Welding Tips and Tricks

Seeing as there is no hurry to put this old band saw into use, I am currently on the lookout at garage sales for an old vacuum cleaner that I can set up as a swarf/chip extractor just under the cutting table.

I may be crazy, but I have a scheme to fabricate a kinda square funnel underneath the cutting table, connect the vacuum and hopefully extract most of the metal chips/dust before it gets down to the wheels/tyres. Will augment it with some kind of brush system, too. I'm cutting mostly aluminium, so dust and fragments are quite light.

Also, the saw is enormous as it is, so it's not like adding a vac too it will make it any more cumbersome. Feel free to wade in with feedback regarding this possibly misguided scheme.


Kym

@Kym

A good idea, not misguided at all. Some of the larger industrial machines ( Moessner, DoAll ) do have a removable chip container drawer under the lower wheel.

Grab yourself a Dust Deputy(cyclone separator)from carbatec to put inline before your vacuum, couldnt imagine trying to get ali chips out of a bag or filter!

https://www.carbatec.com.au/dust-contro ... ust-deputy

Harry72 wrote:Grab yourself a Dust Deputy(cyclone separator)from carbatec to put inline before your vacuum, couldnt imagine trying to get ali chips out of a bag or filter!

https://www.carbatec.com.au/dust-contro ... ust-deputy

Looks like a good idea, Harry, and locally available, too, but ouch...the price!

Thanks for the suggestion, but in the spirit of the project (spend no money...) I'm going to just use a cheapo Vac with disposable paper bags.

But thanks for the tip - looks like a decent bit of kit.


Kym

That's gona be sweet when ya get that done ! Keep the pics coming .

MosquitoMoto wrote: Looks like a good idea, Harry, and locally available, too, but ouch...the price!

Not hard to make one yourself.. You have a welding machine, right??

A big empty steel can, small drum or old bucket with a good lid on it where you weld a the feed tube from the bandsaw angled into the side like the separator on the picture, then connect the suction to the vacuum cleaner to a tube dead in the center of the lid.

The air (and chips) coming into the bucket/can will want to swirl around until it gets to the center to get extracted. As it does so the air velocity drops and the heavy chips drop out and fall to the bottom.

Vacuum cleaner will still get (very) small particles and simple dust, but won't get loaded down with the big chunks so you also keep your suction capacity high. Empty out the can/drum/bucket of chips once in a while and keep going..

Secondary benefit is that the bigger hot chips don't get into the paper bag as much, so less risk of a vacuum cleaner meltdown

Bye, Arno.

Good thoughts Arno, thanks, and yes, another excuse to do some fabricating.

I'll go and stare at my saw, work out some dimensions and take it from there.

Thanks for all the useful input, everyone.


Kym