onto it tovent the exhaust outside the work area (thats the pipe thats resonating in the other thread i posted earlier) second pic is a bit more detail of the above.

last two pics show me working on the jointer with 99.99% of the dust disappearing. i later ran some hardwood through the gmc planer/thicknesser with my home-made dust extractor mod. it worked fantastically.

next job is to make some blastgates and put all the tools permanently on the dust extractor.

its great to see a plan coming together

another go at sending the piccies for post #4

**Bushmiller** · 24th June 2006, 11:26 PM

Doug

Computer frustrations.....I understand.

Keep trying. I am about to attempt something similar with "44s". Looking forward to the photos.

Regards
Paul

**Wild Dingo** · 25th June 2006, 03:39 AM

Doug seems it wasnt only me that was havin probs with puttin pics up tonight!... my way around was to upload to imagestation then copy paste over here... worked okay and if you restrict your pics to 4 per post it seems not to hurt those on slower than mine dial up

but otherwise comin along nicely! I really must get a plan happenin

**inferno6688** · 25th June 2006, 10:51 AM

its looking good! it that just the little Timbecon dusty running it?

Also how do u find the little jointer? Whats the longest piece u can acuratly joint on it?

Cheers

**Stuart** · 25th June 2006, 12:50 PM

You should upgrade your respirator Doug - looks like you are still running the original hose & connections!!

**doug the slug** · 25th June 2006, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by inferno6688

its looking good! it that just the little Timbecon dusty running it?

Also how do u find the little jointer? Whats the longest piece u can acuratly joint on it?

Cheers

Yes inferno, its the little sherwood dusty from timbecon. little sherwood jointer from timbecon too, both purchased at the brizzy www show.
i haveonly jointed small pieceswithit so far but once ive made the bench for it with the adjustable height infeed support i think it will be ok for the occasional long piece up to a couple of metres.

Stu, yes its probably the old hose and fittings on the respirator, how much better are the new ones?

**ozwinner** · 25th June 2006, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by stuart_lees

You should upgrade your respirator Doug - looks like you are still running the original hose & connections!!

And use a push stick, seeing how this is in the SAFETY area.

Al :eek:

**doug the slug** · 25th June 2006, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by ozwinner

And use a push stick, seeing how this is in the SAFETY area.

Al :eek:

Nice pickup there Al.

The pushstick is actually on the table next to the jointer, just out of the pic. my fingers were still about 250mm from the blade when the pic was taken. I had just pushed the workpiece far enough through to open the guard and i was about to pick the pushstick up. It is a good safety point you have raised though.

**Wood Butcher** · 25th June 2006, 07:56 PM

About to pick it up?!?!?

I have the push stik in hand on the timber from the start, not half way through. If your other hand slips holding the timber you could either have part of your fingers cut off or a piece of timber being shot through the workshop!

**Bodgy** · 25th June 2006, 08:16 PM

Come on boys, they're Doug's fingers and he can do what he wishes with them!

**doug the slug** · 25th June 2006, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by Wood Butcher

About to pick it up?!?!?

I have the push stik in hand on the timber from the start, not half way through. If your other hand slips holding the timber you could either have part of your fingers cut off or a piece of timber being shot through the workshop!

I find it safer to hold the workpiece with my hands until the guard has been pushed back as far as it needs to be (ie running along the side of the workpiece), then i use the pushstick. My fingers never go anywhere near the blades.

I am a great fan of pushsticks, particularly after today when i hit the sawblade three times with one when i was cutting a large batch of splines for future projects

**Wood Butcher** · 25th June 2006, 08:50 PM

Understood Doug, the problem I have it at some point you have to remove your forward "push" from the work to pick up the push stick. Just having your hand on top of the timber is not sufficient to guarantee that the timber will not kick back.

I'll get a photo of the pusher I have at work for small stuff later this week when I'm there next. It's ideal for small boards and very safe to use!

**doug the slug** · 25th June 2006, 09:11 PM

Originally Posted by Wood Butcher

I'll get a photo of the pusher I have at work for small stuff later this week when I'm there next. It's ideal for small boards and very safe to use!

Thanks Rowan, always keen to see anything that may improve safety

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