Woodworking is messy business, especially the sanding part. But even if you don’t care what happens to your shop floor, you don’t want dead tree particulate matter in your lungs. Wearing a mask or even a respirator is a good start, but a dust collection system is better. Someday, [XYZ Create] might have a shop-wide sawdust-slurper installed. In the meantime, he made a downdraft table out of scrap plywood and a plastic storage box.
The only thing he didn’t already have on hand was a port that matched his shop vacuum. We like his workaround to avoid drilling a huge hole in plastic that would certainly crack — use a hose clamp to get the OD of the port, heat up the clamp on a hot plate, and let it melt a hole into the box. Hopefully, he at least opened a window. [XYZ Create] glued four pieces of scrap plywood together for the top, and drilled all 117 holes by hand. Who needs pegboard?
Not fancy or big enough for your needs? Here’s one with a built-in filtration system.
Via Instructables
lets melt some plastic to make a very flimsy sanding table (which your best option is to have a solid slab)
I don’t dis the idea, but your sanding a 2×4 block on a flimsy tote
would you do a proof of concept with expensive materials?
Suggestion for improvement: Drill the holes in a table board and screw the plastic container with the vacuum hose from below to the table. Same benefit, better stability!
I like this; it’s a good idea. I work on small projects that need sanding and the dust is always a PITA, and what makes this such a good idea is living in an apartment means no space for a full size downdraft table.
I can see where there are a few things I’d need to redesign (e.g. air filtering, and maybe a dedicated fan that isn’t so loud) but I’m definitely going to need to build one of these, I even have some spare pegboard :P
Forget the building materials. What’s really impressive is his attention to detail and the quality job he did on his build. Those are the qualities what will make his next project a win or a failure. Kudos to him for creating a well-made design out of cheap, readily available, and scrap, materials.
I appreciate interesting concepts. I do kiln and lampwork glass which at times requires grinding, or the application of powdered glass colors; all very bad for lungs. So, the idea of a perforated work surface and shop vac with some inexpensive piece of plastic kit as a negative pressure plenum seems pretty appealing. Far simpler than a laminar flow or fume hood.
So, perhaps a good project for later this week before I use my new glass grinder! As always, Hackaday has triggered many a useful thought and project, both in electronics and other “disciplines.”
[Q] How do you cut a straight line with a circular saw?!!!
[A] It takes Skil.
Interesting idea, though if wood dust were going to kill you, all the sawing, drilling, and sanding to make this would have you dead before you got to use it, not to mention whatever toxic fumes the various adhesives spew out, or any of the spray from the spray adhesive you get in your lungs. But you seem to have survived the build..
The idea seems interesting though I would make the box out of something more heavy duty and make the side with the hole in it for the shop vac thick enough and the right size to just friction fir the end of the hose into.
I think the bigger issue is that this does nothing for any of the other tools in the shop, and this has a limited size. If you make little model’s it may be just the ticket, but if you make bigger stuff you are going to need another solution.
BTW, if I have to drill a lot of holes like that, I set up at stop so I only need to worry about lining up one axis on my drill press. If you wanna get the holes lined up even tighter, make a little jig that has 2×2 holes carefully laid out and a dowel or a pin you can stick in one or two of them. Once you get your first hole drilled, you can insert the pin and use the jig to index over one hole exactly (assuming you have a stop set up). When you get to the end of a row you can go to the beginning and pin in two holes and use one to set the stop for the next row. I find this to be even more accurate than using my indexing table as if I ever go backwards with that, the table has some backlash that needs to be accounted for.
this, is awesome. I think I’ll incorporate this as the “floor” of the benchtop combination spray/solder fume extractor!