I got a late start that morning. Figures when you're in a hurry to get out of the house things always take to long. When I showed up Bill had already built the upper and lower parts of the cyclone.

I tried my hand as soldering but it was much faster and used less solder to have Bill do the soldering. So I was relegated to the helper, which worked out well. After soldering the seams together we rolled the flange that attached the lower part of the cyclone to the upper part.

Then we attached the two parts together and rolled the flange over and soldered it.

After that we formed the inlet and attached it to the cyclone.

Since I'm going to use my existing Reliant dust collector's impeller, motor and stand

I started taking it apart so that we could figure out how everything is going to layout.

We'll put the impeller/motor to the left and blow through a 6" diameter pipe into the inlet of the cyclone on the far right (not shown), then out through the plenum into the filter stack in the middle. Before I left Bill soldered the air ramp into the cyclone and I punched the holes to hold the donut on the top. Once the filters come in from Wynn Environmental I can finish putting it together. In the two days with Bill, he told me a ton of useful information, which I'm afraid I probably won't remember all of it.

Back at my shop I installed the top donut (you can see the air ramp inside)

Then installed the outlet:

 

And when I looked inside the cyclone there was a strange creature looking back at me.

Some bondo to make the seams look better and then the first coat of primer.

Update 1-22-07

Next I built the plenum. The Plenum consists of a top and bottom of MDF and a couple pieces of laser cut sheet metal between them. The plenum connects the outflow of the cyclone to the inflow of the filters.

First I cut the bottom piece using a circle cutter for my router. You can see I've cut the piece to shape and have the lines drawn to cut the holes out for the air flow and for the sheet metal.

Then I cut the slot for the sheet metal.

Last I cut the holes for the air flow.

Then I cut the top piece which is the same except it doesn't have holes for the air to flow through.

Then I fit the sheet metal to the top.

And then I fit the top piece on to the sheet metal.

I still have to drill holes to run some bolts to secure the top and bottom together, connect the two pieces of sheet metal together and to paint it.

 

Update 3-12-07

Next comes the clean out. Just a MDF box with a hole in the top and a hole in the side for a PVC fitting.

Since I have a metal 6" wye coming off the blower, and I currently have the shop plumbed with 4" PVC I needed to make a metal to PVC connection. Since 4" PVC is a about the same diameter at the 6" to 4" metal reducer, but won't fit over the 4" side of the reducer, I heated the PVC until it fit over the metal. When it cooled it made a tight joint.

Now I needed to figure out what I was going to do for a collection barrel. So I needed to figure out how much room I had. So I assembled the frame and put all the parts and pieces together.

Turns out I only have 27" to the bottom of the cyclone. A search of the BORG shows that they sell a metal trash can that the top lid is just a hair under 27". But that doesn't leave any room for the trash can lid. Time to inprovise. I decided to make a MDF lid and a plywood donut that the lid attaches to.

Ok so the donut isn't too pretty. Doesn't have to be it'll be covered. The lid attached directly to the cyclone outlet.

And is secured by a half a dozen knobs.

You can see the window I cut in the barrel and the two that are in the top, in the hope that I remember to watch the level before it fills up into the cyclone.

Now to install the barrel, plug it in and see what happens.

Here's a picture through one of the top windows after a handful or two of saw dust in fed into the blower opening.