This is Bob. Bob will find the ONE pile of sawdust in Jay’s workshop and walk through it multiple times. Not only did he act as a dust ‘collector’, but also as a dust ‘spreader’. So for Christmas I decided that I would splurge and get Jay a real dust collector.

I did my research because I wanted one that would really work and wouldn’t break after a few uses. As the sole vacuum operator I also wanted one that would keep the majority of the dust under control. Oh, and since the work shop is in the basement I also needed it to be ear-friendly. It costs a pretty penny to meet all of these requirements, but I think that I managed it:

I ordered this a month before Christmas, but it was back ordered until February. Poor Jay had to content himself with drooling over the user’s manual that I had printed off for him. Don’t worry, he didn’t actually read it! I would hate for his Man Card to be erroneously taken. He just looked at the specs so that he could figure out what he would have to do regarding the electrical outlet, etc.

The week it shipped we had gorgeous weather… until the day it was delivered. It poured all day, as you can tell from the picture. There was only one way to get it into the basement: in pieces through the outside entrance. I guess that even then it almost didn’t fit. Jay had to end up taking apart some of the already assembled pieces.

I have no idea how he managed to get it all downstairs by himself, but this is what I found when I got home from work. Don’t be fooled, those pieces are heavy! At least I was assured that it was heavy duty.

The corner was all cleared out and ready for the new occupant. But first it had to be assembled (and parts of it had to be re-assembled!).

This is Jay’s favorite part. He loves putting things together.

This is a cyclone dust collector, which is a two-stage machine. That means it will be better at getting most of the dust that is being created.

It only took Jay a few hours to get it all together. I helped him with parts of it, but then I had to run out to choir practice. Once this part was done he started in on the next phase:

He is running piping along the wall with gates and ports to each of his machines. He has even done some design work when it comes to the fittings:

He 3D printed his own elbow connection for the router table…

… and the adapter for the pipe that leads to the router table.

This is still in process. I believe he has more adapters and connectors to 3D print, plus he has to rewire the basement to put the dust collector on its own circuit. I’m sure it won’t be long before that is done as he’s very anxious to begin using it.