J. Phil Thien's Projects

I setup my current shop a couple of years ago. I moved from the basement with no dust control to the garage. Again with no dust control and too cold to work in the winter. So I convinced my wife that if I bought a shed to move my shop to, I would not be tracking sawdust into the house. She bought it!!!

After spending a ton of money on the shed and wiring it, I was not in a position to spend $$$ on a cyclone. I found this website and am very thankfull for it!!! I 've started using the shop quite a bit lately and I just can't get over how nice it is to not be constantly buried in saw dust. I used several peoples ideas and then modified them to my situation.

I started with the HF setup. I bought their filter. Then I took a 35 gal. trashcan, cut a hole in the side and created a side entry Thien cyclone. I set the trashcan on the roller plate that the original HF dust collector came with, wall mounted the blower, connected the blower to the cyclone with a slip fit connector, and connected the blower exhaust to the filter with 10' of insulated duct (poor man's muffler).

I setup a box fan with a furnace filter to help contol fugitive dust.

A year ago I talked my wife into a "real wood shop". Ever since I've known her (28 years), she has had to put up with sawdust all over the place. The first shop started in the basement (no dust control, no air filter). When we got a garage, the shop moved to one wall of the  attached garage. Again no dust control or filtration, and still lots of sawdust in the house. A year ago in September I mentioned that if I bought a pre-built shed and made it into a wood shop I could move the operation away from the house. To my surprise she said "Go for it!"  ;D

The next day I ran down to Klotter Farms and secured a 14'x20' shed. Over the next few months I installed the electrical (60 amp/220),
insulated, installed OSB walls and floor (on top of the plywood floor), painted the walls, urethaned the floor, and spent a considerable amount of time on this and other web sites investigating dust control. Having spent so much on the shop, I was looking for the low cost alternative.

Using a modified Thien Separator, a 20 gal. trash metal can, and a HF Blower I created a low cost effective DC system. Thanks Phil!