Tool and machinery review...

[FrankenWashie]

What size is the bandsaw Frankenwashie?


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its 14 inch AdamC, big enough to get a full size body cut.

[Adamc]

Thanks mate. I was offered a good deal on a 12” but it looked too small to me


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[fender3x]

Here's a useful way of putting off sanding ...<ahem!>... I mean a useful DIY tool.

I got an new orbital sander and have read that they work better with a dust extractor. I work outside, mostly, but sometimes leave a small mountain of sawdust, so I have been thinking about a way to collect dust without killing my "shop vac" (which is actually a retired household vacuum cleaner). And then this came across my YouTube feed...



It took him under 7 minutes to make it. It took me a little longer.

First off, this uses 5 gallon buckets (~20L). These are common in the North America, and I am guessing in Australia and other parts of the world as well. They are usually tough, heavy duty, and come with large quantities of house paint, glue, roofing materials, etc. They are made of HDPE which is highly solvent resistant. The ones in the vid are sold empty at big box hardware stores, and are not as heavy duty as the ones made for paint. More on that in a moment.

Here are a couple things that I learned when my build did not go quite as smoothly as they guy in the video.

First, you want the holes for in the bottom of the bucket to fit relatively tightly...but not too tightly. In trying to jam one of my small pipe pieces into the hole I broke the bottom of the bucket. That is not good, although it turned out to be fortuitous later.

Second, not all 5 gallon buckets will work for this. Some that don't are mentioned in the comments. One thing common to buckets that do work is that they have three rings around the top. The 2nd pic shows where to cut.



Buckets that work have a "flat" top where the handle is attached (as in the pic on the left), not rounded like the one in the middle pic. Also there are some buckets that don't have the center ring as in the pic on the right. They may work, but it's harder to know where to cut.



Third, to get a good seal in the center, where the hose to the vacuum goes, I needed to use PVC glue. Fortunately the HDPE is not bothered by PVC cement, so it worked fine. Once I had a good seal it became clear to me that the cheap big box store buckets are just not nearly as stiff as the read-deal paint buckets. The suction from the vacuum cleaner made the big box store bucket pucker and nearly collapse. This is where it came in handy to have another bucket with the broken bottom. I cut out the bottom, and slid it over the top of the other bucket. This stiffened the walls up enough not to pucker, and made a nice lip at the top of the extractor where I could put hose endings and other small items.



Last thing I learned is that with the thinner, cheap box store buckets I did not need a power tool to cut the bucket. A utility knife worked fine for this, and was nearly as fast. Jigsaw was a little faster, but not as much as I expected, and the utility knife worked well for cleaning up the holes in the top.

So it took me a bit longer, but it works great. It extracts sawdust and particulate matter really well and keeps it out of the vacuum cleaner.

They only bad news is that I am running out of excuses not to get sanding...