Homemade DIY Dust Deputy Part 1

I have decided to make my own dust collector for my shop vac, something very similar to the Dust Deputy just cheaper and hopefully just as efficient. I got the idea from a member of Lumberjocks, jcoulam . He built one himself and put a couple of photos on the Internet and basic drawing which gave me inspiration in making my own. I figured I would create basically the same thing and I would provide more photos and descriptions of how it was done.
I went to Lowes and bought a few supplies that I would need.
-1 8"x24" piece of galvanized pipe that is split down the length
-1 new 5 gallon bucket and a lid that fit securely
-1 2 piece of 2" PVC
-2 2" plumbing couplings
-1 8x2 1/2" Shop Vac hose
-1 syringe of 1 min epoxy
-A small amount of self tapping metal screws
-1 tube of caulk
The first thing that I wanted to accomplish was to get the funnel made. I tried it without cutting the piece of pipe hoping to just trim it when I had the final shape and it held securely. This proved to be pretty difficult so I went for a little professional help, my mothers engineer at the truss company who is brilliant at this sort of thing.
We sat down and he came up with pattern that I could lay out on my piece of sheet metal and just cut out my funnel. To do this he used all sorts of math from college that I have forgotten and some odd formulas. In a few minutes we were drawing the cut pattern onto the sheet metal. When I put the cut piece of metal to the test and fastened it together it came out perfect! No cutting necessary. When you screw the funnel together its best to predrill holes in the overlapping piece so that the screws will pull the underside piece tight.
(I will come back and post the dimensions and figures at a later date so that everyone can do this the easy way.)
The next thing I did was cut a circle out of a piece of 1/2" plywood that was a little bit smaller than top of the funnel so that it could sit down in the funnel just a grunt. This ended up being about a 7 7/8" diameter circle with a 2" hole cut in the middle of it to allow for the PVC to pass though.
Next I had to cut a whole in the funnel so that a piece of 2" PVC could be inserted at an angle. This wasnt very difficult, I just held the piece of pipe above the funnel and drew what looked like the correct cut on the pipe then whacked it off on the band saw. It really doesnt have to be perfect I dont think, just close. Then I took that piece of PVC with the angle cut and placed against the funnel where it would go through at and traced around the sides of it to give me a hole to cut. Cutting this with my jig saw was pretty easy with a fine tool metal blade.
Next I cut another piece of plywood that was a bit smaller than the size of the 5 gallon bucket lid and cut a hole in the center of it large enough to allow about an inch or so if the funnel to pass through it, I think the hole was about 3". Then I cut slits in the part of the funnel that was sticking out and folded them back and screwed it to the plywood. Since I was using wood screws to get a bite in the ply wood I predrilled all the holes in the metal flanges first.
Next I cut a hole in the lid of the 5 gallon bucket and fastened it to the bottom piece of plywood.
Now it was time to start gluing a caulking things. I first used the 1 minute epoxy to secure the piece of PVC in the side of the funnel. Dont put the plywood in the top before doing this because it helps to apply some epoxy on the inside of the funnel here.
Then I caulked around the base of the funnel, the seam in the funnel, and in between the bucket top and the piece of plywood. I loosened the screws between the bucket top and plywood so that I could get a good bit of caulk in here. I sat the funnel upright for the night to let it dry before tightening the screws. The weight of the funnel is pretty good at this point and keeps the joint there decently tight. Now when I tighten the screws in the morning the caulk will act as a gasket (learned that from sailboats although most of you reading probably already know that).
That is all I had time for today and I hope to finish it tomorrow and see how well it works! As you can tell in the above picture I didnt have the top piece of plywood fastened or caulked in place.

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Homemade Vacuum Cyclone Test

I completed the dust cyclone for my shop vacuum. To finish up, all I needed to do was to secure the pipe through the plywood on the top of the funnel. I did this with some rubber strips, zip-ties, and caulking. It may have been the bost choice so I may go back and do it with some 1 min epoxy (I like that stuff!).
Then I glued the plywood into the top of the funnel with a small rubber strip around the plywood to tighten the fit and to help seal it. Then I just used some normal wood glue to hold it in place. We will see how this holds, epoxy would have worked well here also.
Then I simply put the two couplings on each pipe and attached my shop vac hose and I was done!
Overall, the system really worked great. The only problem was that the 5 gallon bucket wasnt strong enough and would try to collapse if I covered the open end of the hose completely. The bucket I have is thinner than normal buckets so ill just have to get a thicker one then I should be fine I hope.
It really amazed me at how clean the filter and shop vac can was. I sucked up a pretty good bit of saw dust and smaller particles that I swept up off the floor, all in all about 1/3 of a 5 gallon bucket. The shop vac was empty except for a few long shavings some other larger pieces of trash that I was curious about. The filter looked good and clean so this thing really made a big improvment, glad I built it. You should really consider building one too!

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Homemade Cornhole Boards

Just today, I finished building my third set of cornhole boards. The first two sets that I built were for myself and the third set is for a freind who is also addicted to cornhole on Friday and Saturday nights.
The boards are made of 5/8" plwood trimmed in 3/4" select pine grade boards with 3/4" oak legs. I used pockethole-joinery to join the pine to the plywood and screws to attach the hinges and the legs. Glue was used on all joints.
The first two sets of cornhole boards I made where not as good of quality as these boards are. I used 3/4" plywood and 3/4" pine for the first set but I didnt join the pine to the plywood flush with the top like I did with these boards, that should make the edges of the board more durable and it looks great also. Also I just screwed the top down into the pine framing leaving the screws exposed in the top of the boards. On my first set I used a simular hinge setup for the legs which never gave me any trouble.
On the second set I build I used some scrap pine 1x12s that I had laying around and I biscuited them together since I had just purchased my first biscuit jointer. This worked fine but I was learning the biscuits and my joints werent perfectly flush. For the legs I bolted through the 1x4 pine framing, that again wasnt mounted flush with the top of the board, and into the legs that pivoted on the bolt. This method was agrivating because you would have to tighten the wingnut on the legs very tight to make them stay put during gameplay (even then they would close up little by little with each through of a cornhole bag.
So I think I finally did it right this time joining the pine framing flush with the top of the plywood board and hiding all my joinery with pockethole screws. Using oak for the legs should be an improvement also. I really like the hinges and they are good heavy duty ones too. The legs dont slowly fold in on you like the bolted legs because the angle at which they sit is close to 45 degrees.
These are some great boards, I will have to build a set like these for myself! I think I will take photos or maybe video the building process to post on the internet too.

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