shop vacuum cleaner

Oscar · Tue Aug 25, 2020 12:37 am

What are y'alls experience with vacuum cleaners to do general dust/grime cleanup? I'm trying to avoid opening the garage door to sweep/blow out crud since I'm trying to keep the temperature decent with a small A/C, but grinding definitely makes a mess. I have a smallish shop vac that works good, but if there's another good suggestion to make clean-up faster I'm all ears.

DavidR8 · Tue Aug 25, 2020 2:39 am

I have a Husky shop vac. It’s been with me through a complete house renovation and it still works like new.
Sweeping is a mistake if you’re trying to control dust as it stirs it up.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LtBadd · Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:35 am

DavidR8 wrote:I have a Husky shop vac. It’s been with me through a complete house renovation and it still works like new.
Sweeping is a mistake if you’re trying to control dust as it stirs it up.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Same here, shop vac FTW, yet sometimes sweeping can't be avoided

Poland308 · Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:51 am

I use a shop vac with a drywall dust bag and a hepa filter.

BillE.Dee · Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:59 am

Shop vac, Oscar. With a REAL GOOD FILTER.

motox · Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:27 am

ditto on the shop vac bag they save the filters.
a drywaller showed me that he carefully cuts and empties the bags and retapes them for several uses.

drizler1 · Tue Aug 25, 2020 8:47 am

I normally just blow all the sawdust and grinding out the door with my leaf blower. Once its outside I blow it off into the grass, good nuff. It just melts away.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Oscar · Tue Aug 25, 2020 9:09 am

I'm definitely not doing sweeping as I mentioned. Been mostly using a dry dust filter in the shop vac, but perhaps I need to look into a bag type filter as well. My current shop vac use a filter cloth that goes over the foam "wet" filter, and I like this design because I don't have to throw it away. I simply take it off (its like a large 24" diameter circle) and just blow it out outside to clear out the dust. The pleated filters don't seem to be too easy to clean in comparison and are likely meant to be thrown away, correct? I have yet to see one that is 'reuseable'.

drizler, I'm not opening the garage door to control temps as best as I can, so your suggestion is unfortunately not an option I'd like to implement for that reason.

JustTheDad · Tue Aug 25, 2020 10:07 am

Get a mini cyclone to put in front of the filter. You'll need a cart to mount it, but a cyclone separator makes a HUGE difference.
Also, 2 husky and one shop vac brand.

BugHunter · Tue Aug 25, 2020 3:56 pm

Forget the vacuum... They're useless.

https://www.harborfreight.com/22-inch-m ... 98399.html

Oscar · Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:25 pm

one of these?

Oscar · Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:26 pm

BugHunter wrote:Forget the vacuum... They're useless.

https://www.harborfreight.com/22-inch-m ... 98399.html

There is also other dust that I would like to pick up, not just magnetic particles. I don't even have the space to roll that around, lol.

Poland308 · Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:33 pm

I’ve used a cyclone for big debris, wood chips especially, but it takes up a bit of space and it doesn’t drag around the shop well. And I have the Harbor Freight mag as well. But it doesn’t get the SS or aluminum stuff.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Shop-Vac-HEP ... gJ2HPD_BwE
The hepa is water washable, I have two so I can let one air dry.
https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-8-Gallo ... 9890&psc=1

Make sure to get the bags for drywall dust there much better.

Oscar · Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:41 pm

Poland308 wrote:I’ve used a cyclone for big debris, wood chips especially, but it takes up a bit of space and it doesn’t drag around the shop well. And I have the Harbor Freight mag as well. But it doesn’t get the SS or aluminum stuff.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Shop-Vac-HEP ... gJ2HPD_BwE
The hepa is water washable, I have two so I can let one air dry.
https://www.amazon.com/Shop-Vac-8-Gallo ... 9890&psc=1

Make sure to get the bags for drywall dust there much better.

Thanks do you use the cartridge as well as the collection bag simultaneously?

BillE.Dee · Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:48 pm

hey, hey,,,,just had a brain attack. My wife used to use one of those rainbow vacs...sucks the dust into a container of water and nothin gets by it. Wondering IF I could make it disappear, to give it a try. News at noon.

Poland308 · Tue Aug 25, 2020 6:01 pm

Yup both at the same time.

BugHunter · Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:38 am

BillE.Dee wrote:hey, hey,,,,just had a brain attack. My wife used to use one of those rainbow vacs...sucks the dust into a container of water and nothin gets by it. Wondering IF I could make it disappear, to give it a try. News at noon.

I have a Grizzly drywall sander that works that way. Works perfectly. 0 dust escapes. You can even run the shop vac without a filter.

Poland308 · Wed Aug 26, 2020 5:51 pm

So essentially it’s a dust bong!

BugHunter · Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:36 pm

Poland308 wrote:So essentially it’s a dust bong!

Hadn't really thought of it that way but yes, I guess that's true. We certainly now know where your mind is at. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Lol

Thu Aug 27, 2020 1:02 am

Poland308 wrote:So essentially it’s a dust bong!

or a water version of a oil bath filters which used to be common.

has anyone tried the dust collector shields on metal grinding ?
ie those shields that you attach a vacuum cleaner to for grinding brick, concrete, cutting wood etc.
do they have a high temp version for steel?

BillE.Dee · Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:10 am

"Poland308"]So essentially it’s a dust bong!

is this the voice of experience or just a really good guess ??

JustTheDad · Thu Aug 27, 2020 4:04 pm

Hi Oscar,
Just like that. The itty bitty ones still work surprisingly well, but Josh is right. It's only useful if you put it and your shop vac on a dolly or cart. Otherwise you don't want to drag it around! But if you can make that work, you'll clean filters a lot less.

Oscar · Thu Aug 27, 2020 4:31 pm

JustTheDad wrote:Hi Oscar,
Just like that. The itty bitty ones still work surprisingly well, but Josh is right. It's only useful if you put it and your shop vac on a dolly or cart. Otherwise you don't want to drag it around! But if you can make that work, you'll clean filters a lot less.

Are you talking about the cyclone?

hey_allen · Fri Aug 28, 2020 11:31 am

I can attest to cyclone separators of various styles being helpful in shop cleanup as well.
I bought an eight gallon dust right separator which is effectively a bucket with a pair of elbows in the lid, one input and one output.
Even this gives enough spin to the incoming debris that most separate out and stay in that bucket. Sawdust and metal shavings (not at once, usually) both seem to work well in it.

A small 3d printed one I made for a friend has been working well to keep concrete grinding dust from plugging up his small garage shop vac, it only required being mounted on a five gallon bucket lid with a bit of sealant tape and a few screws.

JustTheDad · Fri Aug 28, 2020 4:00 pm

Hi Oscar,
Yes, the mini cyclone. Those work surprisingly well for a shop vac, but are not fun if you are trying to move it around a lot. So you either use a really long hose or mount the cyclone and the collector on a dolly. My wood shop DC is a 5hp cyclone version plumbed to my all wood tools, and I have another smaller 2HP one dedicated to the CNC machine. The mini ones aren't as effective, but they still make a big difference.
https://www.shophacks.com/dustdeputy_vs ... per.html#/