Re: Central Machinery quality? (2023 Update)

[Bill]

All of the solutions are only a pen stroke and a printing press away... It has been demonstrated that some members of congress don't even understand where money comes from!

[DerbyDad03]

All they need to do is mint the infamous Trillion Dollar Coin.

#MintTheCoin

[Bill]

Does cryptocurrency count? Someone may already have one! : )

[krw]

A couple of $T out of the non-existent treasury every few months doesn't help.

No one likes where it's going but about 1/2 the population think money is free. ...or it's the other 1/2's money.

[krw]

+1

He's turning in his grave, saying "But, but, but...".

[krw]

They're building like crazy here. The demand has to have a lot to do with it, too. Don't worry though, the dollar is about to tank. The Canadian dollar will soon be at par again. The Democrats will love it. The US dollar is racist anyway.

Same with the fall, fall. You do get some help blowing them around over the winter but if left on the lawn, you won't have one in the spring. If you at least mow (chop them up), the grass won't die.

There was no point in replanting. Your leaves go in your yard will pollute theirs in the fall and theirs in yours in the spring. Double whammy

Buy the firewood. Become a turner.

[krw]

I would have thought that there would be nothing left after 30' of flex. I have some 4" PVC but no time to put it in right now. I'll have to run it high for some lengths to get it over doors. I'd like to do 6" but the fittings are ridiculous.

[Leon]

Nothing left? Do you mean suction? Suction is great. I do have a Jet 1100 CFM with canister filter CD though.

And actually I use 3, 10' flex hoses with 2 couplings.

It keeps up with the planer and now jointer. Think no leaking joints and eased bends instead of sharp 90 or 45 degree bends.

And So that I do not have to work around 30 feet of hose I go straight up from the DC to the 3rd car garage rail. And along a 2x4 mounted on that tail to the the opposite rail. Then back to the floor. That uses up approximately 20' of hose. If I need longer I lower the hose from the 2x4 to go straight to the floor. Then I can go 30' out from the DC.

Nothing is permanent except for 30' of hose attached to my DC.

[DerbyDad03]

I have a similar setup, but with just under 20' of hose.

I have a Y fitting followed by 2 gates. One gate is for the dedicated hose to the miter saw, the other gate is for the 20' of multipurpose hose. 8' runs from the gate, along the ceiling and the remaining 12' is "loose", usually coiled once and hung from hook that keeps it out of my way. The loose hose can reach my bandsaw, bench sanders, drill press, router table, etc. It's also used for my hand held tools e.g. ROS and general cleanup.

The hose from the Y fitting connects to a Dust Devil and the system is powered by a shop vac in the miter saw base cabinet. The remote for the shop vac's receptacle in dual-locked to the miter saw, but can travel with me to the other tools as needed.

The only real issue is that the gates get clogged with dust and have to be periodically cleaned so that they will close. I switched them from horizontal to vertical, which extended the unclog time considerably, but they still clog up eventually. I tried a couple of self-cleaning gates but self-cleaning means self-leaking so I went back to the standard ones and put up with blasting them with the air hose every now and then.

[Leon]

Sounds complicated. Compared to mine. Get rid of the gates. and the Y.

[DerbyDad03]

Not complicated at all. Why do you think that?

Both gates, right next to each other, right above the miter saw. Of all the tools in my shop, the miter saw gets vastly more use than any other one - and makes the most mess - thus the dedicated line.

Since every other tool shares the loose hose (like yours, right?) it's just a matter of open one gate, close the other. Slide down, slide up.

Keep in mind that my shop is so small that I am never more than 1/2 dozen steps from the gates at any time and rarely that many. I've done the single hose thing. I spent more time hooking and unhooking the hose from the miter saw than ever made sense. Now I can go back and forth between tools with just a swap of gates.

Here ya go...where's the complication?

[krw]

Yes, suction. Flex hose has a lot of resistance. Some tools need a

*lot* of suction or don't bother. SMCSs and lathes are biggies. Even a table saw can use a lot of air to grab as much of the dust off the blade as possible.

[Leon]

I will agree that a flex hose has resistance but I use the more HD ones that are relatively stiff. With a 15" planer on the end of 30' hardly a speck is not captured.

And Longer pipe with 90 and 45 degree bends, and blast gates are probably worse.

I have been very happy with this set up for 15 or so years.

[Leon]

I have a 30 foot hose, with a flared end to fit the machine. Not tools requires to move from one machine to another.

You on the other hand have a Y with a hose attached to each side. My Y is capped off on one side. You have 2 gates that get clogged. I "never ever" get clogs. No gates to open or close.

So I only use one tool at a time, I have no need for a manifold and or gates.

[Scott Lurndal]

I've a 2HP Reliant DC with a single 6" inlet connected to a 6" by two 4" wye. One side of the wye connects to rigid plastic 4" drain pipe with gates for the shaper, the disk sander, the drum sander and the TS.

The other side of the wye goes another wye, one side of which connects via a gate to the bandsaw, the other side goes to another wye, one branch of which goes to the DJ-20 jointer, and the other to the SCMS. Most of this is 4" flex black DC hose.

When needed, the 15" planer is moved to the center of the shop and a 4" hose is connected to inlet used by the jointer, but I've found the drum sander does many of the jobs the planer was used for.

All metal gates, and I've never had a clogging issue with them.

[DerbyDad03]

I'm guessing that you are moving a lot more air at a much faster rate than I am. That could account for the non-clogging of the gates. I have no need (or room) for a system as large as yours, so I put up with the single downside of my set-up.

The advantages of the Y and the 2 gates far outweigh the inconvenience of the occasional clog.

[DerbyDad03]

I assume you mean "no tools required".

Same for me. Worst case is a single slip adaptor to convert from say

2 1/2" at the band saw or router table to 1 1/2 for the ROS. No tools ever required.

The *maybe* once a month cleaning is tolerable. Usually it's just one gate or the other, rarely do they both clog at the same time. Way more tolerable than putting the hose on and off the dust port of the miter saw every time I want to make a single cut or tweak a piece that doesn't quite fit.

To each his own, of course. The layout of my small shop makes moving the hose from tool to tool - other than the miter saw - very easy. The time and effort spent flipping gates is so negligible as to be a minor nit in terms of "complexity". Shouldn't even enter into the discussion. The time and effort spent for the once a month blowout of the gates is no where near the time and effort I spent swapping the hose on and off the miter saw in the past.

Like I said, to each his own.

[Leon]

My exotic set up. ;~)

I work out of a 3 car garage, the car comes in if I am not working on a job. It has not been in the garage since Christmas.

Anyway all of my machines are on mobile bases so fixed DC pipe would be a moot point.

[Scott Lurndal]

My shop is a 2-car garage (18' wide, 22' deep). All of the non-perimeter tools are on mobile bases; I used to be able to park a car in there by moving the tablesaw and outfeed table, but gave up on that a decade ago when I bought the Laguna horizontal mortiser.

[krw]

I think clogs are a function of the design of the gate. Some, I've seen, the gate doesn't completely move out of the airflow or have a lip that can hang up larger hunks of stuff. Good gates are very smooth on the inside with nothing to obstruct stuff flying though there.