Dust Collection for a Lathe

[jthornton]

After seeing Lew's dust collection for his lathe I'm keen on adding it to my lathe.

 

One problem I have is the distance from my lathe to my dust collector. It's 30' horizontal and 11' up from the dust collector to the rafters. You can see the lathe in the background.

 

I've tried to come up with an idea to fit the lathe in the wagon circle of wood working machines but fail to find a way to make it fit. One possible location is where the press brake and shelves are which is not too far from the dust collector. I don't do as much metal working as I used to and with Revere Plastics closing down the local plant I might not do any more metal working...

 

This is another view showing the present location of the lathe.

 

Right now I have an octopus setup with the dust collector with slide gates for each machine.

 

The shop has 12' ceilings so there's a pretty tall vertical before the 30' horizontal run, do you think I'll loose much vacuum over that run? Or should I relocate the lathe closer to the dust collector?

 

JT

[lew]

Thanks for the nod on the lathe dust collector setup. 
 

Cannot offer experience on the efficiency of long runs. Tiny basement shop. 
 

Really envy all your space. 

[Gerald]

To start you have way too much corrugated pipe in your system. It should be kept to the absolute minimum because it causes disruption to the air flow like undulating waves.  . Use PVC or metal duct as primary duct to  all machines with wide 90 degree turns created with two 45s or special wide angle 90s. If possible the best is a 6 inch duct in ceiling or around the wall with a drop of 4 inch PVC to a short connector of flex.  As to 30 feet it may be possible with a straight run of PVC but I doubt it. Bring the lathe closer or keep it in the center and machines spread around the wall or close to with the drops would be the best of both.

[Cal]

I am interested in seeing what responses you get to this JT. 

A side story - as a kid there was a wood turning business in a neighboring town.  They made spindles, handles and such.  I've no idea how many lathes were there, the building was maybe 30' x 100', I remember it being about the size of our dairy barn.  It was full of lathes.  Behind the building was a tower, similar to a small water tower that was for dust collection.  Farmers would buy the shavings for cattle bedding, back their trucks under the tower and load up.  We knew one of the guys that worked there and so we got our shaving for free - if we would clean up and get the shavings out of the shop rather than the tower.  I was a young kid, maybe a teen, but I recall going in there with a wheelbarrow and hauling shaving out.  Mountains of shavings around each machine.  It wouldn't take long to fill up our truck.  For awhile there we would go down every Saturday morning and get a truck load.

 

I guess I said all that to say that even the big boys suffer some with dust collection around lathes

My collection, with 4" PVC mains suffers from planer shavings - no way I could even think about lathe collection

 

Memories.  I probably hadn't thought about that place in 50 years...

[jthornton]

8 minutes ago, Cal said:

My collection, with 4" PVC mains suffers from planer shavings - no way I could even think about lathe collection

 

The one thing I like about my current system is it's so efficient with the smooth ID flex that I've never had a clog even when hogging out almost 15" boards on the planer... that being said my planer has a spiral insert head so the chips are smaller. But the old X5 15" Delta with the straight blades never clogged it up either. The key to my system short smooth ID runs and the distribution box with blast gates as close to the blower as possible. I only have one blast gate at at time open so all the suction is going to one machine.

 

I do work for a factory here that has late 1800's spoke lathes and other old equipment for making all kinds of wood handles. Currently working on a machine called a double chucker that tapers one end of a straight handle and optionally drills a hole in that end and rounds over the other end for rake handles and similar. The have wood chips all over the machines and a mountain of chips out back they can't give away.

 

JT