Tip O' the day from the Village Idiot.

[Rick Potter]

Last week I donned my dust mask, and blew out the whole shop with my leaf blower, then vacuumed the floors with my shop vac. Today, I cut a few pieces with my miter saw, using the shop vac for dust collection, and got blasted in the face with oak sawdust.

The tip? When you connect the shop vac to a tool, make sure it sucks, not blows.

Nuff said.

Rick Potter

[Joe Chritz]

Where is the "rolling on the floor" smiley?

Joe

[Don Morris]

You don't do that once every year or so? I do it every so often just to remind me to look at the "vacuum" and "blowing" ports as a test of my general awakeness.

[Steve H Graham]

You're the village idiot? I don't recall losing the contest. Don't make me post photos of the planer-sled supports I routed on the wrong side.

[Charles Saunders]

Shop vacs can be a mixed "bag." This is pretty close to village idiot material: I keep a running list taped to the side of mine where I note what's been inadvertently sucked into it. If a lost piece (or tool) isn't needed immediately I wait until the bag needs changing and collect the stuff. That way at least I know what I'm looking for...

[Thomas Bank]

Hmmm... Sounds about like the time I changed the bag on the dust collector but then got distracted before finishing the re-installation. Next time I went to use it, the bag stayed on just long enough to get a nice healthy dose of sawdust collected before shooting up to the ceiling and filling the workshop with a choking, blinding cloud of dust!

[Lance Norris]

Where is the "rolling on the floor" smiley?

Joe
http://www.ridgidforum.com/forum/images/smilies2/rotflmao1.gif

[Paul Atkins]

Or the time I used my dust collector to suck up blown-in insulation in the attic and the bag came off in the kitchen!

[Al Willits]

I started to put the dumb things I've done since starting this hobby, after about 35 or 40 of them I started to get depressed......lets just say your not the only one and welcome to the club.....:D

Al...who liked the glue before prior assembling trick, and the cabinet doors that should have been tall vertically, not horizontially for starters.

[John Shaffner]

How about the guy that used his shop vac to clean out his wood stove and ended up buying a new shop vac. I hear the smell of burning plastic is rather obnoxious. I wouldn't know this from personal experience, no, not me.

John

[Thomas Bank]

I started to put the dumb things I've done since starting this hobby, after about 35 or 40 of them I started to get depressed......

Hey, if it didn't involve a trip to the emergency room or other permanent damage and I can laugh about it later it is all good! :D

[John Sanford]

Last week I donned my dust mask, and blew out the whole shop with my leaf blower, then vacuumed the floors with my shop vac. Today, I cut a few pieces with my miter saw, using the shop vac for dust collection, and got blasted in the face with oak sawdust.

The tip? When you connect the shop vac to a tool, make sure it sucks, not blows.

Nuff said.

Rick Potter


THAT'S what the marginally useful "muffler" for the Ridgid and Craftsman shop-vacs are for. Just like the big bright tags motorcyclists who use wheel locks SHOULD put on their handlebars, a bright muffler thingy outta place can give you a clue that "all is not as it should be."

Oh, and the muffler is handy for one other thing. I just hand-loop the power cord to the shop vac and hang it on the muffler. Lots easier than coiling it around the darn thing.