Oneida Cyclone Installation

[kirkpoore1]

Part 1--"Hang 'Em High"

Back in November, I got my Oneida dust collector dropped on my driveway. Over my New Year's break, I finally got some time to try to get some of my garage back, and put at least the cyclone up in the shop. I spent an evening putting up a hoisting point in my shop ceiling, and the next morning my friend Eric came over to help out. He has a complete lineshaft shop in his basement and another one in his three car garage, so he's the last guy to miss out rigging fun. Now I should say that my shop has a clerestory in it, and thus has a 16' ceiling in the middle. I decided to put the cyclone up there to save space--even though the shop is 22'x26' (6.7 x 7.9 m), it's full with 16 machines and two benches.

First, we put up the mounting bracket, bolted to the wall 2x4's with four 3/8" lag bolts:

Then it was on to assembling the cyclone, from four major parts. With a 5 hp motor, it is heavy (maybe 200 lbs), tall, and tippy:

The motor and fan come mounted to their own plate.

Assembled & ready to move.

Looks like a jet engine--and later I found that it sounds like one too, but with a lower pitch. But it did fit on the shop cart.

Getting ready to lift.

Lifting is via Eric's chain hoist. The chain wasn't long enough, so we used an extra strap to move it up a couple of feet, then removed the extra.

We got it all the way up, but it was a little short. I had to buy a small pulley, then we used my come-along and a strap tied first to the bandsaw, then the mortiser, and finally the tenoner to do the final hoisting. The problem was getting the come-along pulley's cable clear of the motor. We had to tilt the cyclone so that the rim would sit onto the bracket, then temporarily bolted it down. Eric braced the cyclone with an extended 2x4, and my daughter Kate tightened and loosened the come-along as necessary. Finally, we got it bolted down:

I screwed the starter to the wall. It's 10 feet off the floor, but the DC comes with a wireless remote, so I don't have to reach it--I hope. I haven't tried it yet because I need to change the plug to an L6-30 to match my outlets.

The whole process was complicated, but not really dangerous. The most dangerous part was bolting the 2x6 to the ceiling to act as a hang point for the cyclone. It was really hard tightening 6" long lag bolts by hand when I was 16 feet off the ground. Eric and I never had to back up, but we did have to reorganize or change plans many times to get the cyclone in place.

Next, the piping grew gradually, first down, then the filter added, then split right and left, and then on bottom of the cyclone. :

The small 35 gallon bin. I think I'm going to put a handle on the top, since the clear hose is actually under compression and holds the lid in place. I have to pull it up to get the bin out.

The bandsaw was really in the way for this, but I took advantage of it one or twice by having one foot on the top of the C-frame and the other on the ladder.


Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

Part 2--Sending Out Roots

Over the following two weeks, I extended the pipes until I hit a stopping point. That point was where I could run the collector and replace my roll around model. Then I had to break to build a big project--which I would use to pay off the cyclone. So I couldn't put it off.

First drop:

Right corner:

To put this pipe up, I was standing on my drill press table. Not something you'd do on most drill presses, even Powermatic 1200's.

I extended this down the wall, to the branch where the mortiser and drill press drop will be added later. In this case, though, I capped both off, using a 4" blast gate for the smaller pipe. I also capped off the other horizontal branch.

Finally, I connected up 20' of 4" hose:

This could reach to both my RAS and the main central machines (thicknesser, TS, shaper) that produce the most dust:

After this I used the DC on the RAS, thicknesser, and shaper. It did a great job, getting almost all the RAS dust even when crosscutting a sycamore 2x12. The shaper hookup got all the dust, and the thicknesser did almost as well, even through the 4" hose. I still had to drag things around, but overall I was pretty happy. I was not able to get back to work on the system until April.

The first job of the final push was to run a pipe in the trench under the floor. I still have some leaking issues there, so I went with 6" PVC and used PVC cement on the elbows, and tested it to make sure it didn't leak by filling it with water (outside, not in the trench). Then I attached wye's to give me hookups to the thicknesser, shaper, and table saw:

At the other end, a bend up the wall:

Down the length of the trench, with the 3/4" plywood covers in place:

The covers need some more work to fit tighter near the pipes, but the setup picked up all the sawdust from the planer when I ran a 12" sycamore board through it.
I then had to run the pipe along the wall and down to the trench. I also installed a second, smaller drop to hook a hose to the mortiser or DP, as necessary:

On the west wall of the shop, I started by building a dust catching box for the 14" RAS. The box stops the dust and (hopefully) deflects it downwards, while a 6 inch hose connects from below. The main intent was to keep it flat so I didn't have to move the RAS any farther from the wall. The hose comes out from under the right side and hooks to the pipe on the wall:

Sawdust still bounces off the back of the box, so I'm going to try to find an old foam mouse pad to glue in there to stop the bounce and let the dust fall into the box and get sucked up.

A second drop on the wall gave me a hose to connect to either the small bandsaw, spindle sander, or overarm router as needed:

I still need to hook up my 30" bandsaw, but I have to build a box for that first. Since the hose will run next to the pulley and belts, I needed to take care of some 6 year old business and put the belt cover on:

The belt cover finished off my time for the day. I have to get some more wyes to hook up the scroll saw and small jointer, and build hookups for the big jointer, scroll saw, and big bandsaw. But, it works now, and I was using all those remaining things without DC anyway. Long term, I'll see about hooking up the lathe and tenoner.

I'm pretty happy. Everything works, the pipes are all tidily against the wall, and there are no ugly and irritating vertical hookups in the middle of the room. Here's a couple of finishing shots:

Kirk

 

[PeterBassett]

Fantastic stuff.

 

[cambournepete]

22' x 26' x 16' ceiling in the middle. [-(
Not jealous at all :-"

Seriously though that looks good, but I'm not sure I'd want to stand under it!

 

[Cegidfa]

Morning Kirk,

Another first class installation from Poore Enterprises =D>
Are you sure that you earn your living from IT? You now have more kit than most professional woodworkers :evil:
And thanks for the well documented thread. I'm sure that it will be of help and interest to many on this forum.
Your work rate puts me to shame :wink:

Regards....Dick.

 

[kirkpoore1]

cambournepete:

The cyclone is mounted pretty strongly. It would take an earthquake to bring it down. However, being originally from California, I will be adding some additional straps to keep it from swaying.

Dick:
Jeez, what do you have to be ashamed of? Your shop is great. Believe me, I've had a fair number of, shall we say, learning experiences in this effort. Most of them were not on camera, though.

As for the machinery, it's been an 8 year steady effort to acquire and restore them. In fact, I'm picking up a new bandsaw this weekend (a fully restored 1959 Powermatic 140) , which will enable me to move my last Asian stationary machine out of the shop. That's the blue Jet bandsaw on the left (west) side of the shop. The Jet will go to a well-deserving friend this summer for a decent price.

Kirk

 

[Cegidfa]

Hello Kirk,

Poore Enterprises, I didn’t think about the ramifications of phonetics here did I. :wink:
Ok, the shop is fine, but, a) it has been about 18 months now, and b) I do have all day every day.
I have been slacking off lately. It's nearly a month since my last post.

Regards.......Dick.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Hello Kirk,

Poore Enterprises, I didn’t think about the ramifications of phonetics here did I. :wink:
Ok, the shop is fine, but, a) it has been about 18 months now, and b) I do have all day every day.
I have been slacking off lately. It's nearly a month since my last post.

Regards.......Dick.

You know, I've lived with that joke so long I didn't even notice it. I like the Captain Kirk jokes better, though, since I used to be a captain in the Air Force.

I do sell stuff under the name Medieval Oak Custom Furniture, which has paid for most of the machines. But I still have my day job.

Kirk

 

[Cegidfa]

Hi Kirk,

I think that we need to get something clear.
When I first gave you a business name, being me, the Star Trek and other connections of your first and second name didn’t even occur to me, (in spite of watching every episode) for reasons that I will give later.
The joke was all about your amassing, and fitting of wood machinery and output, with respect to a pro shop. It was only later that the connotation of ‘Poore Enterprises’ actually occurred to me. And even then, I still didn’t make the connection with your first name and Enterprises.

The reason for my not making the obvious connection is due to the fact that my surname is Goodchild. Grow up with that as a handle, and one quickly learns that it is not funny to make fun of other people’s names. If I had a pound or even a dollar, for every time that someone says ‘and are you’ I would be a rich man by now.
The problem is that everyone thinks that it is being said for the first time. And it isn’t always asked in a nice way either.

I didn’t want to get heavy about this, but I felt that I didn’t want you you to think that I was the sort of person that would do that sort of thing.....See... I have mentioned in the past that I wasn’t typical, average, or heaven forbid..normal. :shock:

Regards...Dick.