I was heavily talked into using a vacuum system on my planer last week. It went way better than my past attempts in the past, and now I could not imagine doing the snowman routine without a vacuum hose attached to my planer.
Clark Foam sells a modified shop vac that allows your exhaust foam to be dumped into a trash can below. It has a filter on the top of the unit in addition to the one on the bottom. Now here is the question. How many of you modified your shop vac to do the same thing? I was thinking about cutting a hole above the housing of a shop vac right above the blow side of the unit and attaching an external filter. Any of you out there do this already?
Hey- I have the clark foam system. The added filter on the top of the vacuum is there to diffuse the exhaust… I’m not quite sure that it is really needed. I guess it is nice, it keeps air from blowing all over the place… but I am getting close to just routing the exhaust out of my room- the vacuum generates a lot of heat, and it is beginning to become unbearable in combination with the summer heat. The clark system is a shop vac with the bottom cut out. They mounted it on a metal table that sits above a 55 gallon trash can. The table has a hole cut in it below the trash can. A sliding metal door covers the hole, to empty the vacuum, you simply side the door open, foam drops out, and you close the door. Simple… effective. Also easy to build. Keep in mind that the drop gate sucks up to the bottom of the table when you turn the vacuum on- so you don’t have to have a perfect fit or anything… just something that covers the hole. the only part that I would recommend buying from clark is the slinky hose- it makes the vacuum system a pleasure to use, everything else can be built. -Carl
Carl, thanks for the 411 on the Clark shop vac. I would not have known that the bottom had a sliding door on it. That sounds slick.
Did you use the Harken Pulleys that came with the vacuum system? I’m trying now to figure out how to open them to allow the plug to fit through the pulley mechanism. Any tips or am I over thinking the problem?
Thanks!
to run the cord through you have to uncew your planers handle unscrew the cord at its three positions run it through the pullys and then hook your planer back together sounds complex but its really simple you can mess it up i think all three connections are different and you can only put it together one way.
After a question asked to me by felster it got me to remember a question I had… I’m looking to move my filter to the outside of my vacuum catch. It just clogs up way to much on the inside so I constantly lose suction power and have to dig out all the dust… Has anyone done this mod? I’ve already modified to a trash can catch… I saw the Clark filter set ups and would like something similar to that… Thanks!
I use the Harken blocks in my system, although I needed to add an additional one. What I did was actually make up a power cord that has a locking receptical on the end, before I added the receptical I ran it through the blocks.
I then shortened the planer cord so that it plugs into the receptical which hangs right above my shaping stand. Works great! This way when I’m not using the planer it is easy to unplug it and put it on a shelf. The locking mechanism is strong enough that the plug never pulls out even though the power cord has a lead weight attached to keep tension on the cord.
I have the vacuum set outside my shaping room so that I don’t have it taking up room and don’t have to deal with the noise and heat. Makes for a very pleasant work environment!
-Robin