J. Phil Thien's Projects

Just posting to see if it helps Phil test the new forum settings.

Over the summer, I've added an overhead blade guard to my Uni-saw. I never installed the stock blade guard and chose to just use a Delta splitter instead. That system worked well and I never found myself getting so near the spinning blade that I felt I was doing something stupid or dangerous. Actually it seems like an open blade provides a visual reference and keeps me aware. However, I am slightly allergic to sawdust. (especially oak and cedar) That has led me to wanting to improve dust collection above the blade. I chose a Shark guard. For overhead use it comes with a guard and bracket only with none of the struts for mounting.

It is up to each individual user to fabricate the mounting hardware to use the guard overhead. I don't have many metal working tools or a welder, just metal cutting blades for my woodworking tools, files grinder etc. The struts and hardware were all items that I picked up from Lowe's and the entire assembly was bolted together. I wanted to be able to do all of my normal cutting operations with the guard in place so it was important to me to design a system that would allow me to adjust the guard side to side as well as up and down. I have retained the Delta drop in splitter and anti kick back pawls as the Shark Guard fits over it.

Here is a picture from the rear.





If necessary it can be removed quickly and hung from the mount.



Steve

Here are my results using the Thien baffle to separate out the fine powder produced by a drum sander. When I built the baffle, I also increased the diameter of my main run from 4" to 6" and replaced the top filter bag on my DC with a Wynn filter. I have a significant increase in air flow, There is a very noticeable increase in the pickup of fines at the drum sander.

This pic shows the amount of fine dust captured by the separator. I didn't start with a completely empty barrel, there was 2 passes of a piece of walnut through the planer before I started the sanding operation.



After taking the picture of the drum, I re-installed it and used an air gun to blow down the filter. There was little to no dust in the bottom plastic bag until I blew the filter out.

This is fell to the bottom bag after blowing down the filter.



With my old setup (bag filter and trash can pre-separator,  my upper filter bag would become so clogged that the amount of collection from the sander was almost nothing. Is my version of the Thien baffle as effective as a true cyclone? I don't know, I don't have one. I will say that I am impressed with the amount of scrubbing I have achieved. Cleaning the Wynn filter after sanding is a heck of a lot easier than trying to unclog the filter bag.

I got interested in the baffle after making numerous end grain cutting boards for Christmas. I found that my old system that consisted of a Griz 1029 connected to a trash can lid (grizzly) separator with flex pipe and 4" SDW ducting wasn't giving me the performance I needed. There was a lot of discussion on the Thien baffle over on Woodnet which led me here.

Here is what I have gotten done so for. I am upgrading my main runs to 6" metal ducting (from PSI) and am using a plastic 30 gallon drum for collection. Because I did not want to loose barrel capacity I decided to build the baffle as a top hat. Here is a shot from the bottom of the baffle. As you can see I used stick on weather stripping on the barrel contact surface. The bottom plate of the baffle is two layers of 3/4" ply and one layer of 1/2" ply



For the curved area of the baffle I used some 1/8" Plexiglas or poly acrylic that I had in the shop. Here is the assembled baffle.



I got rid of the plywood spacers and used oak to prevent splitting. where the inlet pipe goes into the baffle I doubled the plywood to 2 layers of 3/4" ply just to provide more contact area on the pipe. The clamp on the barrel is there to keep the top of the barrel in a perfect circle. Without the clamp the barrel would rest to a somewhat oval shape.

Here I have the blower mounted on the wall. The duct from the baffle is 6" in diameter and fits 3" below the top inside of the baffle in its current position. It is a tight slip fit sealed with more weather stripping. I am going to add a handle/hinge/chain contraption to hold the baffle for drum emptying. The baffle can move up and down on the outlet duct providing clearance to empty the drum.



I won't have much shop time until after Christmas to install the filter and bag.

I am in the planning stages of a "tophat" style baffle. (Similar to VAWoodworkers) I currently have my DC in a corner of the shop with branches running down the two adjacent walls. The machines that produce the largest amount of dust and chips (Planer, jointer and drum sander) are on the left hand branch. Therefore, I would like to have the inlet to the separator come in from the left. However, the rotation of the Griz 1029 is in the opposite direction.

Does this really matter? I read on Bill Pentz's site that you should have the cyclone and impeller moving in the same direction for optimum air flow.

I don't think (completely unscientific) that the suction side of the impeller swirls the air, but this is a complete quesstimation on my part.

Any thoughts on this??


Steve