How to "control" resin shavings while turning

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KMCloonan

KMCloonan

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Round Lake, Illinois
I am sure this has probably been discussed many times on this forum, but my querying/searches did not yield anything.

I would like to know if anyone has a decent way to collect/control resin shavings/ribbons while turning? I have a 4" dust collection system in my shop, and I hooked up a large dust collection hood to catch stuff as it flies off while turning. This works very well for wood blanks, and even hybrid wood & resin blanks.

When I put a solid resin (in my case mostly Alumilite) blank on the lathe and start turning, everything goes ok while the blank is getting rounded. A lot of small chips fly off and some are sucked into the vacuum hood. A lot also land on my hands and stay there due to static electricity, but I can simply blow off my hands and the little chips fly off.

Where it gets really annoying is when the blank is round - as I'm sure everyone has done, the cutter slices off continuous strips of the resin into long ribbons. Some of these ribbons wind themselves around the blank - I use an old toothbrush to scrub them off. Some ribbons get sucked into the vacuum hood, but often times they form a large, tangled mass in the dust collection system which I end up surgically removing once the vacuum pull is noticeably weaker. I even tried putting a screen in the vacuum hood to catch the ribbons - that lasted about 30 seconds. The screen gets full of resin ribbons and quickly clogs the screen.

Does anyone just let the ribbons fly and clean them up later? Our house must have low humidity lately, because these ribbons stick to everything in sight with static electricity and are a pain to clean up.

I welcome any advice/things you do that work to keep the resin ribbons under control.

Thanks!
Kevin
 
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Kevin; I have a dust hood that gets all the ribbons and sanding dust. I have a "Y" connector in front of the dust collector. Just inside that is a screen to keep large pieces out of the DC. I clean the screen off when the DC doesn't suck any more by pulling the cap off the "Y" and pulling out the ribbons. You may want to check out a cyclone style dust bucket.
 
Very dry here in Colorado! They do stick to everything. I try to get the dust collector positioned so it gets most of it. I tend to get the accumulation on the tail stock. I take the gauge insert it into the ball of shavings. I make a quick flip up and rotate. Grabs the ball. Flick it into the dust collector. Works for me.
 
I purchased this from Penn State earlier this year and it works like a champ usually I have a ton of shavings every where but clean up took no time at all since this sucked everything into the collector.
 
I would like to add that if using something like Jerry shows, you still need to clean the line and or the dust collector depending what type you use. I found that any slight bend the strands collect to the sides of the hose and or at the connector into the dust collector. they can also collect around the impeller so cleaning is still needed after some time. You may or may not notice the sucking power goes down. Just a point of interest because nothing is full safe.
 
KMCloonan said:
I am sure this has probably been discussed many times on this forum, but my querying/searches did not yield anything.

I would like to know if anyone has a decent way to collect/control resin shavings/ribbons while turning? I have a 4" dust collection system in my shop, and I hooked up a large dust collection hood to catch stuff as it flies off while turning. This works very well for wood blanks, and even hybrid wood & resin blanks.

When I put a solid resin (in my case mostly Alumilite) blank on the lathe and start turning, everything goes ok while the blank is getting rounded. A lot of small chips fly off and some are sucked into the vacuum hood. A lot also land on my hands and stay there due to static electricity, but I can simply blow off my hands and the little chips fly off.

Where it gets really annoying is when the blank is round - as I'm sure everyone has done, the cutter slices off continuous strips of the resin into long ribbons. Some of these ribbons wind themselves around the blank - I use an old toothbrush to scrub them off. Some ribbons get sucked into the vacuum hood, but often times they form a large, tangled mass in the dust collection system which I end up surgically removing once the vacuum pull is noticeably weaker. I even tried putting a screen in the vacuum hood to catch the ribbons - that lasted about 30 seconds. The screen gets full of resin ribbons and quickly clogs the screen.

Does anyone just let the ribbons fly and clean them up later? Our house must have low humidity lately, because these ribbons stick to everything in sight with static electricity and are a pain to clean up.

I welcome any advice/things you do that work to keep the resin ribbons under control.

Thanks!
Kevin
Click to expand...
yes! I've not seen anyone come up with a foolproof method either and would love one. Well, that's not 100% true I guess. My son was turning a resin blank last week and had his shop assistant (I'll give you one guess who) holding the end of the dust collector/separator near the turning and it sucked up all the ribbons quite nicely. I find that with my particular dust collector/separator (it does both) if I notice something in the line then just a shake of the line resolves it.

I have been eyeing the various systems like the one Seer posted the video showing how well it works. Nothing is going to be 100%. I'm just looking for a lot better than what I've got. If my daughter happens to be in the shop she'll stand there and brush the ribbons away for me while I turn but that doesn't always work well either. I'm just not sure which one is the best one to use.

I have another friend who has the Rockler version of the PSI vacuum attachment. He says it works pretty well and I'm pretty sure that one mounts on the banjo. Rockler actually has a pair of them with different methods to hold them in place now that I look

The PSI one is neat in the fact that it's clear and seems to wrap around the turning work better than rockler's. On the flip side, that would mean the Rockler attachment might work better with a larger selection of items.

Exotic Blanks has a pen makers dust trap also, it looks like it might be the PSI one but I'm not sure.
 
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