This one I am posting mostly to remind myself of where I was at when the shop resurrection started. This is not a project where I look back and admire my craftsmanship, nor is it one that impressed me with my ingenuity. It is simply a cart for dust collection.
As soon as I started doing anything in the shop more frequently than once in a blue moon, the dust was a problem. It was everywhere – not to mention in the air. I needed to get a handle on that quickly. My first purchase when I decided to start creating a proper shop, and not just a place to make a DIY thing here and there, was a Dust Deputy from Oneida. It’s a plastic cyclone thingy that connects in front of the shop vac and causes most of the dust to fall into a bucket before getting to the shop vac. This means less dust gets to the filter, which will then in turn work better and last longer. It also prevents it from losing suction when you suddenly send a bunch of sawdust into the shop vac hose. The idea is to strap it to the front of your shop vac so they move around in tandem but with my head spinning with youtube videos, I decided to make a cart.
There seems to be a whole genre of youtube dust collector cart videos. I think that was the first time I went down the rabbit hole that is youtube, and found my recommendations becoming a never-ending list of dust collector cart videos. Who knew there could be so many of them? Mine is more basic than most, it has no revolutionary features – nothing to put in a thumbnail to catch your attention. That said, it works, and that is what I needed.
It is simply a plywood base, with a 1×4 FJ pine frame and divider. The shop vac fits in the back, with a little wooden piece that keeps it from tipping out when you push or pull on the shop vac handle. I added casters to the bottom. The dust collector bucket is actually two of them. The lower bucket is screwed to the base of the cart to hold it in place, and the second bucket just stacks inside to keep it in place. I will probably add a proper handle at some point, to make it easier to steer. Maybe a brace to hold the hose in position. Then again, maybe it will look just like that in five years time. It works, I use it all the time, on all my tools, and my shop is less dusty. I also bought an ellipse dust mask from Highland Woodworking, which was a bit tricky to find when everyone was buying masks for COVID. The ellipse mask works great too.
Sawdusting 