Something obvious I overlooked

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tornitore45
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Something obvious I overlooked

Post by tornitore45 »

If you keep vacuuming up steel chips it wont be long before you will not be able to lift your 10 Gal shop vac to dump it.
Mauro Gaetano
in Austin TX
curtis cutter
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by curtis cutter »

I think there is a drain in the bottom. If you heat the vacuum up to about 2500 degrees it should pour out.
Gregg
Just let go of it, it will eventually unplug itself.
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mcostello
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by mcostello »

Does it compress them enough to make a billet?
Russ Hanscom
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by Russ Hanscom »

There are solutions, but in the end, the garbage man still hates you.
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liveaboard
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by liveaboard »

I pile it up in big buckets, and take it to the scrapyard once every few years with other steel scrap.
Sometimes they even pay me a couple of bucks.

I tried vacuuming, but the curly waste caught the ridges in the hose and a blockage formed within a minute that was fairly aggravating to clean out.
How many of you use a vacuum cleaner for this?
Russ Hanscom
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by Russ Hanscom »

I use the shop vac for most cleanup. Once in a while the long stringy stuff bridges across the end of the hose, but the smaller stuff goes right through. If the hose gets a plug, I finds squeezing the hose by hand compacts the ball so it will go the rest of the way through.

As previously noted, the big problem is dumping a heavy tank after you have neglected it for too long.
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tornitore45
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by tornitore45 »

I use the vacuum a lot. The curly swarf does clog easily so I try to collect those by hand or by sweep but for the small stuff that come from milling is really handy.
If it clogs
First try squeezing the hose
Then send a heavy bar and shake against gravity
Still clogged? Use the big gun
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Mauro Gaetano
in Austin TX
John Hasler
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by John Hasler »

I use a vacuum but it isn't a shop vac. It's the vacuum part of a carpet cleaner, intended for sucking up water from a carpet. The hose is nearly twice the diameter of a shop vac hose (thus less pressure drop) and there is no filter. The flow enters tangentially so that the tank acts as a vortex seperator. There's just a screen over the blower inlet in the center. It is not suitable for fine sawdust without an exhaust hose out the door but it works *very* well for swarf and works as well as a shop vac for other stuff.

Have to be careful not to suck up parts and tools, though.
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tornitore45
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by tornitore45 »

Have to be careful not to suck up parts and tools, though.
It happen so often
Mauro Gaetano
in Austin TX
John Hasler
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by John Hasler »

tornitore45 wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 10:32 am
Have to be careful not to suck up parts and tools, though.
It happen so often
Not hard to pick up a chuck key when vacuuming chips off the drill press table.
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tornitore45
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Re: Something obvious I overlooked

Post by tornitore45 »

I used to spend more time looking for the DP chuck key than drilling, until I tied it. Now it dangle in easy reach.
Can't do that with T-nuts, though.
Mauro Gaetano
in Austin TX
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