Making Progress

Been working on the dust collection system.  From the main line, I have branches that go off to several different tools.  Right by each tool, I installed blast gates, which allow me to turn off and on the vacuum going to each tool.

 So the connection with the handle allows me to share the down pipes with two different tools.  This down pipe will work with the planer and the bed sander.

Another another branch to the main line, then hooked up the vacuum to the main line.  This hose is 8" wide.  The main line along the ceiling is 6" and then the branches are 4" wide.

Got the router table hooked up the other night.  Ordered two new connection fittings; one for band saw and one for belt sander.

The down pipe for the router table can be shared with the band saw.  Moved the band saw from the corner here by the large dust collector to the corner out front by the garage door.  I have another branch out front that I can run a line to the belt sander and collect alot of saw dust there.

Just a couple more connections and we can start that puppy up!!!

Some tools hooked up!!

Spent a few hours in the shop on Saturday hooking up tools to the dust collection system.

The biggest dust producer is the table saw.  Have a blade guard installed on top of the blade with a hose to suck up the dust.  There is also a hose at the side of the table saw, below the blade and they both meet together in this box to the right of the table saw.  At that point I have a "Y" joint to come together into one line and that hose connects above to the main line.

Then worked on a branch off the left side that goes over to where the planer and bed/belt sander are.  Those two tools are on wheels so I can move them around if I have really long pieces of wood going through.  I ran a line to the left and a drop down hose with a quick connect that hooks up the planer and the sander.

The next tool to hook up is the router table.  Slowly but surely we are hooking things up.  Woo hoo!!

Dust collection system in the shop

Now that the entertainment center is completed, on to other projects.  The dust collection project has been one of those projects that takes forever to get done.  We got the big vacuum a while ago for a Christmas present.  But then you have to build the system to get all the tools hooked up.  It will eventually be like a central vacuum system in the house, except it will suck up alot of the saw dust from my tools.

Last weekend we got the 6" main line attached to the ceiling.  I have 10' ceilings in the shop, so it is a bit of an undertaking to get them up to the ceiling.

So now the next step is to run 4" tubes from the main line to the individual tools.  Once I get the tubes from the branches installed, then you use the clear, flexible hose from the tubes to the tools.  Each step takes more pieces and ordering parts to hook things up.  Can't buy much of it locally, so I have to order it and wait for the shipment. 

Finished!!!

I think the entertainment center is actually finished.  I only had to rebuild 5 doors because of various issues.  Had to replace the glass in two of the doors for obvious reasons.

The glass shelves are installed on the end.  Just need to get a few more things to go on the glass shelves.  On the bottom shelf, we have two carved Indian heads Scott brought home from Bolivia when he went to pick up Jacob from his mission.  We had a neighbor family over several weeks ago and one of the boys saw the Indian heads but did not say anything about it.

We had them over last week for dinner and to watch a movie downstairs.  One of the boys said he was not going downstairs because there were Indians in the basement!!  It was like, what?  So he told us the two Indians scared him.  Scott had to go down and hide the Indian heads before he would go downstairs.