Trading Spaces!

Miss Ginger has spent a lot of time showing you her beautiful craft space inside the house, so she decided it's long overdue to show you the space Boy G made for himself in the extra bay of the garage!  He's been spending a lot of time out there lately, and that's why he hasn't been keeping this blog updated like he should! Now's the time to "write that wrong!" (Did you see what he just did there?! Try the veal, folks- he's here all week! )

Boy G built this sturdy workbench to give himself plenty of space for working up top, plus lots of room down below for storage.  The big tools are all arranged in an "L" shape along the wall behind it, and across the opening of the bay door. 

All of those tools generate lots of sawdust, but most dust collectors are large and would waste way too much space, but Boy G didn't want to have to drag a shop vac from tool to tool, either.

His solution was to use a wall-mounted shop vac like this one, and to use 1- 1/2 inch PVC pipe to permanently route the suction to each tool.  He knew PVC would work, since that what is used in the house's central vacuum system, but he needed to be able to control the flow of air at each tool, since the shop vac can only create enough suction to clear one tool at a time.  Another dilemma:  the blast gates designed to go on regular shop equipment are too large for this PVC jury rig.

Miss Ginger to the rescue! That girl loves to shop, and she found these PVC valves at the home center, and they work perfectly! Boy G opens just the one on the tool he is using, and the full suction of the shop vac pulls the dust away! 

The other problem Boy G quickly discovered is that the filters on shop vacs clog very quickly with that much sawdust moving across them.

The answer is this little gem, attached to the top of a 5 gallon bucket! The Dust Deputy is fitted between the shop vac and the PVC running to the tools, and it uses the principles of a cyclone to to remove the sawdust from the airstream before the air reaches the filters. Maximum suction all the time and no clogged filters- ingenious! The Dust Deputy definitely earns Miss Ginger's coveted: 

5 LIPSTICKS AWARD!

Boy G also added this little treasure to his collection- the Jet 10141 Mini Lathe.  It's just a little fella compared to a normal woodworking lathe, but it's perfect for spinning wood into all sorts of FABULOUS pieces for Miss Ginger's projects.  It is solid as a rock, and really fun to use! 





Stay tuned to see what kind of "trash to treasure" trinkets the G's have teamed up to create!