Thread: Fletty's new shed WIP ....or is it a retrospective??

I think you're right in that he must be Chinese, or another non-wine culture - it's a bottle of red! Yes yes, I know that some reds can be cold (I had one one Sunday) but......


Yeah, the enamel signs are good eh? Got a bit of depth to them.

now wonder where you picked them up Alan they do look damn good all together.

It seems that sheds need to evolve to suit new machines, new processes and even new projects but my current shed (r)evolution is down to a New Year, a slower than expected recovery from a broken hand and promises of doing nothing 'heavy' for a while. That promise, when made only to the doctor obviously had no credibility but by the time the promise had escalated to SWSBO, all daughters AND grandchildren, then.........
I've had a bit of a roadblock in the shed because of the way I connected my DC to the table saw. I couldn't move down one side of the saw due to a tangle of 100 mm flexible duct work. This, amongst other issues, impeded the path from the main doors to the beer frij .
Chris Parks and I had been fiddling with a couple of ideas for blast gates operated by chains and for use in difficult locations and this has now taken shape as the Parklett 150.3 blast gate which has now been prototyped AND installed.

The aim was to;

• Upgrade the table saw dust extraction to 150mm diameter
• allow me to move the saw around to suit 'long' AND 'wide' cutting
• make the blast gate suitable for wall and ceiling mounting
• clear the path to the beer frij

The blast gate is made from 150mm plastic floor flanges and 9mm MDF as below

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With a bit of careful design (duck fudging in Repliconics-speak), the bore is quite smooth

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For structural integrity the flanges need to be securely fixed to the MDF and this required a bit of glue research. I won't bore you with the whole process but here are the middle and end of the process with lots of carefully calibrated hammer thumps in between;

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As many of you already know, polyurethane glue seems to bubble, ooze and morph for quite a long time and I was starting to worry that it would get to somewhere it shouldn't and jam the whole thing up so I mounted the blast gate in an operating position and just kept operating it everytime I walked past.

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The stops for fully open and fully closed are short lengths of aluminium tube that also provide the attachment points for chain, string or rigid links;

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While the polyurethane glue kept oozing, hubbling, bubbling and troubling, I got on to the duct work that would connect the ceiling mounted blast gate to the saw. As noted earlier, I constantly have to move the saw around to suit rip and cross cuts, so the duct work had to be flexible. I had only 2 short lengths of the beautifully flexible Clear Vue 150mm ducting left, so I made the shorter piece into a top flexible coupling and the longer piece for the final coupling.
To make flexible couplings, I insert the flexible into rigid couplers and fix with nylon bolts. I don't use metal as it would seem to be tempting fate to have sharp metal electrodes facing each other across a possibly electrostatically charged chamber

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It is now all installed and I have successfully upgraded to 150mm, I can move freely around the saw, I can move the saw around as needed and, not only have I improved access to the beer frij, I have even been able to relocate it closer to the main door...

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As Australia Day is rapidly approaching, I am hoping to quickly change the temporary blue rope actuators...

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.....to authentic Australian dunny chains

fletty

PS, I know that as soon as I post this, some/most/all of the pictures will mysteriously rotate and, I'm sorry, but I just can't control it

EDIT: My pictures didn't rotate! THANKYOU back room gurus.

Good to see the rocker style gate being used elsewhere on the forums, and gain that all important access to the beer fridge.

I like the use of the floor flanges which I was originally going to use on gates for the mens shed system but I baulked at the cost, which were from memory about $9 ea?
This is fine if you have one or two gates to make but we had 12 and I was trying to be a cheap skate.
However, given the problems we have had had gluing PVC to Al I wish we had done that now.

For the couple of rocker gates I made in my shed, for the gate bodies I use some 6mm PVC left over from another project and this allows the 150mm duct to be glued direct to the PVC gate body.

Originally Posted by fletty

I don't use metal as it would seem to be tempting fate to have sharp metal electrodes facing each other across a possibly electrostatically charged chamber

I wouldn't hesitate to use metal fasteners in this case because its not that dissimilar to using small Tek screws to lock PVC pipe together which a lot of folks are using.
Electrostatic charges build up very slowly on a DE system and the physics says they have to move to the outside of the Plastic and spread as far apart as possible. This will cause the outside of the entire junction to become charged and reach the same potential which means the fasteners are all at the same potential so there cannot be a discharge between them.

A much more likely cause of very rare ignition events in DE systems may happen when a piece of sparking metal enters a duct and achieves a high enough speed so that when it hits another piece of metal and makes a spark. If the gates or ducting are made of Al there will be no sparking because it does not spark.

Anyway, there's no need to use fasteners at all using this connection method which we are doing at the mens shed and I have started to use in my shed.
This method does not involve drilling holes in the flexy or ducting, uses no fasteners and allows the flexy to be connected and reconnected easily without damaging it. It costs a bit more but I reckon its well worth it

Very nice work flettmeister!

Originally Posted by BobL

However, given the problems we have had had gluing PVC to Al I wish we had done that now.

Originally Posted by fletty

For structural integrity the flanges need to be securely fixed to the MDF and this required a bit of glue research.

I reckon Sikaflex Pro would do an excellent job of adhering pretty much any metal to MDF, plastic or wood. I've been using it extensively over the past year or so for various things (mainly water sealing outdoor timber joints, at which it excels). It has the advantage of not being brittle (as the name implies) but joints do not move around. It does take a few days to go off completely, but in a joint situation it is strong after say 24 hours. Not cheap at $18 a tube, but worth it. It can be sanded, chisel pared etc after a few days. An opened tube can still be used over an extended period of time - some weeks, by pulling out the dried (but still flexible) bit at the business end of the tube.

Originally Posted by BobL

As Australia Day is rapidly approaching, I am hoping to quickly change the temporary blue rope actuators........to authentic Australian dunny chains

I trust you'll have red white and blue chains then? Perhaps you could add some sort of actuator to play a flushing sound from an iThingy And if you can do that then you could make the beer frig burp when you open the door.

Very nice. Good to see what you senior citizens can come up with when you put your heads together.

Originally Posted by NCArcher

Very nice. Good to see what you senior citizens can come up with when you put your heads together.

I resemble that! Finding a very cheap source of the floor entries was not the main problem, it was finding them at all in 150mm. Anyway we managed to do both which is a near miracle, the 100mm ones are available from the green joint for about $3 each but Reece eventually found some stock and Fletty had to get a quick extension on his credit card when he found out the price. I have found them online from here FLOOR FLANGES - FLANGES - PVC DWV DRAINAGE

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

FLOOR FLANGES - FLANGES - PVC DWV DRAINAGE

Emmuch are they (to save me having to create an account with them just to see the price )?

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Emmuch are they (to save me having to create an account with them just to see the price )?

The site until recently used to have pricing and I can't remember how much but when you register and find out be a good chap and let me know. I do know they were shedloads cheaper than Reece but then everyone is unless you are a plumber.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

but when you register and find out be a good chap and let me know.

Nuh.

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

The site until recently used to have pricing and I can't remember how much but when you register and find out be a good chap and let me know. I do know they were shedloads cheaper than Reece but then everyone is unless you are a plumber.

You sure are correct about Reece. I have one 1 km away but their prices are verging on the ridiculous. One fitting they quoted $54, got 5km away for $32. Stainless hose clamps for 125mm pipe, $7.50, Hare and Forbes $2.50 and I could go on and on. Unfortunately for me, they were the only local supplier for a particular item that I had been quoted $15 for (but that supplier had to order $100 of bit and pieces from Vindex - minimum order) and so I had to buy from Reece who originally quoted $32 but under protest sold to me for $19.
They said I could get better prices if I opened an account but when I applied they said I wouldn't buy enough to warrant an account?

Originally Posted by BobL

Good to see the rocker style gate being used elsewhere on the forums, and gain that all important access to the beer fridge.

I like the use of the floor flanges which I was originally going to use on gates for the mens shed system but I baulked at the cost, which were from memory about $9 ea?
This is fine if you have one or two gates to make but we had 12 and I was trying to be a cheap skate.
However, given the problems we have had had gluing PVC to Al I wish we had done that now.


I wouldn't hesitate to use metal fasteners in this case because its not that dissimilar to using small Tek screws to lock PVC pipe together which a lot of folks are using.
Electrostatic charges build up very slowly on a DE system and the physics says they have to move to the outside of the Plastic and spread as far apart as possible. This will cause the outside of the entire junction to become charged and reach the same potential which means the fasteners are all at the same potential so there cannot be a discharge between them.

A much more likely cause of very rare ignition events in DE systems may happen when a piece of sparking metal enters a duct and achieves a high enough speed so that when it hits another piece of metal and makes a spark. If the gates or ducting are made of Al there will be no sparking because it does not spark.

it

Hi Bob

Re the floor flanges, we have found them from $6.50 (excl postage) on-line, up to $25 EACH from Reece. Unfortunately I bought 2 from Reece first BUT it might end up being more significant that mine are ABS not PVC? Will the Sikaflex Tech Grip work on PVC, I don't know?

Re the metal fasteners, I spent some years developing equipment against the (then) new Australian STANDARD for Dust Explosion Ignition Proof electrical equipment. This followed the 'mysterious explosion' and complete destruction of 2 wheat silos in Texas. Things have moved on from that almost hysterical time and a bit more scientific rigour has now been applied. The following insomnia-curing reading may be of interest to you

http://www.rstahl.com/fileadmin/Date...ust-Basics.pdf

When the 'Texas incident' was still not understood, many companies tried to simulate the mechanism to get the commercial edge of having the first solution. The first company to simulate the event got an explosion that resulted in some significant laundry bills! Normal house dust was blown through a PVC tube in a laminar flow airstream and 2 electrodes (actually the tips of 2 PK screws) connected to a Van der Graf machine, caused an explosion that demolished their explosion proof chamber! Later analysis, after staff counselling, found that a mathematical error lead to an airflow that is unlikely to ever be achieved in an external scenario but it certainly had vacuum cleaner manufacturers very worried in a litigious World!
Another global outcome of this (now humorous) situation was that aluminium was, and still is, banned on all explosion-proof equipment. We were manufacturing electric motors with cooling fans. Aluminium could not be used for the fans because, even in the reduced likelihood of a spark being created, a heated ember could be and that ember glowed for much longer and travelled much further. From memory we ended up using phosphor bronze which was a b@stard to machine and balance! This also confirms your "piece of sparking metal entering a duct" comment?
All up, to maintain my currently, blessed, sleep filled nights, I won't risk another 'Texas Wheat Silo' event in my own shed

fletty

Sorry guys, I was writing my response to Bob (and drinking a bottle of Pinot Grigio) while you were asking the questions. The on-line price is $6.50 ish and Reece was $25.

fletty

Originally Posted by fletty

All up, to maintain my currently, blessed, sleep filled nights, I won't risk another 'Texas Wheat Silo' event in my own shed

This topic has been done to death in the dust forum but any comparisons between wheat silos and commercial woodworking DEs, and a DIY dust extraction is a bit of a stretch.
Despite the use of thousands of ungrounded PVC DIY DE systems around the world there has not been a single reported case of a dust explosion.
There has been a case of a fire in a dust extractor when something hot was sucked into the dust collector but it was not an explosion.
Bill Pentz has this to say about the problem in relation to DIY DEs Dust Collection Research - Ducting
He provides a link out to a page that explains the physics as to why it is unlikely.

However I'm for anything that helps people sleep, I too have that problem but can't see grounding my DE system helping.
Actually come to think of it most of my ducting supports are 3mm galv strap connected to the shed steel frame so Im grounded whether I like it or not