Garage vacuum suggestions?

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Mon Jun 15, 2015 4:04 pm

I am curious as to what others do with respect to having some type of garage vacuum. I currently mostly use a combo of compressed air (to blow things off tables) plus broom and dust pan (which generally works well). Yes there is the obligatory wet/dry "Shop Vac" and I have one of those, but I am more curious about something smaller and handheld. My concern with small dust buster style is that I can see me using this to vacuum up oil covered metal shavings from my mini-lathe or mini-mill and that might not work well with something that I assume is designed for home use??

What is working (or not working) for people people in their garage/shop?

Richard

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

I pulled a regular hoover upright vac out of my neighbor's trash and I've been using that for a few years, works great. The bags don't seem to mind slightly oily stuff, but I don't try to vacuum up anything truly wet.

BenjaminGuardiola · **Joined:** Wed May 14, 2014 8:31 am **Posts:** 84

I've got a handheld wet/dry vac from Dewalt. Came with a cordless set I bought awhile ago. Works well for small clean-ups, but I wouldn't pay the $100+ to purchase it by itself.
I'm sure you can find something similar in a corded model for a reasonable price. Looks like there are several options on Amazon in the $40 range.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Tue Jun 16, 2015 10:56 am

Thanks for the replies.

Regarding Mike pulling a vacuum out of the garbage... About five years ago I toyed with the idea of making my own cyclonic dust filter for my media blasting cabinet. I looked at some DIY stuff as well as some commercial dust collectors and decided I might try to find a broken Dyson and use it as the core of some type of home built system. A coworker said that he had a busted Dyson that I could have for free. So I get it and it looks to be an early Dyson and I don't know the history of what is wrong other than he says "it doesn't work". It was filthy and if you have a Dyson (and we have one for the house) you know that you do have to periodically clean the cyclonic/centrifugal air path and the final stage foam filter with some soap and water, but it's EASY to clean. So I clean it up and find that it works just fine and is perfect minus missing attachments. It just was clogged up with crap after a lot of use with no cleaning. I am embarrassed to say that I took a perfectly good Dyson and hooked it up to my media cabinet. I am sure the fine glass bead particle dust is tough on the Dyson, but it has been working fine as a dust collector for years.

Regarding the handheld. I guess I am going to start looking into reviews on Amazon for a cordless handheld wet/dry.

If anyone else has experiences to share, please post!

Richard

Scott Johnson · **Posted:** Thu Jun 18, 2015 1:40 pm

I have This one. It was a gift, so I can't complain, but I wouldn't buy it. It just doesn't suck enough.

It's fine for saw dust, but I have to work harder for sand/carpet cleaning. The extension tubes are also very fragile (thin, brittle plastic). My much older shop vac has a lot better suction, but it much less convenient.

Richard Casto · **Posted:** Thu Jun 18, 2015 5:13 pm

I found one site online that talked about doing a whole house vacuum system in your garage, but with ports for the hoses in various locations around the garage and even dropping from the ceiling. That is more than I care to deal with and I really want something small/handheld. I ended up gambling on this...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006LXOJC0

Time will tell if it can deal with messier (i.e. oily) stuff.

Richard

George Bright · **Posted:** Thu Jun 18, 2015 7:49 pm

Richard I would expect your dust buster will not do very well on oil and other liquids. The filter is so close to the bin that it would get wet in a flash. Bob Kendrick has one of these for household cleaning and his wife likes it a lot because it has very good suction. The built in would probably not work well on liquids if you plumbed lines overhead because it would be very hard to move liquids that high with air. If you wall mounted it and used a hose out the side of the unit then you would not have to lift the liquids so high.

THSCC Forums

Garage vacuum suggestions?

Who is online