I`m using a Mac Tool bench cabinet and when i blast away it fills the cabinet with so much dust i cant see the part. i read that you can hook your shop vac to the cabinet but cant find any diagrams. i was using black beauty but am gonna try some gl*** bead stuff. i blast mostly small car parts and want to make this cabinet work better. how do you hook the shop vac to the cabinet? woint the dust hurt the shop vac motor? Appreciate your help......thanks ...... Jim
If i remember correctly the motor is completly isolated from the particulant... thats why some can **** up water... and there should be some plate or something covering a seperate hole were the hose would go through..
seems like my cabinet came with a hole in it already just for that purpose. if yours does not have a hole, make one and stick the end of your hose in it. I'd say it shouold be a tight fit. my shop vac has got to be 10 years old at least. I can't even begin to imagine how many hours of sandblasting I've done with it. gotta be a couple hundred hours at least, no troubles yet... just clean the filter at regular intervals.
this might sound dump. i had the same problem and it was due to the pressure i was using. i had no regulator and was just going full blast at 150psi. i installed a regulator and turned it down to 50psi and i was much better.
you will need some additional small holes to let some air in as well otherwise the vac will be workin real hard. it's a bit of a balance. hook it up and see what happens. cheers......
Your vent hole (holes) should be directly opposite the suction source. that way you get cross flow air that will take the dust out of you field of vision. Frank
I use a liner bag in my shop-vac that is meant for drywall dust. Before I went to this, I was constantly plugging the filter. It works great.
Take your vac hose end to the big box store and find pvc fittings that will match up to the hose end. Then cut the hole in the cabinet to fit. A drywall dust filter bag for the shop vac will add some protection to the vac and your lungs. My cabinet has a deflector over the air inlet to keep the blasting media in the cabinet. Jim
An old piece of scotchbrite makes a good cover over the air vent (into cabinet) to keep errant pieces of sand from bouncing out.
I use my old shop vac and added a pipe to the inside inlet that points down to the bottom then add a few inches of water to kill the dust.Just dump it and add fresh every so often before it gets stinky. I rigged a new switch to the cabinet light that has a plug on it so when I turn the light on to work the vacuum comes on with it.
On the old Ford Barn there was a tech article Skinned Knuckles magazine that had this article about a filter system used for a blast cabinet. http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/scans/SKfilter1.pdf http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/scans/SKfilter2.pdf
I use my shop vac also but I took a couple of 30 gal drums and made a seperator out of them copying the high dollar ones for about $20.00. The whole concept is to use fast air and slow air in these drums to seperate the dust particulates, since I did this I rarely even find dust in my vac. The seperator I clean every few years and it will have just a little media in it. I will try to get pics later today.
It will also help to change your grit to anything other than black beauty. Although cheap, coal slag produces a lot of dust since it breaks down quick.
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