Mobilizing a Dust Collector Part One

 Shop Report

Here's something I'm working on at the moment. No fine joinery, nothing very pretty, I'm just making a big old dust collector mobile. I expect to be done sometime in the next few days. 

And now here's some background and a few

more progress photos.

The dust collector is a 2 horsepower Oneida Air system from the first decade of the century. I think it's about 16 years old. Oneida's offerings have changed quite a bit since then. For instance, the body of this cyclone is made of heavy, galvanized steel. It also has a filter cartridge inside the cyclone. Oneida still offers replacement filters. I will give this one a test period before I decide whether to replace that filter, or further modify this unit by installing an external filter.

I bought this system used, from a hobbyist who has aged out of woodworking. It was wall-mounted in his shop, and my purchase included all the ductwork he had installed throughout his shop to service each of his machines.

My own shop situation has recently changed. I'm in the process of setting up shop in a dedicated space I'm renting nearby. Beautiful, flat concrete floors. High ceilings. A big garage door. 3-phase power. Not your average hobbyist's shop! But opportunity knocked at the right time. 

I decided against installing ductwork for several reasons. First, I have the room to move a dust collector from station to station. Second, I work alone in my shop: I don't need to collect dust from two machines at once. Third, permanently installed ductwork has some downsides: it gets dusty on top! every joint you add is another place something can go wrong! rearranging your shop requires rebuilding your duct system! long runs of ductwork reduce suction! (I guess I cheated by saying “Third”!) I'd rather keep things simple: the dust collector on wheels, pulling in chips & dust through a short run of flexible hose.

The prior occupant of the shop left behind a pile of used 2X construction lumber, much of it nice and straight. Since it was plentiful and free, I decided to make the rolling stand with it. Once I had a rough drawing and parts list sketched out, I cut the 2X4 parts to rough length, and ran them through my planer, to get a good clean surface to gluing, and also to get everything to the same dimensions. 

The framework was glued and screwed together.

For rigidty, I added some steel shelf brackets I had lying around. I also screwed on some 2X and plywood spreaders to minimize flexing, and I added a pair of 1X4 diagonal braces to the two uprights. 

I made sure that the area near the top where the Oneida mounting brackets are attached have solid wood where the lag screws go.

The hardest part of the project, since I was alone, was lifting the assembly upright, since I mounted the very heavy motor/impeller/housing with the rolling cart tipped over on the floor. In the end, I fastened my Maasdam Power-Pull winch to the ceiling and hoisted the beast up. 

As you can see, I'm not done. The lower cone has to be installed, but before I do that, I need to clean and install the filter cartridge. At that point, I can wire the thing up and flip the switch. I have decided against paint or finish. Let's see how this thing holds up before putting in the extra hours! I may need to modify it once this idea of mine meets reality in the form of working life.

The drum where the shavings are collected is on its own set of wheels. Before building this, I worried that the two sets of casters would interfere with each other, but it's quite easy to roll the whole assembly around the shop - - - and attaching the drum to the bottom of the cyclone will only make it easier.

I'm looking forward to having good dust collection available.

PS) If you'd like a bunch of used ductwork, including some really high quality blast gates and wyes, hit me up.