Wood Dust and My HF 44991 Mini Mill

We live on the coast and the motorcycle enthusiast across the street was the one who turned me on to old sheets. We had some sunbrella cloth left over from a project and my wife made a cover for my 9x20 lathe and a one for my 14" Starrett height gage. Both are rust free after 4yrs in the unheated garage. The sunbrella cloth is nice and stiff almost like a tarp and is water resistant but not water proof. So it breathes and doesn't condensate which I found out the hard way is no good. I also use a shop vac with a homemade cyclone and that's amazing for keeping dust down and for cleaning machinery without clogging the HEPA filter.
 
I also use a shop vac with a homemade cyclone and that's amazing for keeping dust down and for cleaning machinery without clogging the HEPA filter.

Got any details on the cyclone filter?

Thanks.
 
It was an experiment which worked a lot better than expected. I did a half way description on another home made tools site. It's all out of 8" ducting, 2" PVC and a 5gal bucket. I do a lot of powdercoat and not only does it go everywhere, it clogs a HEPA filter in a heartbeat. So the cyclone was way to get the powdercoat before it got to the shopvac. Can't believe how good it works for not knowing what I was doing :)

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Same here as NortonDommi - fitted sheets to keep most of the particles off. Going to wipe it down every so often anyway.
Keep your workspace at least 5 degrees warmer than outside OR keep the humidity inside low enough that the machine is above dew point. Condensation occurs when the machine is below dew point. Rainy days are the hardest.
 
There are some pretty nice extra large GRILL Covers that will cover a pretty good sized lathe.
Look in Patio Furniture Covers and there is some stuff that could be re-purposed.
 
Got any details on the cyclone filter?
Banggood and probably other import dealers do a smaller heavy duty plastic one that looks similar to C-Bag's if you don't feel like building one. I've got one around here that I haven't gotten to try yet. IIRC, it was in the 20-30 USD range.
 
Banggood and probably other import dealers do a smaller heavy duty plastic one that looks similar to C-Bag's if you don't feel like building one. I've got one around here that I haven't gotten to try yet. IIRC, it was in the 20-30 USD range.

It all depends on what you're trying to filter. Wood shavings and dust are not too difficult so I can see the small plastic cyclones and Thein type working fine. But powdercoat and dust from the blast cabinet are around 5microns and float forever. I reasoned from the big cyclones I used to see in the various plants I worked around that bigger is better. It's why I didn't go with the little plastic ones.
 
powdercoat and dust from the blast cabinet are around 5microns and float forever.
I didn't even realize those things did anything for small stuff. I've got a cyclone lid and galvanized trash can that I can't accommodate for my big dust collector, and thought it just knocked out the larger chunks. Been meaning to look into a finer filter bag for that one. I was hoping to use the smaller one on the Shopvac with some water in the canister to kill any hot stuff that made it through the hose.
 
Two things -
First - Drop cloths are a great idea, I'm in West Texas and anything out in the shop not covered, gets a coat of red dust!

Second - I picked up my HF mill from a guy that had been using it to do wood working (vaping stuff) and I was expecting to find
a lot more wood dust than I actually found when I got it home and cleaned it. And most of that was because the guy hadn't got all
of the factory goop off before he started using it.

I like the little shopvac idea mentioned.
 
After a 2 week pre-surgery diet, and 2 weeks recovering from surgery, I finally made some chips with my 44991!

After 5 days of rest I went out to the garage and spent 2 days building a stand for it. And I've been slowly ordering stuff from the Little Machine Shop. Got the 3" swivel vise & parallel set that was on sale 2 or 3 weeks ago. Have a collet set and endstop on order, that should be in tomorrow. Waiting for the belt drive conversion kit to go on sale. Eventually a 3 axis DRO. Need to get an edge finder. I tried to use a 1/4" dowel to find the edge and make two revs to get to the edge. Nope.

For now I'm going to have to detail everything dimensioned from the upper left corner, ot use the lower right corner and turn the drawing upside down. After watching people use Bridgeports for years, It's my turn to figure out how to use my 44991.

The 2 last guys in the Toolroom are retiring in the Spring. I should be able to inherit lots of good tooling
 
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