Vaccum cleaner for the shop?

[Alberto-sp]

Hello.

My shop is a mess. Always a lot of chips of metal everywhere, and I don´t mean the floor, that is easy to sweep. I mean the lathe, the mill, etc... (they are mini)

So I looking for a vaccum cleaner, but there is to types: With disposable bag or with a filter that you clean. What typer is better for metal chops and that kind of things?

Off course course I won´t use it for long chips, these are easy to remove by hand

Thank you

Best regards

 

[Gaffer]

I've yet to do it but plan to. My thought is to mount it near ceiling height, centrally located so it will reach the entire garage. I'll mount a dust deputy, or the like near it for easy cleanout. I saw a video a while ago, perhaps on YouTube, about it.

 

[Eddyde]

I use a large Rigid brand "shop vac". I use it with no bag, just the inner filter. It works well gets most of the small chips.

 

[pontiac428]

Hello.

My shop is a mess. Always a lot of chips of metal everywhere, and I don´t mean the floor, that is easy to sweep. I mean the lathe, the mill, etc... (they are mini)

So I looking for a vaccum cleaner, but there is to types: With disposable bag or with a filter that you clean. What typer is better for metal chops and that kind of things?

Off course course I won´t use it for long chips, these are easy to remove by hand

Thank you

Best regards

I use a small Karcher shop vac for chips. I prefer the bags! Chips make a mess of the filter. Bags are easy to swap and dispose of. Bags are available with HEPA certification to trap dust.

I use a regular shop vac with no filter for the rest of the shop. It's the chips that make the bag work for me.

 

[Winegrower]

I have had good performance from Craftsman vacuums. Get a large diameter hose, say 2.5”. I keep it central between the mill, lathe, vertical bandsaw and horizontal bandsaw, and it’s easy to dump the bin when needed. The long chips eventually will jam the hose, so choose feeds and speeds to break them up.

Don’t ever think that the dust collector from your wood shop will work. It’s for dust!

 

[Jake M]

The long chips eventually will jam the hose.....

A fourteen dollar drain snake from the hazard fraught store will haul those strings right back out. Don't even use the power drill, just a couple of cranks to screw it into the string ball.

 

[NCjeeper]

I have the shop vac brand by my mills. and a Hart brand (on sale at Wal Mart) by my lathes. No bags in them just empty the cannister when it gets full.

 

[GeneT45]

I use a Rigid (Home Depot) "Shop Vac". The Shop Vac brand has been nothing but trouble for me, particularly their switches, but they seem to lack the suction of the Rigid as well. The very best thing I've done though was to make a custom crevice tool for my mill! I think I got the idea from the Frets machining site. Just heat some thin-walled PVC and then clamp it to the size you want. My custom tool fits into the T-slots on my mill table and also gets around a lot of other places on both the mill and the lathe much better than the tool that came with my vac. It's quick, it's ugly, and it's one of the best things I've done...

A bonus is that it seems to keep the vac from ingesting too much too fast as I haven't ever clogged the hose while using the custom end.



GsT

 

[JimDawson]

Ridgid here

 

[FOMOGO]

Making a curved shield that covers the filter on the inlet side and drops slightly below it will keep the filter from getting plugged with chips. Needs it be spaced out about an inch from the filter. Mount it to the vacuum top with some L shaped-tabs. Mike