55 Gallon Drum Collection guide

vid1900

New member
I was looking at the Parks collection system, but apparently it is not in production right now (let alone the price):

http://www.parksandparks.com/cyclone_dust_bagger.html


So I decided to build my own.

1. I went to the car wash to get a drum.

Vid: Can I take one of those plastic drums?
Sam from car wash: My friend, I would give them all to you, but they charge me a $10 deposit on them!
Vid: Here is $15.
Sam: Thank you cousin, pick a nice one.

I wanted a translucent one so I could see as the dust fill up. They are made of HDPE (High Density PolyEthylene). Don't take any that have the skull and crossbones label, take the ones that smell like public restroom liquid soap.

2. Wash it out. Some of the pink soap is still frozen at the bottom. I ran the hose from the laundry sink outside so I could have hot water. It took less than 2 minutes for the water to run out without any suds.

3. Cut the lid off. HDPE is slick stuff, so it would be too dangerous to use a 7" saw. Instead I put a piloted router bit in my router and cut it out in 20 seconds. The top of the drum has a "neck" to it that acts as a natural guide. The chips look like long grains of rice.

4. Clean off the edge. The top of the drum is likely nicked and scratched and we don't want any sharp edges that will rip up our plastic bag liner. I used a roundover bit in the router to give a nice, clean edge. At some point I may even put a rubber lip guard around the edge.

5. Next I needed the 6" port to accept the incoming dust. I flipped the drum over and cut a hole in the bottom to accept a piece of 6" pipe to function as a neck. Here I used a circle router jig to make the hole.

6. The 6" pipe fit really tight in the hole, but I still heated a few screws and ran them in and then caulked it with silicone.

8. Uline has large clear, 60 gallon bags to fit these, giant rubber bands to go around them and even a drum dolly with 4 caster wheels if you don't want to make your own:

http://www.uline.com/

I can post some pictures if you guys need them.
 
Thanks for the Instructions! I also picked up some of those from a car wash supplier and they are great. Also I have tried the parks and parks bagger and the problem I had was that i couldn't lift the 55 gallons of dust! And the bags broke if i tried.

Are you collecting mostly chips or dust? Have you had either of those problems?

Thanks again for the post and pics would be great for everyone if you wouldn't mind.

Thanks,

Matt
 
HDPE Barrel

HDPE Barrel

Is the white HDPE barrel translucent enough to see the sawdust level inside?
 
I have not filled a bag yet with chips and dust to know how heavy it will be, but they make clear bags all the way to 6 mills, so there is no way that is going to tear.

There is White HDPE and there is Natural (clear but whitish). If you look, they have a scale on the side of the Natural ones, so you can see how many gallons of liquid is left in the barrel. So, yes you can see the amount of dust in them.

If you wanted a cool project, you could router a long slit and install a clear plexiglass window. Then you would be worshiped by the entire forum.

I did take some pics, I'll resize them in the next few days.

Vid
 
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