About two years ago I moved my shop from a cramped part of the
cellar to an area where I could spread out and more efficiently use
the lapidary and casting equipment that I had added. At the time I
was not able to move my polishing hood and extractor because they
were fairly permanently installed where I could blow the extractor
exhaust through a cellar window. Unfortunately, I also blew a fair
amount of recoverable metal out the window that made it past the
filters. In building my new shop, I installed a small dust cyclone
to collect the debris from my grinding area. It worked so well, that
I tried my polishing arbor on it. The cyclone was was able to
collect the duff, dust and debris from my polisher as well as the
grinder. As a result, I moved the polishing hood into my new shop
and I am no longer walking back and forth across the cellar to
finish a piece. Time will tell if this was a good idea. I like the
fact that all of my recoverable grinding and polishing debris is
collected in a small five gallon pail and can be easily bagged and
sent to the refinery. I am curious if others are using cyclones in
this way and if there is any downside to them. So far, I haven’t
found one. The only change may to be going to a slightly bigger
cyclone and blower. I monitor what comes out of the blower exhaust
and there is very little that isn’t picked up by the cyclone.
Attached are before and after pictures. My hood is the same one that
I built forty years ago out of scrap plywood from a building
project. Since then it has been attached to various shop vacs, fans,
homemade filter boxes, occasionally nothing and, most recently, a
cellar window. Other views of this equipment can be seen on my
website.
Thanks. Rob
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