Yesterday in the mail there came a catalog I've never seen before, a company called Leichtung Workshops out of Casper, WY. Has anybody on the wreck bought from them and what have your experiences been?
Some of their stuff is priced the same as anybody else's ($37 for a set of 3 plug cutters, same price as the Veritas at my local pro shop). But what caught my eye were their prices on clamps. It was literally 2 hours after I had just bought a couple Jorgensen 6" bar clamps at my local hardware retailer for $9.99 each that the Leichtung catalog came advertising a no-name brand for $3.99 and 36" for $8.99 (vs. $24.99 locally). Their version of a band clamp is $18.99 vs. $38 at the Rockler outlet.
So is this just another outlet like Harbor tool, selling cheaply made knock offs? Or is their stuff decent? Thanks in advance.
About 15 or so years ago I bought a doweling jig from them. Can't remember what I paid or if the price was inline with other companies products, but the jig is very well made without any "cheapness" in design or materials. I think they are basically just another one of the "boutique" type shops with a few of their own products, a few of the popular products from others, and with a smattering of cheesy offshore products thrown in for good measure.
I think they were independent at one point, but they're part of Woodworker's Supply now.
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About 15 - 20 years ago Leichtung, with the woodworkers I know, was respected for quality merchandise. I haven't heard much about them in recent years. Trying their web site at:
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brings up "Woodworker's Supply". I suspect, somewhere along the line, Leichtung was bought out and now "they" are trying to revive the name.
-- Jack Novak Buffalo, NY - USA (Remove "SPAM" from email address to reply)
My only gripe about Leichtung Workshops is that if you encourage them in any way (like buying from them), they will bury you in catalogs. They aren't as bad as Trendlines in that regard, but I won't purchase from them again. (Trendlines is worse because they ASSUME that all woodworkers MUST love golf, so they bury you in woodworking and golfing catalogs. And it is virtually impossible to get off any unwanted list they decide to add you to.) Personally, I don't like buying from companies that are strictly marketing companies and aren't really into whatever it is that they sell and that is my perception of Leichtung and Trendlines.
The theory has been bandied about here for years. No one, however, has been able to find a single case of an explosion actually happening in a small shop. A little documentation would go a long way to convince us of a real potential problem. Ed
well, the "potential" is there but so is the potential for a wheel to fall off an airplane and land on your car (which has happened). You cannot protect against every possibility although there are those that try. I have metal ductwork because I find it easier to work with but if I had PVC I would only ground it to stop it discharging to me.
Please point us to a documented case of a wood shop dust collector explosion due to static electricity. Ciggies, glowing embers or glowing metal shavings don't count. If it's not on the web, I'll volunteer to go get a copy of the news article from my local university library and put it up on the web.
I'll simply need the date and name of the paper, TV, or radio entity that published it. I'll do the rest to get it on the web.
FWIW, I pulled my ground wires out of my DC pipes, as they caused clogging if an offcut or large chip landed the right way.
Now Barry... don't rain on the guy's parade. Simply instruct the nice man that only approved way to ground a PVC dust collection system is run a wire from it to a PVC pipe driven into the dirt. :)
We'll see if the 5-6 links I posted in response actually do post...but another thought came to mind. Since any dust collection system will cost at least $200, why are you kicking and screaming over $5-10 worth of wire to make it safer? Just curious...
Like I said in my previous post, an ESD-caused sawdust fire or explosion would be most likely with a high concentration of FINE (very fine) sawdust, like from sanding, rather than what your table saw or planer generates.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@newsonly.com says...
Not the $5 to $10 but the 30 to 40 hours of time it's going to take to wrap, interconnect across gaps, and seal any holes if you run the grounding inside the pipe, all for a very dubious benefit. The other problem is the fact that if you run the wire around the outside of the pipe, the only thing you will do is protect yourself from uncomfortable discharges when coming in contact with the pipe -- as you alluded to in your original post, the plastic pipe is non-conductive, therefore the charge is distributed across the entire pipe and thus will not fully discharge, particularly if the static is being generated from the friction of the sawdust on the inside of the pipe. Grounding the inside of the pipe leads to other theoretical problems: a) you cannot wrap a conductor around the inside of the pipe, thus one must lay the conductor inside the pipe. b) The problem here is since one is laying a conductor along a non-conductive surface that is becoming electrically charged, one could postulate that you are actually creating an environment in which you have actually increased the potential for explosion by providing a discharge path for a spark that could occur from the potential generated across the diameter of the pipe, discharged to the grounded wire inside the pipe. This could be further excacerbated in a case in which the wire could become airborne due to the airflow in the pipe, thus isolating the wire from the pipe until enough potential is achieved to generate a spark from the pipe to the airborne wire.
Given your first link, how much sanding dust would be required to be generated to achieve sufficient concentration for an explosion? I cannot picture any workshop equipment capable of generating sufficient volume and concentration of sawdust to ignite. Further, that experiment requires a candle to ignite, this is not equivalent to the low amount of energy imparted by a static discharge -- the duration of discharge is too short to sustain combustion. i.e., what you have posted does not constitute proof of your assertion.
I like this one: 1.. Dust collectors shall be located outside of buildings. Dust collectors may be located inside of buildings if they are located near an outside wall, are vented to the outside through straight reinforced ducts not exceeding
10 feet in length, and have explosion vents designed according to information in NFPA 68, Venting of Deflagrations. Some think that installing an explosion vent on a dust collector prevents an explosion. This is not the case. The vent relieves the pressure of an explosion. Dust collectors can be installed safely inside buildings only under one of the following conditions: How many wood shops have the DC outside? Or have vents from reinforced ducts? I don't think this applies to us.
Sorry, Still no real information. I won't be next because no one has been first yet. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
We would like to see an actual WOOD DUST, not insulation, grain dust, or plastic explosion caused by STATIC ELECTRICITY, not glowing sharpening embers, cigarettes, torches, etc... that would have been prevented with an internal ground wire.
In my case it had nothing to do with cost. I GROUNDED my system. I pulled the wires out after getting tired of semi-weekly clogs caused by jointer and planer chips and offcuts getting stuck in the wires. I haven't had a clog since I pulled the wires out.
I can also see no noticeable difference in static electricity buildup or the other performance aspects of the system. My ground wires were grounded at copper cold water pipes which are in turn grounded to the same 8' ground rod my radios are. The connections were soldered to the pipes.
If you want to ground yours, feel free. Until someone comes up with documented evidence, or for that matter, documented conjecture on the part of a fire inspector that grounding would have prevented a WOOD SHOP (NOT plastic, grain dust, etc...) explosion, I'll continue to question "safer". I'd even go with "better safe than sorry" thinking, if the wires didn't cause so many clogs.
Please do your homework and read the archived posts on this subject. The possibilty of a wood dust explosion in a home workshop are practically less than nil (perhaps even lower!)
As for your large static charges on plastic, any high school physics teacher could tell you the same thing about his classroom Van de Graff generator and all it could do was make his hair stand on end. No explosions and no student deaths by electrocution.
And the hugh charge built up on my body when I shuffle across the room in winter doen't set the house on fire when i discharge it to the door knob. (It does make me jump though--and that's all the charge on ductwork in the shop will do too.)
Of course you are right that such charges could fire a microprocessor chip--that's why they're often sold with a wrist strap grounding cable so the person installing them want accidentally ruin them.
Dust collection in a shop only needs grounding if static discharges from ductwork to the human operator are undesired. There is NO danger of a "grain elevator" type explosion--unless your shop is extremely large and full of tons of dust with hugh volumes of airborne particles.
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