4"pvc for Dust Collection

[Jack Karpiak]

Here is my system.
I have a single stage 950 cfm Dust collector with 12' of flex hose going to a chip seperator (making mine a homemade 2 stage). In the 12' run I have 3 90deg elbows. All my hose materials were purchased from Jet. My question is, can I put some 4" pvc pipe in place of the flex hose? If it is possible what sort of 'adapters' can I find to connect plumbing pipe to DC hose/fittings.

[Angie Orfanedes]

Yes, you can. I made my own adapters after reading a post somewhere. Take a short piece of 4 inch PVC - if you need the outside diameter to be bigger, you take another piece of PVC (or two) and split it lengthwise. You then slip it over the first piece and glue it in place with PVC glue (for joining PVC pipes). You can add another skinny piece to fill the gap also. If you are super cautious, you can also use painters caulk to fill any gaps to ensure it is airtight.

If you need the i.d. to be smaller, you do a similar prep, except you must cut out a strip out of the second piece of PVC (about 1/2" as I recall), so that you can squeeze it into the first piece. Same deal with PVC glue and caulk.

I have also read about using a heat gun to squeeze or expand the PVC - and I actually bought a heat gun, but never got around to trying it as the method described above worked so well for me.

Replacing the flex hose with PVC will help your flow rate quite a bit.

[Greg Crawford]

Woodcraft has some adapters.

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=5815

I've found the type that threads onto the hose to work the best. A female quick disconnect will also fit snugly into the bell of the PVC pipe, or into a female end of a fitting. This is all for schedule 20 PVC.

[Jack Karpiak]

Thanks.That's exactly what I'm looking for.

[Neal Clayton]

Here is my system.
I have a single stage 950 cfm Dust collector with 12' of flex hose going to a chip seperator (making mine a homemade 2 stage). In the 12' run I have 3 90deg elbows. All my hose materials were purchased from Jet. My question is, can I put some 4" pvc pipe in place of the flex hose? If it is possible what sort of 'adapters' can I find to connect plumbing pipe to DC hose/fittings.

do you have any blast gates?

a 4" blast gate will fit inside the pvc very snugly, and your 4" flex will fit on the outside of the other end.

[Bob Genovesi]

My entire dust collection system is made of thin wall 4" PVC pipe and associated connectors, elbows, and Y's. It's cheep, works great and all of the joints are tapped together, no glue, so if I need to dismantle it I can by simply tapping it apart with a rubber hammer....