Blast cabinet dust collector help

OK. I got the TPTOOLS build it yourself kit from "Santa". I need some sort of dust collector. I have looked around and can buy one for around $150 or so, but anybody can buy one. Right! I have read on several forums about using a squirrel cage fan but most are talking about for a woodshop with lots of piping and several machines.
I will have one cabinet and the piping will run through the wall and discharge outside. Can anyone suggest a link, or has personally tried this for a blast cabinet? I really think it should work, but if someone else has tried it and it failed...Well..I guess I will do like most everybody and buy one. Thanks for any information.
I will try to document the build if I decide to try it myself.

I use a shop vac with a Dust Deputy (small cyclone separator). Works well.



Dust Deputy

blast cabinet dust collection

I have a shop built unit that attaches to a shop vac. It's a plastic barrel (about 10 gallons, maybe 20" tall). PVC pipe from the blast cabinet down through the center of the lid and down into 8-10" of water. I cut some slots in the bottom 4" of the pipe. The output pipe is through the side of the lid, extending 2-3" into the barrel and connecting to the shop vac. The air bubbles through the water which removes most of the dust. It works pretty well, but I am thinking about adding a cheap automotive cone style filter inside the cabinet as a pre-filter.

I built my first one with a 5 gallon bucket with a lid on it, an inlet, and an outlet on the lid with elbows that directed the air away from each other. Used it with the shop vac, it trapped alot of the heavier media before it went to the vac.

I should build a trap but I have been using a c-man shop vac that I bought at an estate auction. I just shake the filter out often.

I have a home made cabinet and use a small shop vac and a 5 gal plastic pail with water in the bottom 3 or 4 inches. The picture below isn't great and the sun glare doesn't help but basically, the shop vac is connected to the pail and has a plastic elbow just inside the lid. The dust gets sucked into the pail via a straight plastic pipe that sits a few inches above the water line. The dust being heavier than air falls into the water and is trapped. This system works great and is very inexpensive to build and maintain.

This might help with a few more details ...
http://toolguyd.com/2010/03/shop-tip-5-gallon-bucket-diy-fine-dust-collection-trap/

OK I see the writing on the wall. USE A SHOP VAC. Thanks for everyone's input. I will build a small separator and try to capture some of the dust before it goes to the vac. Thanks again.

Here is how I did mine...

http://shopngarage.com/2010/07/blast-cabinet-dust-filter/

That looks Bad to the Bone. It can't cost much to make, I think I 'm going to give it a try. Does that small shop vac provide enough suction? I have one like that, but also have a 5 HP I could use. If you had it to do over would you go with the 5 HP or stay with the smaller unit? The design looks great. If it works as good as it looks you could have something. Thanks.

The small vacuum works best. The larger vacuums have too much suction and remove too much abrasive from the cabinet. You only need enough suction to keep the dust at a level where you can see well enough to work.

I need to get a new vacuum. About a month ago I was blasting a large part with heavy mill scale. I ran the little vacuum continuously for about an hour and burned it out. If you use a little vacuum, give it some cool down time.

JFoshee said:

... Does that small shop vac provide enough suction? I have one like that, but also have a 5 HP I could use.

Click to expand...

I use a small 4 gal. Shop-Vac and it works great.

What about a regulator? Skat Blast suggest 60-80 psi. My compressor cuts off at 175psi. I have a regulator on the drop I use to paint with, but everything else is 175psi. The cabinet will be the first drop from the compressor which is about 20' away. My mainline is 1/2 galvanized and will come down the wall with a water blow off at the bottom. Part way down the wall I will tee off to the regulator. From here it will be about another 10' to the pedal for the cabinet. I plan to reduce at the tee to 3/8" then again at the last 5' to 1/4". Will it benefit me to buy a regulator with 3/8 in/out or just settle for the 1/4" in/out since I will be reducing down in another 10' anyway? Also, can anyone suggest a good regulator? One with a water separator would be nice. I would like to stay around the $50 mark if possible. I checked out some of the HF one, but some of them had bad reviews. Thanks for everyone's help so far.

Be sure to post pictures of your cabinet build

I have went back and forth on what air pressure to run. Many different idea's and numbers are around.

Here is what I do. I have a very large home made blast box I built about 15 years ago. 60" wide and 42" deep and tall. Only use glass beads in it. I run high air pressure 125 psi+, sometimes as much as 140 psi. Most places will tell you to only run about 80-90 psi with glass beads. This high pressure crushes the glass beads because of the high impact speeds. So a LOT more dust is generated. In fact the stuff in my vac is just glass bead flour! I never get any glass beads at all.

What this does for me is speed up the blasting process a bunch. The cleaning rate is very fast and I can do heavier and rougher blasting. The big draw back using glass beads is they are a soft blasting medium. So it is very gentle on all surfaces. I like this because as a shade tree mechanic I have the time to blast it again if it is not clean enough BUT I don't have the money to replace something that was damaged or destroyed because you were in a hurry and used cheap rough blasting media.

But I am mainly focused on old car/machinery repair and restoration. Maybe you are more into fabrication and heavy rust removal with thick metal?

I really like the compromise glass beads give me. Gentle cleaning with lower air pressures and then crank it up when you need to move some material.

I get glass beads from Tractor Supply (TSC). Cheaper than Harbor Freight at $30 for 50 LBS VS HF at $42 for 50 Pounds.
.
.
.

I have a squirrel cage fan , I just used the fan .built a case for it and piped it outside . A dryer vent outside ,, It,s been about 5 years and works good so far.










lol well I just noticed the date this thread was started

I pretty much have the same set-up. I happen to get a blower like this for free, when the new owners of a company I was working for, were cleaning house. It was new in an unopened box, but you supplied your own motor.

http://www.grainger.com/product/DAYTON-High-Pressure-Blower-WP14393/_/N-ylx/Ntt-blower?sst=subset&ts_optout=true&s_pp=false&picUrl=//static.grainger.com/rp/s/is/image/Grainger/2C820_AW99?$smthumb$

I had a nice 1/6th HP motor, that fit perfect. I piped it into a 5 gallon bucket of water and from there, to the outside. Two nice things about the system. No dusty filters to fuss with and it runs so quiet, you can hear a mouse pee on cotton. Been running the heck out of it for just over 11 years. ---- John

Sorry that was my fault about the old thread but I thought some updates would help others.

Wow for free too! That was good grab!
Congratulations!
.
.
.

Got my Dust Deputy and made a bracket to mount it on my blast box. My box is very large and home made. It's 60" wide and 42" high and 39" deep. I have it on wheels and that is a great addition.
You just can't have too big a blast box!

I built this box about 15 years ago from the **** blast plans. I love the box but have replaced the VAC-35 motor 4 times because the grit kills them even when using a HEPA filter.

The Dust Deputy works beyond good. I estimate around 95%-98% of the dust is knocked out before it even gets to the VAC-35. I may add water in the bottom of the bucket but it collects fine powder like dust so good now I don't think I need to.




.
.
.

Clubairth feel free to post pictures of your cabinet.

I just use a shop vac.

ghnl said:

I use a shop vac with a Dust Deputy (small cyclone separator). Works well.

Dust Deputy

blast cabinet dust collection

Click to expand...

I use this set-up with a cabinet made with parts and plans from TP Tools.

I also use a dust deputy, my only issue is that the set up has too much vacuum and draws the media out.

I couldn't see spending 600 bucks or so on a canister vac for my blasting cabinet so I built one. I used a couple of kitty litter buckets, a shop vac filter and a Harbor Freight dust collector vac.

I use one of my shop vac hoses to hook the cabinet up to the top bucket of the collection stack.

The hose simply plugs into a close fitting hole I cut in the bucket.

The upper bucket has a shop vac filter bolted into it.

The air is drawn through the filter out of the bucket through the big flex pipe. Any dust is collected on the filter and doesn't get through to the vac.
This setup works very well to keep dust down in the cabinet. Well worth the 120 dollars I have into it.
Plus, it all breaks down and stores inside the cabinet when not in use.
Mark

Here are some pictures of my home made blast box. I used the **** blast plans and then expanded the box. 60" wide, 42" tall and 39" deep. Possibly a bit big because I don't have long enough arms to reach all the space inside. I did use the longest set of gloves and the largest piece of viewing glass **** offers.

I was lucky and found a barely used **** Vac-35 years ago for a good price. I have now upgraded that unit to add a HEPA filter and noise insulation. Up until now that was all I used but have added a Dust Deputy with very good results. Those pictures are posted up thread. The casters are a must have. This thing takes up a lot of space and I can put it anywhere in the shop since I upgraded the vac system and no longer need to vent it outside. BIG improvement.



I have added an outside trough to catch what drops when you open the door.



I also added a shield mounted to the inside of the door. Again to keep the media in the box.



Here is the interior to give some sense of size.



I also added a air gun inside to blow the door gasket and parts clean before I open the box. This has probably keep the mess inside the box better than anything I have done so far!



And since I have had it for 10-15 years my refrigerated air dryer has also been one of the best things I found on EBay! This is a special model and the insides are all 316 SS! It was special made by Norgren for a plant somewhere. I got the first one and after research realized I had a $2500 dryer that I paid $40 for! He had 40 for sale and in the end I purchased 15 of them for friends and I did sell several so my unit was free. Just one of those deals you stumble on!



It's funny to me because I can see my progress from when I built the box! At the time I had no welder. It's all bolted and screwed together. I used fiberglass on the plywood corners and an air file to sand it off. So it would look nice. I had a hard time figuring out the bottom section and finally just trimmed the boards to fit. No bench grinder so everything was smoothed with a hand held grinder. No band saw as I cut all this heavy duty 1-1/2", 1/4" thick angle iron by hand. Had to cut the 10 gauge door metal with my skill saw using an abrasive blade.

I think I had about $1100 in the box with the Vac when I was done but a box that size is expensive and I wanted mine to be extra heavy duty.

Oops almost forgot! When I got my big compressor (23.7 CFM @175 PSI) I upgraded the blast gun to the Hi-Pro High volume one to replace the one that came in the kit. Made a world of difference but I can still bring that big compressor to it's knees with air demand! It will pump up and stop but only for a few minutes before it starts running again. Really helped that I installed a 3/4" diameter compressed air line with a full shop loop for added storage.
.
.
.

I am in process of adding dust collection to my cabinet using shop vac and cyclone separator.
My question is where to extract from the cabinet. The current vent is high on one side of the cabinet. The outlet to the extractor has not been cut yet. The cabinet has top lid and I can cut the extractor hole in the opposite side for cross flow. But should it be high or low? Front or back?

Pro's and con's please.

Sent from my LG-D801 using Tapatalk

You want to create a flow to clear the cabinet so, if your vent is high I would put the draw low, in the opposite corner.
The vent on my cabinet is in the lower left front corner. The draw is high in the upper right rear corner, creating cross flow through the cabinet. These were there from the manufacturer.
Mark

Thanks Mark. I have to assume that the manufacturer knew what they were doing. And it makes sense.

Sent from my LG-D801 using Tapatalk

Nice build Clubairth
I have had a TP tools TP780 top load cabinet for a few years. when I get to the point of needing a larger (much larger) cabinet I am going to build an enlarged version of the **** Blast plans.
When I worked at the GE Aircraft Engines Advanced Composites Lab we had a cabinet about 6' deep, 12' long and 8' high with 3 glove sets on 2 levels. You could of blasted a small car in there!

Now that's a BIG blast cabinet!!

Only bigger one I have seen was at work where we refurbished large oil field trucks. We had a drive in bay with conveyors built into the floor under steel grates that pulled the media back to the collection system. An entire blast room so you could walk around the truck and blast the entire thing. Most of the time two guys worked the bay when blasting.
.
.
.