I had been following the discussions about the clearvue cyclone and others when my computer went south. I have been rearranging my shop to make more full use of my Festool toys. The discussion gave me some ideas, but no great jump in finacial status. I looked into the ClearVue and others. The small ones were 165 to 195+/-. I poked around in my cellar and located a "cyclone" trash can cover that i had bought years ago but did not fit any of my cans. Funny, all these dust catching systems never seem to fit anything they are supposed to collect dust from. Anyhow, i set it on top of my large 30 gal t-can and poked a couple of loose fitting 4" elbows into the holes made for the purpose. the 4" ells did not fit tight, but they did not fall out either. Air leaks all around. I had a short piece of 4" flex tubing that i had cut off when i hooked my planer to my PennState vac long time ago. The planer is the only tool I hook up to the PennState. I ran the long hose from planer to t-can and the short piece from T-can to vac and ran some scraps thru the planer. Voila!!!. I captured shavings in the can. Because of all the air leaks around the cover, I did manage to loose some shavings around the planer. I will deal with that problem later.
I then did a search on Sunday (had gotten my computer back on Friday) and found WoodCraft has small cyclone lids to fit over 5gal pails, of which i have many. i called my toystore and they had just one in stock. Two hours later, back in my shop, lid mounted on bucket and no Festool hoses fit the fittings @ top of cover. Once more, no dust fittings fit anywhere, as seems to nearly always be my plight. I recalled that years ago, when i was in construction, i often had to go from 4" pipes down to 3". Even in construction, unless i got pipes and fittings at same supply, I often ran into the "none fit" problem. Rather than throw fits, we used a rubber sleeve to make the transittion. Only problem, I could not remember what we called the rubber sleve. an early morning call to my son, who does drainage and septic work, and i found the item was called "Fernco" sleeves and Fernco fittings. HD has them. A quick trip to the big store and a handful (bag full) of Ferncos and back to shop. For those who were having problems matching festool hoses to their cyclones, these Ferco sleeves work perfect. Oh, they don't fit perfect. Not by any stretch of the immagination. Some fittings require a super human effort to fit (stretch) over, while other fittings end up very loose with lots of air. Fear not. A good screw driver will take care of the loose fit as each Fernco has an adjustable hose clamp. a few turns of the screw and voila! a perfect fit. No glue necessary and the Ferncos have solved my problems of fit. I'm in business with a $19 "cyclone lid and $27 in Fernco fittings (I got extras) I may, at some future time decide to go with a clearvue of the Oneida small cyclone, but in the meantime, i have saved enough $$$ to start looking into my black and green toy catalogue once more.
A long post to explain the value of a non Festool item that makes life with Festool so much simpler.
Tinker
I then did a search on Sunday (had gotten my computer back on Friday) and found WoodCraft has small cyclone lids to fit over 5gal pails, of which i have many. i called my toystore and they had just one in stock. Two hours later, back in my shop, lid mounted on bucket and no Festool hoses fit the fittings @ top of cover. Once more, no dust fittings fit anywhere, as seems to nearly always be my plight. I recalled that years ago, when i was in construction, i often had to go from 4" pipes down to 3". Even in construction, unless i got pipes and fittings at same supply, I often ran into the "none fit" problem. Rather than throw fits, we used a rubber sleeve to make the transittion. Only problem, I could not remember what we called the rubber sleve. an early morning call to my son, who does drainage and septic work, and i found the item was called "Fernco" sleeves and Fernco fittings. HD has them. A quick trip to the big store and a handful (bag full) of Ferncos and back to shop. For those who were having problems matching festool hoses to their cyclones, these Ferco sleeves work perfect. Oh, they don't fit perfect. Not by any stretch of the immagination. Some fittings require a super human effort to fit (stretch) over, while other fittings end up very loose with lots of air. Fear not. A good screw driver will take care of the loose fit as each Fernco has an adjustable hose clamp. a few turns of the screw and voila! a perfect fit. No glue necessary and the Ferncos have solved my problems of fit. I'm in business with a $19 "cyclone lid and $27 in Fernco fittings (I got extras) I may, at some future time decide to go with a clearvue of the Oneida small cyclone, but in the meantime, i have saved enough $$$ to start looking into my black and green toy catalogue once more.
A long post to explain the value of a non Festool item that makes life with Festool so much simpler.
Tinker
