I’ve been looking through catalogs…isn’t there some sort of jointed-arm gizmo for blowing the dust away from a work area? It’s hard getting Zen with my new, Forest Girl-supplied, compact, crib board-drilling set-up when i’ve got a shop vac whining away. I thought i’d seen something that could be clamped to the table, adjusted to point where blowing was needed…and i remember it was yellow plastic.
Was it PIP (padauk-induced psychosis), or does something like this exist? A google and a site search on “blower” were ineffective.
And…if anyone has tried this…do they work? Alternative ideas that aren’t noisy and electricity suckers? I tried rigging up the compressor hose, but it’s cumbersome to clamp.
Replies
You could rig a 1/4" flex copper tube to your air supply that is flexible enough to bend how you want but rigid enough to stay put once you set it. One consideration with this option, is that once the tube oxidizes, it sorta looses it's flexibility, so it would be feasible only if you didn't need to move it around once set up.
jdg
Edited 2/6/2003 5:47:16 AM ET by jdg
Some scroll saws have a dust blower. I found a Shopsmith parts list at http://www.shopsmith.com/partscat/html/scrollsawpartslist_2.htm that lists a puffer tube, but I couldn't read the diagram.
Here's a picture of one kind of jointed arm gizmo. Search for more of these as indicator base or magnetic base.
http://www.suncoasttools.com/shop/MagneticIndicatorBase.html
The metalworking industry has a very large selection of coolant hoses and nozzles. One very popular kind looks like this,
http://www.cedarberg.com/snap/snap.htm
but you'd still have to rig your own air supply. One possibility for that would be a muffin fan, a funnel, and some tubing. Billions of fans are available in the surplus electronics market, and since you don't need a lot of capacity, you can use a cheap, quiet one.
Your post reminded me that my Dad's shop used to have a few of those leather and wood bellows, like they used to use around fireplaces. A pretty low-tech solution but you just point and squeeze and instantly all the dust is gone from your work surfaces. I'm going to find a couple of those and hang one near the scroll saw and one near the drill press - areas that seem to get extra dusty in my shop.
I'd like to have compressed air at several different stations, with the compressor in a separate, out-building, but that's for my dream shop of the future. Along with, you know, nuclear-powered dust collection, and, I guess, apprentices working for me who do all the rough dimensioning of lumber so I can just do the joinery in peace and quiet with hand tools. But that's in the future,... Thanks for reminding me about the bellows. Ed
Wow! When I see my "handle" and Zen in the same sentence, it really gets my attention!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
That little drill press is one of those things where i smack myself on the bean and wonder what took me so long. What a treat it is to use instead of that old Shopsmith! It's drilled 14K-plus holes so far and done it better than the bigger machine. I do miss draping myself over the Shopsmith after it would warm up and concentrating on my third eye, though.
Fourteen thousand holes?@!?!?! How many boards are you making?? Any pics?
Hah! Should have charged a commission! 1cent/hole. ROFL!
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Edited 2/6/2003 10:50:51 PM ET by forestgirl
C - I know the gadget you were dreaming about, but haven't found it yet. It does exist! Segmented like a scorpion's tail.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
FG - Look at the cedarberg link in message #3.
Perfect, Dunc! The Cedarberg link is exactly what i was remembering, but "Snap-Loc" would never have surfaced from the memory banks. Many thanks.
Dust poofer. Are you saying I'm old?
:-)
David
"The world that was not made is not won by what is done" -- Mundaka Upanishad
No, that would be the wrinkled poofer. A dust poofer has merely sat ununsed for too long. *snort!*
Try the metal working catalogs. http://www.use-enco.com is one. They have large free master catalog. Many jointed set ups perfect for woodworking. They are intended for tool coolant but work equally well with air.
Check the following at Woodworker's Supply:
http://woodworker.com/cgi-bin/FULLPRES.exe?PARTNUM=826-182
Dunc's was the idea, but here's the whole enchilada---and for 15 bucks! Thanks for making my life better. Ordering as soon as i sign off here...
Woodtick, good catalog, but a difficult on-line search engine--all pdf files. Thanks for the link for future reference.
Was there supposed to be a link or an attachment with this?
Dunc, i was referring to LRSmith's enchilada, to be precise. It has a magnetic base and a fitting for the compressor, which mercifully sits outdoors. Yellow AND blue plastic! <G>
FG: half-down, half to go. In a perfect year unmarred by injury, acts of God, or marrying the wrong person, i like to have about 2-300 crib boards in stock for the season. I can do about 10 boards/hour when i'm in the zone, about 7/hr. reliably and steadily--about 40 hours' work, but i'm not Zen enough to do it in one week.
Pictures: I've been trying to learn to do my own studio photos this past week, but using shop halogens out of frugality. So far, Annie Leibovitz has nothing to worry over. The next attempt will be the cloudy day sequence, but if that doesn't work, i may break down and buy real lights or just pay the damn pro photographer what he's been worth to me in the past.
Edited 2/7/2003 1:20:06 AM ET by SPLINTIE
Got it, thanks. I didn't look at that because it wasn't a link and I was too lazy to copy the URL into the address box. :)
Never seen snap-loc this big before--they're using it to pull rather than poof :-)
http://www.ttrackusa.com/
I don't mind the dust collector running when i need to pull a lot of chips, but then i just clamp the attachments that come with it into a serviceable position.
I'm thinking of loosening up with $70 for that fence, though...
I do have that fence and it's so much better than the Unifence extrusion. Well worth the money.
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