J. Phil Thien's Projects

Hi Doug,

Sorry I missed your reply, if you're still watching this forum ;), but in answer to your question, the build has been working great.

The only thing that I would change from the original build is that I would not use the custom shaped wooden blocks super glued / epoxied to the galvanized chip bucket as seen in the photos. The reasoning for the blocks in the first place was to keep the inside surface of the bucket smooth. But because of the tight fit in the mobile stand, at least one block would get bumped sideways every time I emptied the bucket. One time, the block fell off, got re-glued and that worked for a while, but eventually, happened again. The this led me to eliminate one of the wooden blocks and through drill/ fasten the pull-down. No other blocks have fallen off since, but should they, I plan to through drill and fasten again.

Kind regards,

Kelly

It appears that you are primarily/ only dealing with very fine powdery dust. My understanding is that the Thien Separator is more typically utilized in dust and chips separation from sawing and planing. If you make a thorough search of the volumes of material on this forum that have been posted by many users, you might find some discussion on its exclusive use with sanding machines, reducing the drop slot's opening width, etc.

The only bit of insight I might offer has to do with the violent cyclonic action rubbing against plastic walls and the resulting charged dust particles. My experiments were limited to the type of plastic used in my old Craftsman shop vac and the conclusion that, at least, certain types of plastic walls should be avoided.

Thanks bbain.

I never intended to run the planer without a filter on the Thien Separator. The air filter element used in this build was a #1480A that I purchased from a local shop for about $15

At some point I will be experimenting with using the patented filter fabric that Daka Manufacturing has developed; i.e., FilterPal. This stuff is quite amazing and when placed in the air stream before the paper filter, keeps the filter cartridge absolutely pristine as it does in my case using a KoPach filter in my shop vac.

Skippy jar top and middle parts used in Thien Separator

Thanks Dave! BTW, I sort of stole your Skippy jar idea after I had already up-cycled the bottom portion

As for the bell mouth outlet originally intended for this build, I really see no reason to go through that exercise as the straight pipe is working great already.

Here's some additional photos

Thanks to Phil Thien's design and all of the other contributors to this forum, I purchased the DeWalt DW735X and constructed a separator build for it. Below are a few of the photos from this project during construction and the results from first two tests, both of which were better than any of my expectations.

Briefly, the build is from 1/8" hardboard, 1/2" birch plywood, an automobile air filter element, and a 10-gallon metal bucket. The design was predicated on the whole assembly fitting on the circa 1963 Craftsman radial arm saw mobile stand which I refurbished, beneath the table top thickness planer. The hardboard was used for not just for the primary baffle, but also was used for the vertical walls of the separator. This required the two 48" long strips to first be slightly dampened, formed, and dried prior to their lamination. Wooden dowels were used to maintain precise registration throughout construction and during final assembly. The first tests were performed with the full 10-foot length of hose and the assembly situated on top of my table saw to better observe any mishaps. The 8/4 poplar board of test one produced zero chips in the filter compartment with only a very little bit of fine dust visible after wiping. After a thorough cleaning, the second test used a birch board with identical results.

The stock inlet for the 16-gallon Sears Craftsman wet-dry vac (113.178081) bifurcates the debris stream upon entry into the main collection barrel and as such doesn't form a coherent air stream, cyclonic of otherwise. Attached are a couple of shots from early June when I entirely disassembled the vacuum, washed all of the plastic parts and cleaned the motor assembly.

@rosenw - FYI - Probably best to start a new thread when asking a question, even if the question is frequently asked.

You are correct, consensus seems to say there ought to be enough clearance between the bottom of the inlet's elbow and the top surface of the baffle to allow the chips to fly without getting hung up between.

Yes, that is correct, the static charge was only present when the waste stream in the Thien Separator cyclonically rubbed the plastic barrel. Most interesting was how long the charge was held.

Howdy Phil,

Just a quick note of thanks for all of your excellent effort in designing the Thien Separator and for sharing it with the world. I've just completed a build for the DeWalt DW735, which after some tests this morning, works quite well - more on that later. Last night I was playing around with photographing it with a little bit of light painting and found this shot kind of fun and worth sharing with you and visitors to the forum. Not to spoil things for you, but the white arc is actually from my waving a small fluorescent behind the separator.  ;)

Quote from: 1Architect on July 18, 2020, 05:38:57 PM
it appears that you have built down into the collection area of the bucket (bottom) so deeply with the separator, the vortex doesn't have sufficient room to slow and drop the debris below the baffle.  My guess is the airstream is moving the waste through the slot and then picking it up again on the way to the filter - scrubbing.  It's the reason most waste containers with separators sitting on them, have to be emptied about 1/2 to 3/4 full.

Yes, building the separator in the bucket was the whole idea from the beginning. The depth into which the separator descends is illustrated and the related dimensions are given in the original post.

Static electricity was created by the high velocity particle stream rubbing on the plastic barrel and because there isn't an easy way to run a ground to Earth with this particular variety of vacuum, I abandoned the original idea of incorporating a Thien Separator into the Craftsman 16-gallon shop vacuum. The vacuum was returned back to it's regular duties with the bonus of having gotten a super duper cleaning from top to bottom, plus a new KoPach Filter - https://www.kopachfilter.com/ which fits perfectly! I also splurged in getting a Filterpal bag and am so glad I did as the combination has been exceptional over the past month or so of daily use.

Quote from: 1Architect on July 18, 2020, 05:38:57 PM
Without any dimensions, I can't really tell ...

The dimensions are provided in the original post.

Quote from: phil (admin) on November 25, 2007, 02:55:30 PM
There is another reason to avoid plastic pails, though. And that is to avoid static problems. I'm not concerned with the chance of explosion, but rather have noticed that static charged plastic can interfere with the operation of the cyclone.

Amen.