No matter what you do to the size and shape of those holes, they will still place an edge facing the swirling airstream. The length and moisture content of the shavings will determine how quickly the clog will occur, but it almost certainly will.
There is another concern I have and it is hard to predict the impact on the separation until you try it. If you can find the videos I posted showing the performance of my separator, you will notice the air swirls with somewhat of a sine wave pattern. It would seem the separation occurs in the valleys of this wave, and if that valley happens to be where you have placed these bridges, I think separation will suffer and you will get unwanted turbulence. However, this is just my guess. But if it were me I would be looking at other ways to support the baffle. I have a threaded rod post to support mine. It is set back so it has little or no impact on performance. And when i was trying to plane very wet Cypress and plugging my separator one time after another, the post was never the culprit. The plug always started at the end of my drop slot, and you are essentially adding several of these ends points to catch shavings.
There are a lot of unknowns with what you are trying to do, and I?m just guessing based on what I?ve seen with my system. So whatever you do, be careful not to modify your baffle plate so that you cannot return to a more conventional drop slot configuration if necessary.
There is another concern I have and it is hard to predict the impact on the separation until you try it. If you can find the videos I posted showing the performance of my separator, you will notice the air swirls with somewhat of a sine wave pattern. It would seem the separation occurs in the valleys of this wave, and if that valley happens to be where you have placed these bridges, I think separation will suffer and you will get unwanted turbulence. However, this is just my guess. But if it were me I would be looking at other ways to support the baffle. I have a threaded rod post to support mine. It is set back so it has little or no impact on performance. And when i was trying to plane very wet Cypress and plugging my separator one time after another, the post was never the culprit. The plug always started at the end of my drop slot, and you are essentially adding several of these ends points to catch shavings.
There are a lot of unknowns with what you are trying to do, and I?m just guessing based on what I?ve seen with my system. So whatever you do, be careful not to modify your baffle plate so that you cannot return to a more conventional drop slot configuration if necessary.