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Thread: experiences with Nordfab dust collection piping

  1. #1

    experiences with Nordfab dust collection piping

    I am in the process of designing my first dust collection system and I want to use metal piping available from Nordfab. These products can be purchased from WW Grainger, Grizzly and possibly other places. Nordfab hardware SketchUp files are available from the SketchUp library. I would like to communicate with some members that have experience with Nordfab products. Thanks in advance.
    Last edited by bennie blackwell; 12-04-2017 at 1:38 PM. Reason: typo

  2. #2
    What about it?

  3. #3
    The 2 people I know that have Nordfab ducting love it. Easy to assemble and disassemble if you need to redesign, add or move. Both said for the price, it was a no brainer to have them design the layout.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Wake Forest, NC
    Posts
    493
    I have it, and love it, except for the price. I got a bunch of used pipe and fittings when I bought my dust collector, but I have bought fittings, clamps, and blast gates from Nordfab and Oneida.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Bloomington, IL
    Posts
    6,009
    Have it. Love it. Buy my Nordfab parts used or on sale when I can. Its very expensive. Not sure its worth it if you have other major ww tool needs.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Tampa Bay, FL
    Posts
    3,895
    Have it. Love it. Expensive.

    sound familiar?

    Have to buy a bunch more for the new shop. Gulp!!
    - After I ask a stranger if I can pet their dog and they say yes, I like to respond, "I'll keep that in mind" and walk off
    - It's above my pay grade. Mongo only pawn in game of life.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    New Hampshire, USA
    Posts
    240
    Have it in my shop. Also love how easy it is to set up and to make changes. Performs well too. I have sort of built up the system over a period of time as I accumulated machines, so I did not have to buy it all at once.

  8. #8

    further clarification on experiences with Nordfab piping

    Quote Originally Posted by bennie blackwell View Post
    I am in the process of designing my first dust collection system and I want to use metal piping available from Nordfab. These products can be purchased from WW Grainger, Grizzly and possibly other places. Nordfab hardware SketchUp files are available from the SketchUp library. I would like to communicate with some members that have experience with Nordfab products. Thanks in advance.
    I am inexperienced at posting on this site and I see that I should have been much more specific. Here are some specific questions:
    1. For those that used Nordfab, would you share some pictures?
    2. What was your method of attachment to the ceiling for horizontal runs?
    3. What did you use to attach the piping to a wall? Did you attach directly to a wall or did you attach some kind of furring strip?
    4. What kind of "gotchas" did you encounter? What stupid things should I avoid?

  9. #9
    My ducting isn't Norfab, but it is similar construction by Schuko. My house is made of cast in place concrete for all walls and slabs, so turning part of the finished basement into a functional shop was a challenge.

    My design started with the dust collection system and included a separate closet for the blower, Oneida cyclone separator, dust bin, Wynn filters, and air compressor. The metal Schuko ducting comes in 1-meter lengths, and I used 120mm diameter ducting for my small shop. I ordered a few of pieces at shorter lengths (no extra cost) in order to fit the system in my shop.

    Attachment to the ceiling was time consuming because I had to drill 12mm holes in the reinforced concrete slab for the plastic anchors and M10 lag bolts. I used my Bosch D-tect 150 to identify the location of the rebar in the concrete. The brackets screw onto the bolts and then fitting the ducting is straightforward.

    Here are some images showing some of the ducting with the attaching brackets. The sections of duct and fittings are joined with a compression clamp that has a bead of sealing putty along the inner channel. Some of the clamps had a rubber gasket instead of the putty, but both appear to work fine and I can't detect any leaks in the system.











    I used two clamps for each section of ducting and one clamp for each Y-adapter. The 45 and 90-degree elbows are not attached to the ceiling. In the DC closet, the 90-degree elbow is attached to the wall using one bracket. In all, I used 27 brackets to attach the ducting system. This might be overkill, but the ducting is not coming loose.

  10. #10
    Mike: The pictures are great. In my case, most of the ducting will be mounted to the wall because my ceilings are 13 ft high. I want to have my ducting about 7 ft off the floor. My ducting is primarily 6 in (150mm) diameter. Would you have been comfortable mounting some of your ducting on your walls using the same hangers? I will have one pipe run to my table saw that has to be suspended from the ceiling and I can use some kind of cable for that.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by bennie blackwell View Post
    Mike: The pictures are great. In my case, most of the ducting will be mounted to the wall because my ceilings are 13 ft high. I want to have my ducting about 7 ft off the floor. My ducting is primarily 6 in (150mm) diameter. Would you have been comfortable mounting some of your ducting on your walls using the same hangers? I will have one pipe run to my table saw that has to be suspended from the ceiling and I can use some kind of cable for that.
    The 120mm ducting was the largest I could use because of restrictions in the path to my DC closet. Otherwise, I would have used 150mm ducting and the appropriately sized hangers. The hangers I used work just as well on walls as they do on ceilings. I added more photos showing the bolt and anchor hardware, as well as some close-ups of the hanger.

    Here are the boxes for the anchors and bolts:

    Hanger-01.jpg


    Here are the anchors and bolts showing the relative size:

    Hanger-02.jpg


    These are close-ups of a hanger showing how it is attached to the ceiling (or wall) and the hardware to compress the bottom of the hanger into the ducting.

    Hanger-03.jpg

    Hanger-04.jpg

    The two halves of the hanger are identical. The M10 nut on the top piece is attached at the factory with a screw through the hanger and swaged in place. The hole in the bottom half is where the screw would have been if the half was used as a top half.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2015
    Location
    New Hampshire, USA
    Posts
    240
    Hi Bennie, Here are a couple pictures showing how the ducting was mounted in my shop. I have 11 ft ceilings and mounted it all using the clamps shown in the first picture. I got the clamps from Nordfab or Grizzly (cant remember) but the threaded rod and hardware for mounting to the wall and ceiling is just stuff from Home Depot. The brackets I used gave me a little adjustability for mounting. Its fairly heavy when several pieces are clamped together, so I more or less had to mount it piece by piece rather than assemble a full trunk, and then mount it all at once. If you have helpers you might be able to mount entire branches all at once.

    You asked if there were any "gotcha's" or things to avoid. The pipes are pretty rigid, so you need to work out the angles for the branches so that ducting lines up. Its pretty easy to make "adjustable" ducts so that things line up, but I was lazy (and cheap) in one case and used a black rubber sleeve to join a branch to the trunk at a slight angle. Hope this is helpful.
    Scott

    IMG_1868.jpgIMG_1866.jpgIMG_1867.jpg
    Attached Images Attached Images

  13. #13
    Scott: This information has been very helpful. Thanks, Ben

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Goleta / Santa Barbara
    Posts
    962
    Scott, what is the gauge for that is shown in picture 4?
    Admittedly ignorant, Patrick

  15. #15
    Scott:
    I am trying to reverse engineer your hardware in the closeup picture of the vertical wall mounted duct run.
    1. Is your strut 1 5/8"x13/16" 14 gage?
    2. Is the threaded rod 1/4" or 3/8" diameter?
    3. The green fitting that ties the duct to the strut, could not find that at Home Depot. Is this a single piece of material or is two pieces consisting of a square washer and a spring nut.

    Thanks, Ben

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