J. Phil Thien's Projects

Phil,

Newbie poster here.  I saw that you edited my very first post, presumably to change how the pictures were handled.  For future reference, is there someplace on the forum that explains how you'd like to have it done?

-- Russ

Yesterday I got a Thien separator far enough along to do a tiny bit of testing.  The results were amazing!  I picked up maybe two or three gallons of sawdust and other shop debris and essentially none of it made it into the vac.  I can't wait to see how it performs over a period of extended use.

I decided to introduce the air into the can through a tangentially mounted tube instead of through the elbow in the top.  I made the tube from an official shop vac extension wand so that I could easily connect a shop vac hose directly to the tube.  I started by cutting the tube to roughly match the curved surface of the can.  Then I used that piece to trace the location and shape of the hole in the can.  After I cut the hole, I stuck the tube in, put a single bolt in the end to hold it in place, then sealed everything up with duct tape.  Hopefully the pictures will make this all clear.  I used a piece from the other end of the cut-up wand for the short tube that sticks down from the exit hole in the center of the lid.

I also decided it might be easier to attach the baffle to the can instead of to the lid.  It doesn't show up very well in the pictures, but I just have the baffle sitting on three little blocks of wood that are mounted to the can with screws run in from the outside.  The jury's still out on this idea.  It works fine for separation, but I'm not sure how awful it's going to be to empty the can.  In theory, anything that enters via the drop slot should come out through the drop slot.  We'll see about that.