# Has anyone ever built an air filter?



## Adillo303 (Dec 20, 2010)

As my fledgling shop is coming together I am addressing dust collection.

I bought the Penn State Industries Dustdestroyer. I chose that one because of the 1 micron canister filter. I have it installed and am well pleased. It is reasonably quiet and seems to suck like a banshee. Currently I am using a 20 foot four inch hose and putting it to each tool as I can. Piping is coming. 

My thoughts have wandered to an air filter. I see that several have both the dust collector and an air filter. While sipping coffee one day, it occurred to me that I have a 100,000 BTU natural gas furnace sitting idle. I was wondering about taking the blower motor out of that, building a box and putting a filter on the intake of the box. 

Has anyone tried anything similar? I was going to heat the garage / shop with the furnace. I am apprehensive of running gas, etc.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Andy


----------



## Geoguy (Feb 22, 2008)

I built one out of a furnace blower - on the wall above the junk. Just wired a light switch on the front of the plywood box. It really works.


----------



## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

If you can land a copy, the August Home special publication "The Complete Small Shop" has a great plan for a shop built ambient air cleaner. The one area they skimmed over was wiring it up. Good design though. Uses a small squirrel cage fan, and a couple of allergen filters to keep the air clean...

I got my copy as a freebie when I subscribed to Shop Notes magazine...


----------



## thegrgyle (Jan 11, 2011)

The shopnotes one is a great one.... 

On a sidenote, you might want to invest in making a Thein cyclone separator.... they are great for separating the dust, chips and shavings before it even gets to your DC.


----------



## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

I've seen pics of air filters made out of box fan and furnace filter...not sure how well they work, but here's one example:


----------



## dbhost (Jan 28, 2008)

knotscott, 

A box fan / filtrete rig is what I started out with. They work okay at best. Typically I still use it when I am using a hand sander to blow the dust toward the big filter, and offer some filtration...


----------

