Muckin_Slusher
Well-known member
NILFISK is the Hilti of vacuums.
Best Shop Vac model ever made?
- Thread starter rdoaner
- Start date
Fein.
Not the most amazing suction, but the only vac I’ve ever used that can effectively handle dry wall dust without exhausting it all over the shop/house/kitchen. I look for two things in a shop vac, low noise and low emissions.
I don’t need or want to vacuum up rocks or 3/8” bolts. So dumb. More suction isn’t better. If anything, I want to vacuum up the dust and leave the bolts, tape measures and bowling balls.
Not the most amazing suction, but the only vac I’ve ever used that can effectively handle dry wall dust without exhausting it all over the shop/house/kitchen. I look for two things in a shop vac, low noise and low emissions.
I don’t need or want to vacuum up rocks or 3/8” bolts. So dumb. More suction isn’t better. If anything, I want to vacuum up the dust and leave the bolts, tape measures and bowling balls.
four.cycle
Well-known member
^ One of the advantages of having 36 feet of hose is that I can put the canister outdoors, run the hose through a door or window, and not have to be concerned about the recirculating dust. I put the standard "deflector" thingie over the exhaust port, and over that a couple legs from an old pair of ***** hose - that stops the most of the stuff right there.
When you have that much hose hooked up. LOTS of suction is requisite.
The reason I wanted a vacuum cleaner that would pick up a 3/8" x 6-inch bolt and could be rolled down two flights of stairs is because the crew at that store location had managed to destroy no fewer than five vacuum cleaners over the course of a couple years. I guess they figured if the vacuum cleaner was broken, they wouldn't have to vacuum. I had to take the necessary steps to cause them to change their ways.
The kid that I sent upstairs to vacuum up all the dust bunnies behind the Fel-Pro gaskets DID make several attempts to kill that Mastercraft, but failed.
He DID, however, manage to cook the 350 V8 in one of our delivery trucks to the point where the rocker arms turned blue, and a couple years later burned down his parents house on Christmas morning (by stuffing ALL of the wrapping paper into a fireplace and tossing a match to it.)(I still have the news clipping around here somewhere in an old sketchbook.)
YMMV
When you have that much hose hooked up. LOTS of suction is requisite.
The reason I wanted a vacuum cleaner that would pick up a 3/8" x 6-inch bolt and could be rolled down two flights of stairs is because the crew at that store location had managed to destroy no fewer than five vacuum cleaners over the course of a couple years. I guess they figured if the vacuum cleaner was broken, they wouldn't have to vacuum. I had to take the necessary steps to cause them to change their ways.
The kid that I sent upstairs to vacuum up all the dust bunnies behind the Fel-Pro gaskets DID make several attempts to kill that Mastercraft, but failed.
He DID, however, manage to cook the 350 V8 in one of our delivery trucks to the point where the rocker arms turned blue, and a couple years later burned down his parents house on Christmas morning (by stuffing ALL of the wrapping paper into a fireplace and tossing a match to it.)(I still have the news clipping around here somewhere in an old sketchbook.)
YMMV
billconner
Well-known member
rancherbill
Well-known member
The Ridgid Vacs becasue they have lifetime replacement warranty.
I've had two that I have used and abused, but I only paid for the first one. The second was a warranty unit.
I've had two that I have used and abused, but I only paid for the first one. The second was a warranty unit.
66HertzClone
ALLIANCE MEMBER
In the quick lube industry the Wap and Nilfisk Alto are the kings, extremely durable, rebuildable, and very quiet. I have a Wap in my garage that was used in a hop that we closed. This thing is bullet proof, the only annoying things is the wheels which seems to be true of nearly every vacuum out there. I used the DBA meter in an app on my phone and it registered 71 dbs when held about 3 feet away from it when running.
A couple of years ago someone here posted picture of how they solved the crappy wheel problem on their vacuum, I saved it and I will get around o making this change.
A couple of years ago someone here posted picture of how they solved the crappy wheel problem on their vacuum, I saved it and I will get around o making this change.
four.cycle
Well-known member
^ If I was going to go to the trouble, I'd use bigger casters.
Just sayin' ....
Just sayin' ....
Nutria
Well-known member
I've been happy with mine. It's one of the oldest ones that I've seen; purchased it used. Reasonable power, reasonably quiet, bag plus HEPA canister, auto-on feature is handy, as is the accessory outlet, just keeps going.
neophyte
Well-known member
That’s likely a WAP rebrand.I've been happy with mine. It's one of the oldest ones that I've seen; purchased it used. Reasonable power, reasonably quiet, bag plus HEPA canister, auto-on feature is handy, as is the accessory outlet, just keeps going.
I think I read that the later series that came after these was also made for Fein by WAP, or Nilfisk.
I’m not sure whether the current Fein vacs are still made by WAP/Nilfisk.
Fretters
Well-known member
My personal favourite are the Numatics. They're damn fine machines, IMHO. This is the one in my workshop.
Nutria
Well-known member
That's my understanding as well.
RAS61
Well-known member
I have a Craftsman from the early 90's, that's still working as good as the day I got it. I chose the 8 gallon size to save space and it's been a great combination of size and power. Great suction, used it to clean up the flooded basement several times before I installed a sump pump. Don't know if they still make em the same, but one of the best tool values over the long haul for me
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IndyGarage
Well-known member
I still have one old Jet engine sounding craftsman - which works find but I hate the noise - it won't die.
At the shop I have about a 12 year old stainless Shop Vac brand with a quiet motor and a 12 gallon tank. I really like it.
I have a Nilfisk that I use for indoor sanding and other woodworking tools. It has good suction and is very quiet, but it has the smaller diameter hose, which is not as useful for general cleaning.
I have a Milwaukee V28 cordless toolbox vac - very similar to the current 18v vac - it's noisy but convenient for cleaning up after small jobs around the house or in the boat.
In my storage unit I have an 8 gallon shop vac stainless. I thought it would be as good as the one above - it's not nearly as good.
And in the home garage I have a Vacumaid - hanging on the wall for cleaning cars - it is horribly noisy - but has really good suction and is very convenient.
If I could only have one of those it would probably be the Shop Vac quiet Stainless model.
At the shop I have about a 12 year old stainless Shop Vac brand with a quiet motor and a 12 gallon tank. I really like it.
I have a Nilfisk that I use for indoor sanding and other woodworking tools. It has good suction and is very quiet, but it has the smaller diameter hose, which is not as useful for general cleaning.
I have a Milwaukee V28 cordless toolbox vac - very similar to the current 18v vac - it's noisy but convenient for cleaning up after small jobs around the house or in the boat.
In my storage unit I have an 8 gallon shop vac stainless. I thought it would be as good as the one above - it's not nearly as good.
And in the home garage I have a Vacumaid - hanging on the wall for cleaning cars - it is horribly noisy - but has really good suction and is very convenient.
If I could only have one of those it would probably be the Shop Vac quiet Stainless model.
66HertzClone
ALLIANCE MEMBER
That is definitely a Wap vacuum, had those in my shop when we opened back in 1990. I used some PVC tubing and made a post to hand the hose from to keep it off the wet floor on rainy day, nothing like a wet dirty hose dragged across the seats of a customers car. The one I have now is the nest generation of that unit.
roofdweller49
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2023
- Messages
- 180
How are the Karcher ones?
www.kaercher.com
Wet Dry Vacs | Kärcher
Wet/dry vacuums from Kärcher. Compact design, top-mounted filters. Engineered in Germany. Made in Europe. Free shipping.
rickpaulos
Well-known member
Funny this topic came up.
Being gift giving season, Mrs. Imagineer asked if I needed anything for the workshop, like a new shop-vac. She's witnessed me ranting over, or kicking around my circa 1995 Craftsman unit. Mine looks like this model...
It's small, loud, top heavy and the wheels can't roll over even the tiniest item. I'm on the 3rd or 4th power cord and have replaced all the hose accessories . . . but the darn thing still works fine.
I have one very similar to this. one day I decided to flush out the original plastic hose with a garden hose stuck in one end. Well it was like a sprinkler hose, water was shooting out in all directions from dozens of pin holes. I found a better replacement hose. longer and it didn't have a narrow restriction where the end attaches to the vac.
rickpaulos
Well-known member
Not the best ever.
I bought this HEPA shop vac to use with a drywall sander. Drywall dust is very fine. I've never seen a shop vac that doesn't allow some dust through. Usually the finest stuff gets exhausted and lands everywhere, including in the air we are breathing at the time. I still wore a face filter but those are limited in their abilities too. We had taped off the kitchen furnace vents to prevent the dust from getting into the rest of the house.
Masterforce brand sold at Menards. HEPA. 4 layers of filtration. I added a shop vac bag to make that 5 layers and to make it easier to clean out. No idea who makes it.
the good:
Best filtration around.
Good wheels.
long cord.
okay, that's it.
Now some of the issues.
odd bunch of hose attachments with different size fittings. Like a grab bag of mismatched accessories. My wife was wanting to like this HEPA vac but she got frustrated trying work out the fittings. None have a decent swivel built in so the end of the hose fitting keeps unscrewing as I move about.
No decent cord storage and it's a very long cord.
Much too easy to accidentally turn on the wheel parking brakes.
After using it attached to a dry wall sander for the kitchen project, the canister filter was very clogged up. The extra bag and the 'over the canister' pre filter bag didn't do much to stop that extra fine drywall dust. I decided to wash the main canister filter. The canister filter is not a "washable" type. I put it back in the vac and the vac could not **** the water out of the filter. The soaked in water completely blocked the air flow. I left the filter outdoors for a full week to dry then it worked again. We're in a drought so the air is very dry here. A new canister filter is $80 at Menards. And that is a bargain compared to the compatible VacMaster filter at over $120. I did pull the exit filters for inspection and they looked pretty clean so the main filter is doing the job when it's not wet.
Oh, yeah, they claim this is a wet/dry vac. No way you should ever let it get wet.
I bought this HEPA shop vac to use with a drywall sander. Drywall dust is very fine. I've never seen a shop vac that doesn't allow some dust through. Usually the finest stuff gets exhausted and lands everywhere, including in the air we are breathing at the time. I still wore a face filter but those are limited in their abilities too. We had taped off the kitchen furnace vents to prevent the dust from getting into the rest of the house.
Masterforce brand sold at Menards. HEPA. 4 layers of filtration. I added a shop vac bag to make that 5 layers and to make it easier to clean out. No idea who makes it.
the good:
Best filtration around.
Good wheels.
long cord.
okay, that's it.
Now some of the issues.
odd bunch of hose attachments with different size fittings. Like a grab bag of mismatched accessories. My wife was wanting to like this HEPA vac but she got frustrated trying work out the fittings. None have a decent swivel built in so the end of the hose fitting keeps unscrewing as I move about.
No decent cord storage and it's a very long cord.
Much too easy to accidentally turn on the wheel parking brakes.
After using it attached to a dry wall sander for the kitchen project, the canister filter was very clogged up. The extra bag and the 'over the canister' pre filter bag didn't do much to stop that extra fine drywall dust. I decided to wash the main canister filter. The canister filter is not a "washable" type. I put it back in the vac and the vac could not **** the water out of the filter. The soaked in water completely blocked the air flow. I left the filter outdoors for a full week to dry then it worked again. We're in a drought so the air is very dry here. A new canister filter is $80 at Menards. And that is a bargain compared to the compatible VacMaster filter at over $120. I did pull the exit filters for inspection and they looked pretty clean so the main filter is doing the job when it's not wet.
Oh, yeah, they claim this is a wet/dry vac. No way you should ever let it get wet.
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mike93lx
ALLIANCE MEMBER
Very similar to mine. Awesome vac
Zeus36
Well-known member
Same for the Craftsman 12 gallon vac. Was taking my old shop vac to a drop off site back in 1987 and someone was dropping their late dad's 12 gal Sears Craftsman with all the accessories. I grabbed that and it has worked like new ever since. Just replaced the brushes in 2023. Used for draining a waterbed over three house moves, emptying several toilets, floods, overloaded washing machine and getting the final water out of our spa. For dry stuff, got the paper bag liners for sanding drywall when we bought the house in 2009. Used it during a full interior remodel and restored hardwood floors. These days it is mostly connected to my table saw.
Bought two Rigid vacs from HD 13 years ago for $29 each. One is still NIB, the other sits under my workbench with a foot switch.
neophyte
Well-known member
This is the one I have.
I have never regretted the purchase.
johnre
Well-known member
After going through two plastic shop vacs, I wised up and got a VacuMaid garage vacuum. It hangs on the wall and is therefore not portable, but I ordered it with a 50' hose, and it's much easier to drag just this hose around than it is the entire vacuum on an extension cord. It's made in USA, very high quality, and picks up anything that a shop vac will pick up - but it uses paper bag filters, so you do have to watch out for sharp objects.
And no, I don't use it for sawdust; that's a job for my shop dust collector.
And no, I don't use it for sawdust; that's a job for my shop dust collector.
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FoxDeltaCharlie
Member
- Joined
- Dec 11, 2023
- Messages
- 11
A little late to the party here, but wanted to weigh in on a couple vacs also.
I have several shop vacs (as do many of us). One is the old Craftsman almost identical to the one pictured above. No idea how old it is, but probably 80's vintage. Inherited it from my Dad who was a lifelong Craftsman buff. He couldn't kill it, and I haven't managed to either.
Bought a 10 gal Shop Vac QSP (plastic) back in the early 90's to deal with a flooded basement. Works surprisingly well (still), and I haven't been nice to that thing at all! It has vacuumed up every nasty, vile, jagged, rocky, muddy mess imaginable and keeps on going. Definitely got my money's worth out of that thing.
Picked up a RIGID 12 gal. vac here recently for use in my woodshop and have been pleasantly impressed with it. It runs kind of triple duty with my radial arm saw, thickness planer and jointer. But the most impressive vacuum I've run across in the past 25 odd years is one I would've never expected, and one I wound up with quite by accident (for FREE no less!).
About 15 years ago my wife got on a vacuum bent, and decided to buy an Oreck house vacuum. I think it was an XL model (or something), and it came with a "Free Gift". The free gift was a compact canister vacuum. It sat in the closet for several years due to no bags. Finally found some bags a while back and decided to give this what I thought was a 'gimmick' vacuum a try. Holy COW! That little thing will damn near **** the chrome off a trailer hitch! It's got some serious pickup power, no kidding either. It's not a wet/dry vac, but it'll pick up about everything else under the sun. I can stick the hose to my hand and pick the whole vacuum up off the floor. It's great for cleaning up drywall dust and other debris. Just got done doing a tile demo job and it had no issues picking up pieces of broken tile, drywall chunks, mastic, etc. It only weighs about 5 lbs, but it's got like a 30' cord on it and a slinky like hose which stretches out to 6-7 feet. It's super handy for cleaning up those little DIY messes (which can often take as much time as the job itself).
Anyway, just thought I'd share another Shop Vac Saga with y'all.
I have several shop vacs (as do many of us). One is the old Craftsman almost identical to the one pictured above. No idea how old it is, but probably 80's vintage. Inherited it from my Dad who was a lifelong Craftsman buff. He couldn't kill it, and I haven't managed to either.
Bought a 10 gal Shop Vac QSP (plastic) back in the early 90's to deal with a flooded basement. Works surprisingly well (still), and I haven't been nice to that thing at all! It has vacuumed up every nasty, vile, jagged, rocky, muddy mess imaginable and keeps on going. Definitely got my money's worth out of that thing.
Picked up a RIGID 12 gal. vac here recently for use in my woodshop and have been pleasantly impressed with it. It runs kind of triple duty with my radial arm saw, thickness planer and jointer. But the most impressive vacuum I've run across in the past 25 odd years is one I would've never expected, and one I wound up with quite by accident (for FREE no less!).
About 15 years ago my wife got on a vacuum bent, and decided to buy an Oreck house vacuum. I think it was an XL model (or something), and it came with a "Free Gift". The free gift was a compact canister vacuum. It sat in the closet for several years due to no bags. Finally found some bags a while back and decided to give this what I thought was a 'gimmick' vacuum a try. Holy COW! That little thing will damn near **** the chrome off a trailer hitch! It's got some serious pickup power, no kidding either. It's not a wet/dry vac, but it'll pick up about everything else under the sun. I can stick the hose to my hand and pick the whole vacuum up off the floor. It's great for cleaning up drywall dust and other debris. Just got done doing a tile demo job and it had no issues picking up pieces of broken tile, drywall chunks, mastic, etc. It only weighs about 5 lbs, but it's got like a 30' cord on it and a slinky like hose which stretches out to 6-7 feet. It's super handy for cleaning up those little DIY messes (which can often take as much time as the job itself).
Anyway, just thought I'd share another Shop Vac Saga with y'all.
Nutria
Well-known member
Model and maybe photo?
CGarage
Well-known member
I have a black Oreck canister vac with shoulder strap.
Best part was the vanilla scented tabs that they used to make that actually smelled good. The hose was garbage. If you looked at it wrong, it would develop splits and cracks. Easily fixed by spending $20 on a rubber hose made for it off of EBay.
Have since bought a Miele canister vac from Germany and it is forever the best house vacuum. Surpassing the Oreck.
Best part was the vanilla scented tabs that they used to make that actually smelled good. The hose was garbage. If you looked at it wrong, it would develop splits and cracks. Easily fixed by spending $20 on a rubber hose made for it off of EBay.
Have since bought a Miele canister vac from Germany and it is forever the best house vacuum. Surpassing the Oreck.
Packard V8
Well-known member
So far, I'm really pleased with the 1960s Black & Decker Industrial unit I bought used more than fifty years ago. It's all steel, heavier than the hubs-of-hell, still using the original hose and power cord.
jack vines
jack vines
How noisy is it?
What's your opinion of the noise level of the Milwaukee?
Farmall450
Well-known member
The fuel version has two power modes, low and high. Low still has good suction but is pretty quite. High has great suction and isn't obnoxiously loud but is still loud. Still quiter than my shop vac