Marc: Of course, installing that Cyclone
is only half the battle.
We now have an entire duct system to install
to make sure that all the tools are fully connected
in the most efficient way possible.
Frankly, you can do this yourself.
You can do the calculations
to figure how many CFMs this tool requires,
make sure that this pipe has it.
That's a little bit over my head.
That's something that I think people
spend a lot of time mastering.
It's a knowledge base that I don't really have.
It's something that I really do recommend
that you rely on some of the great services out there.
Pretty much most of the companies that sell ductwork
also have a ductwork planning service,
but they are gonna need something very important
from you, and that is a layout.
They need to know where the tools are,
the distances from the walls,
the distance between the tools,
the distance to the dust collector.
If you can give them that information,
they can design a ductwork system
that'll work for you.
Then also, the great thing is they'll be able
to give you the parts list.
Then you can just purchase that whole set,
bring it to the shop,
lay it out, and you're good to go.
What I recommend using is SketchUp.
If you haven't used it before,
it's a very user-friendly system.
You can actually get models for the individual tools -
you don't have to build them yourself -
and just drop 'em into place,
and you can get a good approximation.
If your shop is already together,
you can just take measurements with a tape measure,
and really think in terms of where the ports are,
if you're having trouble figuring out exactly
where to measure to.
Give that information to the planning service
and you'll be good to go.
Once the ductwork arrives,
I recommend laying it out on the floor,
putting it into its approximate location
where it would be on the ceiling,
and make sure you have all the parts,
all the fittings, all the Ys, all the elbows,
blast gates, everything that you need,
and that'll give you a little bit more confidence
that once you're lifting this stuff
up to the ceiling and assembling it,
piece by piece, you know that everything's
pretty much there and you won't have
to make any emergency trips
or place any extra orders.
The first thing I wanna do is give you a quick tour
of what I've done so far.
I've actually done pretty much most of the work
to get this thing installed,
because I wanna show you one particular branch.
If you see how one branch is installed,
you know how the system works.
You can install any branch that way.
First let me show you the details of the system
that I'm using,
because the ductwork in and of itself
is very, very important.
You could use PVC.
You could use HVAC ductwork, the snap-lock stuff,
but really the thicker, more industrial you can go,
I would say this is something you may want
to stretch your budget on a little bit
because I think it's absolutely worth it
to get the high-quality stuff.
What I've got here is something
that I've never worked with before,
but it's an industrial-type pipe.
It's called Nordfab.
It's very quick to connect the pieces together.
It saves a lot of time and a lot of hassle.
Frankly, this stuff is a dream to work with.
If you can get this stuff, great.
If not, the one thing I would recommend you do -
there's a lot of things that will work -
but stay away from the absolute thin stuff.
I think it's like a 28-gauge material that you can get.
Stay away from that stuff.
That's the things you can get
at like a Home Depot and Lowe's,
your local home center.
That stuff is not really meant
for this type of work.
That can and will collapse under its own weight
or under the suction power
of a good powerful Cyclone or dust collector,
so stay away from the super-thin stuff.
All right, let me show you pretty much
how this system works.
Then we'll go and actually install
one of my final branches.
Here's a typical drop setup.
The horizontal length of straight pipe
needs a 90-degree elbow.
The elbow clamps on quickly and easily.
Not only is this clamping system convenient,
it also joins the pipes with no interior obstructions.
In this scenario, we're splitting the line
to two separate tools, so I add a Y.
Each branch then receives a blast gate
to control the airflow.
To connect the flex hose,
I'll finish off the series
by attaching a flex-hose adapter.
The flex hose slides right on
and is secured with a standard hose clamp.
As you can see, it is a really straightforward system.
There's no screws involved.
You just put the pieces together,
clamp 'em down and move on to the next piece,
but that convenience comes at a price.
Again, this stuff is not cheap,
but I think it really is worth the investment
if you're looking at a fairly permanent setup.
Now that we know how to install one of these pieces,
let's actually go and look at the layout
on the ceiling,
and I'll give you a few tips.
I don't really do this all the time,
so I'm not gonna profess to have any sort
of amazing knowledge on the topic,
but I'll show you what I did.
It made my life a little bit easier
when hanging it,
and then we'll actually install the last branch
of the ducting system.
This is certainly one of the more precarious positions
that I've ever filmed in.
Wish me luck.
What you can see here are straps.
These metal straps are what's basically holding
all the weight of the system,
and holding it to the ceiling.
My rafters, my trusses, are going this way
across the shop,
and they're spaced every 24 inches,
so the cool thing is you can use
your stud finder,
and basically find one,
and then measure every 24 inches from there
to get the locations.
I would suggest pre-marking those with pencil
so you know where they are.
The worst thing is, if you're sitting up here
with a length of pipe and you're trying
to find a stud as you're moving across,
it's probably not a great idea.
If they're pre-marked, you're in good shape.
The other thing is this whole line runs
basically parallel with the wall,
so I wanted to make sure that those marks
that I put in the ceiling were not only showing me
where the stud is located so I can drill right into the truss,
it's showing me a specific distance from the wall.
This way, I know that my pipe is tracking parallel
and not skewing in one direction or the other.
To make my life easier for making those measurements
and keeping this pipe parallel,
I just cut myself a piece of scrap here,
cut to the exact length,
that basically represents the distance
from the wall to the center of my pipe,
so whenever I laid out one of the truss locations,
I put this guy right up into the corner,
mark it with a pencil,
and I'd have an exact reference line
that just keeps my head straight.
When you're up on a ladder like this,
and you're trying to look around,
It's very difficult to tell when things
are going perfectly parallel,
and nice and straight and level.
So, things like this will really help a lot.
But, having those marks on the ceiling
ahead of time just makes your life
a whole lot easier and,
frankly, makes the installation much safer.
Here's a look at the hardware
that I'm gonna use to hang the ductwork.
There's a lot of different ways you can hang ductwork.
This one just works for me.
I find it simple and easy
for a one-man operation.
What I use primarily is this metal strapping material.
It's fairly flexible,
and it's got different-sized holes in here,
but when secured properly, it's really strong.
I'm gonna use a lot of these
along the length of the pipe,
so that no one is bearing the entire load.
What I recommend against is using
a very similar material,
but it's plastic.
This strapping, it's fairly strong
but you run into a problem
where this stuff can very easily stretch.
Depending on the type of screw you use,
under a lot of weight this could certainly give,
and cause you some serious problems.
I recommend not using that.
When I have an actual stud to go into,
or a truss, I'm gonna use one of my regular wood screws,
but the problem is the taper head on these -
and I'm using this because I have a lot of these -
the taper head can really cause an issue
because just like I mentioned with the plastic stuff,
it can cause the material to give as it follows that taper.
Either use a panhead screw,
or you can actually get yourself a little washer.
By putting a washer on there,
it may not look the best,
but it certainly gets the job done.
It distributes the pressure
around the outside of that hole,
and gives you a whole lot more support.
There's less of a tendency for that
to pull and stretch against the holes
that we have here.
The other thing you might want to consider is
sometimes you just don't have wood to screw into.
You need to go into the drywall for support,
and I recommend just using good old toggle bolts for these.
The difference here is you're gonna need a washer.
So, I put a washer on one end,
put it through the strap,
and then connect the actual toggle dealie.
Screw your hole in through the drywall,
pop this guy through,
and then you've got a
pretty good secure connection that way.
This is really the selection of things
that I'm gonna use to hang all of my ductwork.
You can take measurements with this stuff,
but I find it much easier to work
with the actual pieces,
because sometimes it's difficult to tell
how far out a piece is going to be
when a fitting is attached.
I just find it easier to put that fitting on there,
and hold the piece up.
This stuff isn't that heavy
if you're just dealing with one or two small pieces.
What I'm gonna do is hold this piece up,
bring it so that the elbow pretty much
touches the wall,
and then I've got my Sharpie ready
to make the mark where it actually intersects
with the other connection here, the other fitting.
I'm just gonna put a mark here.
To cut the pipe, I mark a second line
a few inches back from the first.
This makes the pipe a little bit short,
but that's okay.
I use one of the clamps to extend the line
all the way around the pipe.
I then use a drill to create a hole
that's big enough to accept my jigsaw blade.
With a metal-cutting blade installed,
I cut the pipe by keeping the tool still
and rotating the pipe with my free hand.
To attach the nipple, (laughs) nipple,
I simply slide it on to the cut side of the pipe.
The included rubber O-ring is then rolled over
to the cut side,
and a clamp joins the two pieces together.
Now back on the ladder, with the elbow attached,
we're going to line everything up,
and see how we did.
I have to pull it back, I don't know -
maybe about two inches.
This is actually a quick adjustment
I can make right up here.
Loosen the clamp,
bring this guy back about two inches.
Now, if your main line is nice and secure,
and you've got a lot of support
you should have no problem putting
a small length of pipe like this out unsupported.
You may see it sag a little bit,
but the next thing we're gonna do is
secure this end up at the corner there,
and that'll take all the weight off.
Just for the few minutes that we need
to get all that stuff ready,
this should be just fine.
I'm just gonna slip my clamp on,
and then clamp it in place.
The next order of business is to think
about exactly how we want the dust collection
to resolve down here.
Once we figure that out,
we just need to make the connection
with a straight pipe up to that elbow up there.
We actually have this from our demo earlier.
and this gives us an idea of exactly
how these pieces are going to work.
You have to look at where the ports are
on your various machines,
and see if you can decide on a way
that limits the amount of flex tubing
that you have to use.
Bottom line is you just can't get away
from using it.
You just want to limit the amount.
I'm thinking a good height - 'cause part of the thing
that I'm concerned about is
where the blast gates are and I don't want
to have to stretch too far to get the blast gates -
so I think right about here.
I think if this got terminated right about in this area -
maybe at the bottom of this outlet,
that probably would be pretty good.
It certainly doesn't always work out this way,
but check this out.
This is a full, uncut, five-foot length,
right up to the elbow,
and look where the bottom terminates.
Sometimes, you get lucky.
I'm gonna install the other blast gate.
Of course, the connections are all gonna be made
on a tool-by-tool basis, depending on your needs.
You should be able to easily get a piece
of four-inch flex pipe on to the fitting,
and then on to the tool itself.
There we go.
Now, that's all there is to assembling one
of these ductwork systems.
We did an entire drop, went down to the Y,
and split off to two separate tools.
That's pretty typical in my shop.
I have a lot of tools clustered together,
although my bandsaws are separated,
and they're the only ones that have a single drop.
Every other one is something like this,
and really, if you do one,
you know how to do the rest.
You just might have a slight variance
in the type of Y that you use,
or the diameter of the ductwork
that's dropping down,
but the principle is the same.
If you're not using Nordfab,
you just have a little bit more work ahead of you.
You probably have a little more trouble
cutting the material.
I know I've installed the snap-lock pipe before,
and I've cut them by hand,
which can really wear you out pretty quickly.
But, the bottom line is you just
put a little bit more effort into it and you'll still end up
with a very serviceable ductwork system.
I have to say, for the amount
that I change my mind -
and if you've been watching this show long enough,
you know that I change my mind pretty darn frequently,
probably more than I change my underwear -
so I need a system that is adaptable,
a system that can be disassembled and re-assembled
without wasting parts and material.
This fits the bill perfectly for me.
We've done the assembly of one drop,
but I would like to show you some of the other drops,
and also just give you an idea
of what the entire system looks like,
so you can see the thought process
that went behind it.
There's some unique things about this one,
so let's check it out.
The intake chute of the Cyclone
features a custom transition that connects
to a piece of flexible metal ductwork.
Think of it like one of those bendy straws
that kids and my wife enjoy drinking out of.
The next connection is a Y that sends a branch
out to the planer and drum sander.
You can see I also have a capped Y at the top
that allows for future expansion.
You can see the two drops here
for both of these tools, individually controlled,
with each having its own blast gate,
and it basically reduces down
from six inches, eventually to four inches,
where I have this flex tube attached.
The next connection is another Y
that sends a branch to the table saw and jointer,
followed by a branch for the stationery sanders.
Later, I have drops for each of the bandsaws.
The drop for the table saw and the jointer,
this is important to be able
to really close each one off effectively
and as close to the Y as possible,
because, obviously, both of them produce a lot of dust,
and there's a pretty long flex-tube run
to get these things connected.
I wanted to make sure I had
as much air movement there as possible.
You see what I did here is,
even after the reduction after the blast gate,
I had some small four-inch elbows
that helped me make this turn a little bit,
and it's always better to make those turns
very slightly and with rigid material if you can.
So, I've got one that helps me go
in the proper direction for the jointer,
and another that just gives me a little bit
of direction for the table saw.
Even though my old system in the old shop
was also a Clear Vue, CV 1800,
the ductwork was really its major down flaw.
I just did the best I could
with what I had at the time,
and it was a lot of hodgepodge materials.
and I had to make a lot of turns.
Every time you make a turn,
and you take your main line and turn it 90 degrees,
you're losing airflow.
The other thing was, the ceilings were so darn high,
and I had those big drops
to pull all of that material up,
so one thing that constantly plagued me was
clogging in the jointer.
In fact, even though this guy's been
in storage for a long time,
there's a ton of dust wedged inside the system.
I don't know - if you look closely,
you can actually see it right at the port.
Just for fun, I figured I would fire up the system,
and see what happens, leaving this line open,
and just seeing if it's gonna pull it out.
and if it does, how effectively.
So, let's see what happens.
(sound of machinery)
That was pretty cool.
As you can see,
the new setup makes a huge difference.
I even let that run a little bit longer,
and I noticed some maple coming out.
I don't know when the last project was
that I had actually built with maple,
so that stuff has been stuck and caked
in there for a while,
and this system was able to pull it out.
That's really just a testament to the ductwork setup,
because I had the CV 1800 setup at the other shop,
and I wasn't able to collect that efficiently.
It really comes down to not only having
a good-quality, powerful system,
but coupling that with a ductwork system
that's been designed by someone who knows
what the heck they're doing.
I designed the other one myself,
and it was horrible as a result.
It's very important that you take advantage
of these design services.
If you're gonna go through the expense,
the time, the effort, to do a ducted system,
do it right because it's gonna make a
huge impact on the final result.
Frankly, if you have the ductwork designed right,
you may not need quite as powerful
of a system as you think you need.
Don't use brute force.
Use knowledge to make sure
that this is done efficiently.
So, that's really about it.
I want to wish you guys a happy
woodworking safety day.
Stay safe in your shops,
and if you have any questions
about this dust-collection stuff,
let's talk about it in the comments.
I don't know a whole lot about it,
but after this experience,
I definitely have a better perspective on
what you might need to do for the most efficiency.
Thanks for watching and, once again,
happy woodworking safety day.
(mellow music)