I will make an attempt at a drawing and parts list on post to the
al.tbinaries.pictures.woodworking site sometime later today.

Deb

Dr. Deb wrote:

Being married to a "real" Yankee, who is Scottish to boot, has had a
marked
influence on me. I am now offically "frugal," though most would call it
cheap.

With that intro.

Several months ago I bought a 1600CFM dust collector from Harbor Freight.
I
knew the 1600CFM was "optimistic." When it arrived what I had was a dust
collector with two very porous (30+ micron) bags, one to collect and one
for the "filter." So in effect there were two very porous filter bags. I
replaced the collection bag with a black plastic bag and the filter with a
"shaker felt" bag from Highland Hardware. Filtration increaded
dramatically, CFM dropped even more dramatically. I now had about a
600CFM dust collector - at $149.95, still not a bad deal.

However, I decided to upgrade the system a bit. Lo and behold! CFM is
now up to about 1200.

Here is the upgrade, (total cost about $60.00)

I ordered to collector rings (Part #33) for my dust collector (model #
45378) at $14.35 a piece for a total of about $32.00 when s/h is added. I
ordered another "shaker felt" filter bag from Highland Hardware for
$29.95, about $34.00 with s/h.

I then built a box 21w X 42L X 5H box, divided it on the top into two
squares with a 5" cross piece, then put 2 1/2 wide peices around the
inside of each opening and triangular corner blocks to give me two
octagonal
openings about 16"w. On the botton of the box i located a similar opening
in the center of the bottom. Then put two pieces of 1/4 luan between the
bottom frame and the upper ends to give me a slope for the dust to slide
down into the collection bag.

Then I mounted the box to the collector on the dust collector with angle
braces and caulked the joint. I took the two new collectors, cut most of
the inlet off of one and cut slots in the other inlet, then slid one
inside
the other and screwed them together with sheet metal screws. I then
mounted the two collectors over the top holes, secured with angle braces
and caulked. Then attached the bags in their respective places and turned
it on. Worked like a champ. Total cost for a moveable 1200CFM dust
collector, about $220.00 (dust collector, collectors, bag)

Deb