DC and green chips...

[Joe Watson]

If you use a Dust Collecting system in your shop, do you suck up "green" chips ?

Ive been very hesitant about this thinking that the wet chips will sit in the DC's bag with no air flow and get moldy if they sit too long with out being emptyed (have a double bag 3HP grizzle, so i dont empty regularly).

Any thoughts ?

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[curtis rosche]

when i worked at the amish shop, chips you get wet if it rained hard or snowed hard. sometimes they would actually freeze in the winter. we didnt have any moldy chips though. the wet wood didnt stay on the surface long enough to get enough air to grow and by the next day it would be packed ontop of by new chips. we only emptied ours once a quarter depending on the machine usage

[Roger Chandler]

I would just empty the bag if I did a green turning............be aware of this however..........there is a guy in our club whose friend used his DC to collect the curlees from green turning..........the curlees clogged his impellar and burnt out his motor on the DC...................you have to be aware this can happen and make sure to listen for a change in motor sounds........I have a remote switch on my DC and keep the remote in my left hand while using the other one to vacuum chips with the hose and a nozzle from Rockler,. so as to be able to turn the unit off in case of a blockage that has the potential for burning a motor out.

The bags can and will rot over time if you do not empty the bag after collection of wet curlees.

[Greg Just]

I clean up the bulk of my wood chips with a scoop and throw them in a 30 gallon trash can. The vacuum system is only used to clean up those chips I could not scoop. I found that trying to vacuum up all the chips just filled the bag and can up too fast. It is easier to carry the can out of my basement and dump it on the mulch pile than emptying the vac.

[Joe Watson]

...be aware of this however..........there is a guy in our club whose friend used his DC to collect the curlees from green turning..........the curlees clogged his impellar and burnt out his motor on the DC.....Thanks for the heads up.




I clean up the bulk of my wood chips with a scoop and throw them in a 30 gallon trash can. The vacuum system is only used to clean up those chips I could not scoop. I found that trying to vacuum up all the chips just filled the bag and can up too fast. It is easier to carry the can out of my basement and dump it on the mulch pile than emptying the vac.
Thats what im doing as of now - mainly because the DC has a bunch of walnut chips and dust and ive been told walnut chips are not good for mulch.
It did seam easyer to just toss the turning curls in a box and dump them in the "flower bed" - that and the chain saw noodles will probably become common practice for me.


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[Steve Schlumpf]

Joe - I tried using my DC one time to collect green curlies while turning. The DC handled the chips just fine but the wet dust/powder that it caught managed to clog the filter bag in a relatively short amount of time. Actually caked up pretty bad! I ended up spending more time beating the filter bag against a tree to break all those fine particles loose than I did roughing out the form!

Since then, I use the DC but only when sanding or doing finishing work on dry wood.

[Steve Vaughan]

I think the green curlies are just easier to get up if you do your turning and scoop 'em up and toss. I rough turn green stuff with a giant trash can nearby where many of 'em go into off the lathe and it's close enough to grab handfuls and throw 'em in. I stopped using my DC for rough turning a long time ago after I realized I was spending way too much time emptying the bag. Another thing that helped me is set up to pull through a 30 or 40 gallon can as a first stage. It's an easier can to empty and I'm probably emptying that 10 times before I have to empty the bag on the DC. Green curlies just fill a can up way more than I care for.

[Dan Hintz]

While he didn't burn out his motor, Mike C. noticed (or did he?) a drop in DC suction power over time... he thought the system was just not powerful enough or getting too old to handle the job, but once he took the pipe off of the intake, there were long (initially) green curlies wrapped around the impeller. Removing those got back a lot of oomph in the system.

My suggestion is to turn green wood without the DC pulling directly from your lathe (though if you want to keep it running nearby to keep any other dust to a minimum, knock yourself out). Once you get to any sanding and/or fine shavings work, turn it back on. Green shavings fall to the floor pretty quickly, and what little dust is created should be taken care of by your ambient filter or the DC running nearby.

[Reed Gray]

If you have a 2 stage dust collector with a cyclone, it will separate the shavings from the dust before it goes through the motor. Thing is you will spend a lot of time emptying out the chip bin. Much easier to use the idiot stick (stick with a shovel blade on one end and an idiot on the other, and yes, I am a certified engineer). I prefer plastic bags, 3 mil contractor heavy duty type for the shavings.

robo hippy

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

I bought a Ryobi Lawn & Leaf bag at the orange store. It is a fabric container held in shape by a giant coil spring. You can compress and store it flat when not needed. Because it is quite wide, it is easy to dump a shovel full of chips into and I can fit a big bowls worth of chips into one load. I play a game with myself attempting to direct chips into it on the fly when turning rough outs. I miss more than I hit. I don't attempt to catch wet chips in the DC.
faust

[Prashun Patel]

A single 10-12" bowl can produce up to 20 gal worth of chips. I find it way more convenient to let the chips - er - fall where they may, and to scoop. I can't imagine changing the DC bags that often.

I do find it convenient to keep a lined trash can right in front of the lathe - directly under the path of the turning. It's not in the way, catches a good deal of the shavings, and allows me to sweep off the ways conveniently.

I do think it's worthwhile to have an ambient air cleaner; green wood still generates some dust - especially as it dries.

[Luke Townsley]

I had the problem of green sawdust from sanding and the bandsaw clogging my shopvac filter. It seems to set up like concrete.

I started using the Oneida cyclone mounted on a trashcan and I am much happier. Oneida recommends not using a container larger than 10 gallons, but mine is about 30 gallons and seems to work fine.

[Jim Burr]

I use an Armstrong Chip Removal system for green stuff. Otherwise known around here as a broom.

[Mike Cruz]

Joe, I noticed that large shavings, whether green or otherwise (from the lathe or planer) can clog the intake on your DC or even build up on the impeller (depending on whether you have grill on your intake). Both have happened to me.