As [Marius Hornberger] was working in his woodshop, a thunderous bang suddenly rocked the space. A brief search revealed the blower for the dust collector had shifted several inches despite being stoutly fastened down. Turns out, the blower had blown itself up when one of the impeller fins came loose. Time to revise and build a bigger, better dust collector!

[Hornberger] is thorough in describing his process, the video series chronicles where he went astray in his original design and how he’s gone about improving on those elements. For instance, the original impeller had six fins which meant fewer points to bear the operating stresses as well as producing an occasionally uncomfortable drone. MDF wasn’t an ideal material choice here either, contributing to the failure of the part.

Learning a lesson from this ordeal, the new blower housing uses .8mm piece of galvanized steel for its strength in case of another accident — the original’s plywood was solid enough to keep the destruction contained, but no sense in taking chances this time around. Fortunately, the original motor hadn’t been damaged during the accident, so he was able to reuse it after making a new shaft key — brass isn’t as durable as you might want for heavy use. A few other design elements were also carried over from the previous setup — such as packing foam bushings and mounting techniques — since they didn’t break and were in no want of fixing. He also rebuilt the filter box to accommodate for the larger airflow volume, and incorporated dozens of other details that are worth watching to find out.

It’s a real treat to watch [Hornberger] show off his fastidious woodworking talent in bringing this project together. For more of his superb work, check out this scissor lift table he built to help him around the shop!

[Thanks for the tip, Keith!]