Exhaust-O-Matic

Using the goodies I picked up from Home Depot yesterday, tonight I assembled something like the vacuum exhaust system diagrammed in the back of the Clark Foam catalog. Everything went pretty smoothly actually, thanks to careful planning and an abundance of available supplies at HomeDepot. All the parts fit like a piece of furniture straight out of an Ikea catalog. Here's how it went down...(apologies for crappy cellphone pic quality)...

1) Attach one long PVC pipe (or in my case, 4 short ones connected together) across the ceiling from the area above the racks to wherever the vacuum will be...



2) Next, attach PVC elbows to both ends as well as rubber adapters to help accomodate different hose/PVC tube sizes...




3) Now attach the planer exhaust tube and the shopvac tube to the corresponding PVC ends/elbows...




4) Attach each tube to the relevant piece of machinery...



4) Now set up a couple pulleys along the planer's power cord, as well as hooks in the ceiling where the pulleys will hang...




5) Now, mount one pulley on each hook...




7) Thats it! All done! The weight of the power cord keeps the slack in check while still allowing free movement of the exhaust tubing. I tried wrapping the power cord around the exhaust tube, like I've seen in other peoples' setups, but it actually hinders the exhaust's movement/stretchiness.


I didn't have a chance to test it out much tonight (would have some angry neighbors), but I'll see how it goes tomorrow when I finally get back to some shaping. Nonetheless, I did a few short passes just cause I had to know if it worked or not. Sure enough, the setup works and is as smooth as butter!

Mmmm butter....zzzzz...sleeeeepy.

kc