Shop Dust Collection? PICS

[Steve Mathews]

After refining my design and material list I come up with a new estimate of about $1800 using Blastgate's clamp together pipe and $800 using their spiral pipe. I'm almost tempted to go the clamp together route providing shipping isn't too expensive. I'll see what they say when calling them for a quote tomorrow. There isn't much difference in the raw pipe cost. The fittings is where it adds up.

[Jim Becker]

That hasn't been my experience with the fittings I've gotten from the local HVAC supply house. Instead they seem to be designed to be crimped in the field.

I've only seen pre-crimped, but if you have uncrimped available, that's great. Just be sure to take care in sealing them up...one of the downsides to HVAC wyes is that many of them are just spot welded and need to be fully caulked/taped for "our" application. In a house, a little escaping heat or cool air isn't a terrible thing, but in dust collection, you want no leaks if you can help it.

[Andrew More]

I've only seen pre-crimped, but if you have uncrimped available, that's great. Just be sure to take care in sealing them up...one of the downsides to HVAC wyes is that many of them are just spot welded and need to be fully caulked/taped for "our" application. In a house, a little escaping heat or cool air isn't a terrible thing, but in dust collection, you want no leaks if you can help it.

Also not a problem, I painted mastic on all the joints on my ducts. In my case I was able to do it with less than a bucket's worth, and a cheap brush.

[Ole Anderson]

2 hp Oneida Dust Gorilla here, all 26 gauge snap lock with standard fittings. 7" main. Never a collapse. Never really experienced a problem with the "backwards" wyes. If you do vertical drops, don't come out of the bottom of the main run, keep your wyes horizontal and use a bend to turn and run down the wall, otherwise all sorts of stuff will fall down the vertical pipe from tools further upstream. 1/8" x 1/8" pop rivets at the 4, 8 and 12:00 positions, with foil tape on the joints and silicone caulk on the bends. I see no reason to go all out with Norfab or spiral unless you have deep pockets.

[Mike Kees]

You might want to check out Spiralmfg.com they are in Minneapolis MN and make everything for dust collection fittings for spiral pipe. I purchased all my fittings from them and bought my pipe locally.

[Andrew Seemann]

I'll second Spiral Manufacturing. That is where I got my spiral pipe and fittings from. They are local to me, so I just drove to the shop/factory for my order. They were out of stock of one item when I was there, so they asked me if I had 15 minutes to wait. I said I did, and they made it for me then. It was still warm from forming when I got it.

I found the spiral pipe much easier to work with than the 26 gauge HVAC piping I got from Oneida. It cuts nicely with a sawzall, compared to trying to tinsnip the HVAC pipe. I would go with the spiral over the HVAC again for that reason alone, regardless of price.

[Steve Mathews]

After visiting a local high school and looking at their dust collection ductwork it may be that I'm making much ado about nothing in deciding which material to use. Their system, which has been in use for a number of years without any problems uses locally available spiral ducts with standard HVAC fittings. No particular attention was given to the orientation of the seams. In other words, some seams will result in a slight internal lip with respect to direction of air flow. The joints were simply fastened with sheet metal screws and not riveted. The seems were sealed with duct paste and not taped. I'll probably go that route except fasten everything together with rivets and possibly use tape to seal the joints. The material cost will actually be less than the shipping cost for the clamp together system. Sometimes I hate when I get so anal minded.

[Andrew More]

The seems were sealed with duct paste and not taped. I'll probably go that route except fasten everything together with rivets and possibly use tape to seal the joints.

They likely used mastic which is super easy to apply. Just get a bucket, and a throw away brush and "paint" it on. The only advantage to tape is can be hard to get a brush into areas up against a wall, and it's a bit messy, wear gloves.

[Tom Dixon]

My shop is done completely with spiral pipe and fittinggs from http://blastgateco.com

[Bob Riefer]

My shop is done completely with spiral pipe and fittinggs from http://blastgateco.com

Woah. I literally quit woodworking right now after seeing this. I'm not worthy.

1 - nicely done

2 - do you have a full shop tour someplace?

3 - I'm good at sweeping floors and other no-skill-needed tasks... taking on any helpers? lol

[Steve Mathews]

My shop is done completely with spiral pipe and fittinggs from http://blastgateco.com

Nice work Tom! I really like the Blastgate spiral fittings but they're about 2 1/2 times the cost of the fittings available locally, shipping not included. I'll price everything out again and see what it comes up to buying the pipe locally and the fittings from Blastgate. If it's not too much more I might go that route. Thanks for reminding me of that option.