vacuum for use on a lathe

[CraigLD]

What is a good small vacuum to use on a lathe to clean up the chips. Currently I mainly use a whisk broom and our house vacuum which is a good Oreck hand vac. But I know that my wife isn't pleased with me using it this way and I am sure it isn't that good for the vac. It would seem that the best would be something that had replaceable bags and had a smaller diameter hose attachment that allowed getting into those small places that the chips always find themselves.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[TonyM]

I use a tin can one with disposable bags from Lidl.

 

[crueby]

I use a small shop vac, with a Dust Deputy cyclone seperator (made by Onieda Air Systems). It goes between the vac and the main pickup hose, drops everything into a 5 gallon bucket, almost nothing makes it to the vac itself. Uses the larger 2" hoses, the smaller 1-1/4" hoses would clog with shavings too easily.

 

[kwoodhands]

At first I used a small vacuum with a 1-1/4" hose. Clogged up often. I switched to my old reliable Craftsmen 6 gallon , 2-1/4 hose. I rarely have to unclog the hose now. I placed a tray I made under the bed to hold most of the swarf. I pull the tray and dump it , then vacuum what's leftover.
mike

 

[kquiggle]

I use a Stanley 5 Gallon Stainless Steel Wet/Dry Vac. The hose does clog up occasionally, but it's usually easy to clean out the clogs. It has the advantage of being small and portable, so easy to move around the shop. I don't bother with filter bags, I just use the included filter, Every so often I take the filter outside and blow it out with my garage compressor (a leaf blower works too) - just stand upwind!

I also use the tray trick. Just got some of those cheap disposable aluminum cooking trays. The tray catches 90% of the swarf and almost all of the big hose-clogging stuff. The vacuum and a dust brush takes care of the rest.

 

[tornitore45]

A lathe can make long stringy chips that clog even a 2" hose pretty fast, so anything smaller is not a good solution.

 

[Southernsandman]

What is a good small vacuum to use on a lathe to clean up the chips. Currently I mainly use a whisk broom and our house vacuum which is a good Oreck hand vac. But I know that my wife isn't pleased with me using it this way and I am sure it isn't that good for the vac. It would seem that the best would be something that had replaceable bags and had a smaller diameter hose attachment that allowed getting into those small places that the chips always find themselves.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Apprentice707]

When I clean down my lathe I initially remove the large (Curly) ferrous swarf with pliers or a magnet in a polybag. This then leaves only the dusty smaller swarf for vacuuming which I do with either a tin canned vacuum or my Craftsman plastic canned vacuum, both work well and seldom clog. This also gives me the chance to retrieve the small nuts, bolts and washers I inevitably drop around (yes I am old and clumsy). Call me mean, but have you seen the price of BA nuts and bolts recently.

Happy machining everyone.

 

[kquiggle]

I agree that a small 5 gallon vacuum is not ideal, but it's better than nothing and does work most of the time. You can in fact use it for long stringy chips if you accept that they will just form a big clump on the nozzle which you can then transfer to the waste can by hand. Or use the tray trick to catch the big stuff and use the vacuum on the small stuff. There are plenty of other good uses for a small vacuum around the shop - small chips on the mill, grinder dust, swarf on the floor (after getting the big stuff with a broom), and just general all around cleaning.

I use a big vacuum with a 2" hose in my garage wood shop, but I just don;t have room for it in my basement metal shop.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

 

[Southernsandman]

I've been using a george Hoover (the green one)for quite a few years it doesn't get the long stringy chips up I normally just pick them up and put them straight in the the recycling bin but it gets everything else up without much fuss and of course the George hoover doesn't mind fluids

 

[Uhu]

What Crueby above describes is a great solution. I use a cheap wet & dry bin vacuum with 2" hose, with an old big pressure cooker with the centrifuge mounted on the lid. Almost all the chips end up in the pressure cooker pot and it is very quick and simple to empty. Hardly any swarf makes it into the W&D bin. Got the idea from Gotteswinter's youtube channel.

 

[ytrose2]

I have an old Hoover Wet & Dry vacuum that looks like a Dalek. It has a cloth filter which is handy when I am sanding down gibstopping (NZ talk) on plasterboard. It also has a steam cleaner function. It is our second one after the first one's motor rusted out and I have had it over 20 years now. Much to my wife's disgust I recently bought a Karcher bin type vacuum. I consider a vacuum as one of my machine tools and vacuum at the end of every job of work. Of course, long stringy bits go into the bin manually, using suitable hand protection.

 

[Joe Mantle]

I bought a thing off Amazon called a Dust Deputy DIY, it fits on a 5 gallon bucket & catches the heavy stuff before it gets to the vacuum cleaner, works great, catches almost everything.

 

[alan.crawley1]

I skipped through this earlier then came back to look for something. It was about a Dyson cyclone for cleaning . Now I can't find it have I gone completely........

 

[k2steve]

I keep a vacuum next to the mill. That works great, never tried it on the Lathe, thought it would be more trouble than help.

 

[Richard Carlstedt]

I made a 20 gallon grease drum into a centrifuge in the center of my shop and have a 5 gallon Sears vac (30 yrs old) outside with my suction line under the floor to the centrifuge. I pick up all chips, lathe and mill. I have a coffee can of wood blocks and when picking up string chips, throw a block into the suction hose every once in a while.
the blocks are 1 x 1 x 1 or similar size. Nothing larger than will fit in a hose in any orientation. The blocks take out a starting blockage and are made when I have scrap 1" lumber of broom handles . works like a charm. and you can hear them as they clean all the way to the barrel.
Rich

 

[Poppy Ott]

I split my time between wood- and metalworking. On the woodworking side I have a vacuum system powered by a Grizzley 3hp vacuum. Included in the system is this separating canister that captures all but the sawdust, leaving only wood powder to go on to the vacuum bags. I seldom am doing wood and metal stuff at the same time, so when I switch from a bout of cabinet making to machining I use the same vacuum system to clean the lathe/milling machine/ surface grinder and so on. It will not pick up the long metal strings (well, it would, but the strings would clog up even the 4” lines), but once those are cleared away, the vacuum does a dandy job of picking up all the little metal chips, and they all get captured by the canister.

 

[alan.crawley1]

I use a dedicated Numatic swarf and coolant vacuum, pretty efficient especially the spout for cleaning t-slots

 

[Jamie Barton]

What is a good small vacuum to use on a lathe to clean up the chips. Currently I mainly use a whisk broom and our house vacuum which is a good Oreck hand vac. But I know that my wife isn't pleased with me using it this way and I am sure it isn't that good for the vac. It would seem that the best would be something that had replaceable bags and had a smaller diameter hose attachment that allowed getting into those small places that the chips always find themselves.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi,
I bought an vac intended for cleaning Ash from wood burning stoves on ebay. Cost peanuts (about £10-15 I think) and copes great with swarf. I squashed the nozzle to make it small enough to get into mill T slots. It's also handed for my stove..

 

[David Morrow]

I have a vacuum attached to my drill press but my lathe is next. I use a short length of 2.50 Inch Loc-Line and nozzle on the end. Very effective. I think with the lathe, the long stringy stuff would go up the tube but the jumble in the tank at the end of a long job would be something to behold I'm sure. I have a Dust Deputy on my CNC router and I would never live without it in that application but I don't think a metal lathe would treat it so well. ( A wood lathe for sure. )