Cyclone dust collector

[Brian Rupnow]

Yesterday I picked up this wet/dry vacuum for $20 from the local buy and sell magazine. It works good. If it has too much suction I can trade it for a smaller vacuum that I use for cleaning up my lathe and mill. This is the kind of thing that I have to "try it and see" how it works. Everything in this chain of "sandblaster-cyclone dust collector-vacuum" has now been sourced, and all I have to figure out is the vacuum hoses. It would be easier to plumb it all with rigid plastic pipe and fittings, but it has to be flexible hose so that I can empty the 5 gallon dust collector can when I have to.

 

[Sparky_SC]

2" pvc works fine and it what many use. As long as it not glued if can come apart easily to dump the cyclone. (no need to glue) Just use long radius type elbows for good flow.

If there is too much suction you can just open up a "bleed" port somewhere, drill some holes in the PVC as a example.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

YES!!! I went over to the vacuum cleaner sales shop and bought 8 foot of 2" inner diameter vacuum hose, four gear clamps (and a reducer that I didn't use) for the grand total of $70 (which was about $20 too much) this morning. After some careful fitting and clamping I have all the vacuum lines installed. I still have to epoxy the metal tubes into the wooden parts of the cyclone dust collector, but it does work. I flipped on the vacuum cleaner and both gloves immediately blew up to full size---they were laying all wrinkled up before I switched on the vacuum. My vacuum lines are 2" inside diameter.

 

[Sparky_SC]

What do you plan on using for blast medium? You are very close to a first test run.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I think I will use medium grit sandblasting sand. Princess Auto seem to carry many different grades as well as glass media and copper media. What do you suggest?

 

[Steamchick]

A picture of your wife and the wine coolers will make us jealous. But we'll enjoy seeing you enjoy the wine and company anyway.
K2

 

[Sparky_SC]

I think I will use medium grit sandblasting sand. Princess Auto seem to carry many different grades as well as glass media and copper media. What do you suggest?

Ha ! I am at the same stage as you. I plan on using either glass beads or crushed glass for my first attack. I am not interested in removing heavy rust, paint or anything like that. Just don't use playsand or any regular sand, that is quite dangerous.

That SOB Mayhugh1 building that 289 Ford engine here keeps showing those beautiful parts he makes with the glass bead finish and he roped me right in ! LOL

 

[ddmckee54]

If you use glass you'll probably need to watch your blasting pressure, too high and you run the risk of turning your media into a consumable media by breaking the beads into powder. Potentially, you should be able to re-use your media by sifting the chunks out.

If you are removing just paint, soda is another blasting media option. It'll strip the paint, but it won't hurt chrome or glass, it's supposedly safe on wood and plastic too - YMMV. Soda won't do anything to rust except knock the loose chunks off, and it's a one-time use media.

I've heard that ground walnut shells are also a relatively non-aggressive blasting media. The military used to use it as a blasting media to clean certain helicopter transmissions. That is until several of those transmissions failed due to the blasting media clogging the oil lines.

Sand and foundry slag are both fairly aggressive media. They'll strip paint and rust off quickly, but they do etch the surface.

 

[GreenTwin]

Corn cob is another option for removing paint without damaging the metal surface.
Must be well-sealed to avoid varmits and moisture absorption.

.

 

[Robsmith]

I think I will use medium grit sandblasting sand. Princess Auto seem to carry many different grades as well as glass media and copper media. What do you suggest?

I use glass beads on all my automotive stuff. It leaves a very nice matt finish. Also a nice "key" for paint. have coarse garnet but rarely use that. ( mostly on seriously rust pitted junk)

 

[Brian Rupnow]

Today I bought a 50 pound bag of 30-60 Greengrit recycled glass. My choice was influenced by the fact that this particular grit was on sale for $10 per bag. I also finished plumbing in the air pressure line. Tomorrow I will plumb in the sand supply line and hopefully try this system out.---Brian

 

[Oldiron]

With any glass product run the lowest air pressure that accomplishes the job at hand. The higher the air pressure the more dust and the shorter the abrasive life. Crushed glass is cheap and leaves a perfect finish for painting or powder coating, IMHO. I run 3 cabinets with different abrasives. Bob

 

[Brian Rupnow]

IT WORKS!!!----Today I installed the sand delivery hose and loaded 5 pounds of media into the sandblasting cabinet. Everything works more or less the way I had hoped for. I have to find something to sand blast now. I haven't tried the dust collector nor vacuum yet but I definitely have a strong stream of sand coming out of the blaster nozzle when I squeeze the trigger on the sandblasting gun. I am a bit underwhelmed by the light from the sandblaster lighting feature purchased from Princess Auto.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

COMPLETE SUCCESS!!! Sandblaster is awesome. This is an ancient wrench that my father inherited from his father and passed on down to me. I sandblasted the handle in no time flat. It's a bit early to tell how well the cyclone dust collector works, but I will find out as I get more stuff sandblasted.

 

[Sparky_SC]

What sort of pressure did you run for that first test? I read to start out at about 40psi. Higher than needed will just break the medium up into dust and fine particles wasting the media.

 

[Brian Rupnow]

I ran at 70psi. Didn't try anything lower. Will try at lower pressures as I figure this thing out.---Brian

 

[TSutrina]

Sand dunes work on the principle that as air rises the entrain heavy sand drops out. So the cyclone isn't needed for removing the sand. Much of the sand will settle out where the nozzle isn't pointing. Just putting a tee with a drop out closed leg out of the box. You see the same trap used in natural gas line into furnaces and water heaters. Forcing the air up will drop out the heavy particles.
The Chicago fire department hired the company i worked for to prototype design a virus sniffer for them to put in stadiums etc. Come back in a few hours and analyze what was collected. We chose water as the filtering media. Now this is used in big industry such as power plants to strip out particles and toxins. A curtain of water The image is our design. Not shown well is the air slows up enough that the water particles settle out. Put a wet vac filter as the suction device will catch the water drops that make it past the water curtain.
A cardboard box with hole for long gloves and a window covered with plastic sheet would be a throw away, except for the gloves cabinet. Can put the whole box in a plastic sheet envelope. Need to let in air and exhaust. I would use a flapper of cardboard with a weighted end to let air in and as shown a vacuum cleaner to suck air out. If very fine particles and toxins are an issue. HEPA filters are just too restrictive. Worked for Eureka designing vacuum cleaners. Leaks are purposely put in to increase air flow in 90% of vacuum cleaners that advertise HEPA. Leaks bypass the filter.