# My Thein Separator



## mikeintexas

I finally got my Thein Separator built. First, a big thank you to everyone that has posted pics of their Thein; I'm a visual person and need to see what something looks like before I can attempt to build or take it apart. Instructions are nice, but there's nothing like pictures. :thumbsup: I built mine using a combination of the original Phil Thein instructions found here http://www.jpthien.com/smf/index.php?topic=137.0
pictures of Phil's original build here http://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm and of course, all the pics found on this and other woodworking sites. The fittings are 4" dust collector fittings from Harbor Freight. I wanted to use these vs. regular PVC fittings to ensure my standard 4" dust hoses would fit. Plus, these fittings have a "shoulder" in the middle, so you cut the hole in lid so it's a snug fit, squish the fitting in up to the shoulder and you're good. Fittings are held in with hot melt glue...that sets really fast.  I used 1/2" threaded rod that came in 13" precut pieces (from Lowes). I don't own a tap/die set (one of the few tools I _don't_ have) so I didn't want to mess with cutting a big piece of all-thread with a hacksaw and mangling the threads. 8" or longer hex bolts have a 2" area at the top with no thread, so they wouldn't work. 6" bolts were too short; I tried those. The container is a 20 gallon metal garbage can. I ordered it through Amazon. My local big box stores only carry the 30 gallon metal cans and that's too big for my shop. This can size is perfect for my use.

I can tell you that I was a bit intimidated by this thing. Everyone seems to have made theirs a different size, with different size ports which requires a bigger drop slot, etc, etc. I was worried I'd do all this work for nothing. But I stared at pics for hours, measured many times before cutting and am 99% happy with what I wound up with. That missing 1% is due to hot melt glue, which dries too quickly, but more on that in a minute. No pictures, no Thein, so here we go!

The money shot. Here's what the whole assembly looks like. I wish the picture was a bit brighter, but that's cell phone pics for you. It may appear that one of the threaded rods is in the airpath, but I assure you it is not. I was very careful to locate the 3 threaded rods "inboard" of the airpath. The threaded rods are located 2.5" from the edge of the center hole, on 120-degree centers. BTW, one thing I obsessed over was which way the elbow "points" right or left? Phil's original instructions don't mention this and I couldn't find reference to it in the 2,000 threads I must've read (maybe I missed it?) But Phil's pictures show the elbow pointing right, so that's how I made mine.










The underside. The slot is "the regulation" 1.25" wide, 240 degrees around.









Center port









Elbow. There's approximately 1.5" b/t the bottom of the elbow and the bottom baffle. The elbow was SUPPOSED to be about 1" further up, into the lid, but my glue gun ran out of glue while I was gluing the elbow in. By the time I got another glue stick in there, the glue I had put in the hole in the lid was almost dry. I was lucky to ram the elbow in this far. There's about 1" of pipe sticking up through the lid, which is just enough to get the hose clamp on there. See pic after this one.










Fittings glued into lid. As I said above, the elbow (on the left in this pic) was SUPPOSED to stick up another inch. Darn hot melt glue! /shakes fist The stuff DOES stick like gorilla snot though.










Lid underside. Getting the channel around the edge correct was a PITA. I used a scrap piece of 1/4" plywood to do my test cutting/fitting on the garbage can. I'm proud of the way it turned out.










Closer pic of the lid/channel. I wanted more meat on the outisde of the channel. I.E. I wanted the lid to be larger in diameter, but my Jasper circle jig only cuts up to a 17.75" disc. THe channel is 1/4" deep, FYI.









Lid fit. It's nice and snug. As far as I can tell, it's airtight. The groove/channel I cut in the lid works REALLY well.









These metal cans are not welded together. The seams are pinched together. So I sealed all the seams (side and bottom) as well as where the handles are with normal household silicone. Really helps with airtightness, IMO.









Lid/hoses. You can see the hot melt glue squish-out. There are no air leaks here.









Just enough of the elbow sticking up to get the hose on there (left hose)

















Shot with my 2HP Harbor Freight DC in the background. I will be getting a Wynn filter to replace the lousy bag. But in the meantime, this separator will help tremendously, as you'll see a couple of pics from now.









Cont'd below.


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## mikeintexas

*Continued from above (too many images)*

Size comparison. That's a 14 Gallon shop vac.









With a ruler.









Now the real money shot. From what I've read, the Thein's that most folks construct to a fine job with bigger shavings, but not so well with fine dust, which is what the bane of the woodworker really is. What's the finest dust out there? MDF dust for sure. My lid and baffle are 3/4" MDF (I hate MDF but had it laying around). Routing the channels, cutting the discs, drilling the MDF made SO MUCH dust. I blew a lot of it out of the garage with my compressor earlier in the day, but still had a ton of it to vacuum up. I vacuumed it up with the shop vac, then used the HF DC and my separator to not only suck up what was in the shop vac, but to CLEAN THE FILTER! You KNOW MDF dust will clog a shop vac filter in a heartbeat. Well, I can tell you the filter is clean and check out what was in the Thein can.










Kind of hard to see in the pic, but the pile towards the top of the can is about 2" thick and the sides of the can were coated. I did not do a scientific test and weigh the before and after dust, nor did I empty the bag on the DC first...too much trouble. But logic tells me that if the Thein collected this much MDF DUST, it should have ZERO problem with larger shavings. How well the hose will stay on the elbow remains to be seen but so far, it's on there pretty good. VERY HAPPY with how this project turned out!


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## Dave Paine

Happy to see another good Thien baffle build. Well done. :thumbsup:

With a small shop vac, the separator should really help to avoid cleaning out the shop vac.

I put one inside my dust collector. Like yours, mine is working well.


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## mikeintexas

Thanks, Dave. I also bought a 4" to 2.5" reducer so I could use the separator with my shop vac, spindle sander and in the future, a router table. The stock bag on the HF DC is not that great. A lot of fine dust gets out. B/T the Thein and the Wynn filter I will buy in the near future, I should be covered for dust collection. I'm just a home hobbyist, so my DC needs are pretty meager. Plus, we store "stuff" in the garage. SWMBO gets pissed when everything is covered in sawdust.


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## Dave Paine

mikeintexas said:


> Plus, we store "stuff" in the garage. SWMBO gets pissed when everything is covered in sawdust.


I also share my "shop" aka garage with the tractor, snow blower, portable generator, etc. and so I know all too well how the small dust layer builds up. I wipe down the tractor seat before I use it, but try to get nature to clean off the rest during use. :laughing:

I thought I made a lot of sawdust/wood chips, until I got a lathe, and then found out the volume difference between a piece of wood, and the chips/dust made during turning. Wow. I can be ankle deep in no time. :laughing:


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## MasterSplinter

Great job. I just picked up the portable HF DC. I was thinking of making a cyclone but yours looks a bit easier to build.


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## rrbrown

Nice job!

However I will make one suggestion. You have serious bends going in and out of the separator which will slow the air. I would do what you have to to get any tight radius bends out of the system. :thumbsup:


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## Fred Hargis

Well done! :yes:


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## tcleve4911

Great job and nice pics.
You can heat the hot melt glue with a heat gun and it wll soften up letting you readjust that fitting.


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## mikeintexas

Thanks for the compliments. I'm very pleased with how it turned out; I should've built one sooner. The amount of dust/chips that wind up in the Thein vs. how much actually makes it to the DC is just ridiculous. 

Under normal usage, connected to the TS or BS I'd say the Thein grabs 99% of everything the hose sucks up. Only when I use the hose connected to the Thein for shop/workbench cleanup (plunging the hose into a foot-deep pile of dust) does some slip past and wind up in the DC.

It's good to know that I can use a heat gun to loosen the glue. The outer edge of the lid is very thin..about 1/8". Being that's it's made of MDF, it cracked a little bit. There is no air leakage as the lid has a channel that clamps over the edge of the can and fits tightly. But someday the crack will get bigger and I'll have to make a new lid. I don't remove the lid very often so it should be "awhile" before I have to make a new lid. I'd rather reuse the fittings I own than buy new ones.

I know that 20' feet of flexible hose for the inlet/outlet is not optimal. But my shop is 3/4's of my 2-car garage and everything has to be mobile. As much as I'd love a hard-piped DC system I just can't right now.


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## tvman44

How far below the bottom of the cover should the top of the elbo be, or does it matter? Getting ready to build another Thein seperator and would like to know.
In other words What should the clearance be between the elbo and the top and between the elbo and the slot baffle?


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## Dave Paine

tvman44 said:


> How far below the bottom of the cover should the top of the elbo be, or does it matter? Getting ready to build another Thein seperator and would like to know.
> In other words What should the clearance be between the elbo and the top and between the elbo and the slot baffle?


I do not think Phil has a specific clearance. It looks like it is as close as the elbow can be attached.

Look at Phil's site for his examples.

http://www.jpthien.com/cy.htm


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## Joedogg707

If you refrain from sticking the DC hose into a foot of saw dust, and instead slowly feed the DC from the same pile you will not lose the efficiency of the separator. You put so much debris into the flow it kills the cyclone action, and allows the intake to suck up more than it normally would. Slow and steady wins the race. And like another poster said above, reheat the hot glue and shove that fitting down to where you wanted it to be. Instead of a heat gun which throws a lot of heat at a large area, I use the glue gun itself. Just drag the hot tip slowly through the dried glue to re-energize it and off you go. Hope that helps.

talk to your projects. when they talk back, it's time for a break.


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## Joedogg707

Oh, for the cracked lid you can cut a piece of hardwood ply to match your lid, cut out for the two feed tubes, and glue that sucker on there. I used 3/4 MDF for my lid. It's what I had, and considering the lid needs to be taken off periodically to empty the can, wanted stronger, beefier components.

talk to your projects. when they talk back, it's time for a break.


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## caliwoodmastergv

What part of NorCal you in?


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## Joedogg707

Bay Area. Sola no county. U?

talk to your projects. when they talk back, it's time for a break.


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## caliwoodmastergv

My shop is on grass valley. All my jobs are in woodside. Palo alto. San Mateo area


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## RogerInColorado

Mike, Someone on another forum recommended a "felted filter bag from Highland Woodworking. He said it's a lot less expensive than a pleated filter, and still provides the 1 micron filtering. He just shakes it out periodically. His only caution is "don't wash it". http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/shakerfeltpolyestermicronfilterbag20x32.aspx


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## thegrgyle

RogerInColorado said:


> Mike, Someone on another forum recommended a "felted filter bag from Highland Woodworking. He said it's a lot less expensive than a pleated filter, and still provides the 1 micron filtering. He just shakes it out periodically. His only caution is "don't wash it". http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/shakerfeltpolyestermicronfilterbag20x32.aspx


That filter may be effective to 1 micron, but the amount of filter area is drastically reduced. According to the Wynn's website, the square footage of filter area on a normal bag filter is 35 square feet, and depending on which cartridge filter you get, it could have either 100 or 274 square feet of filter area. 

I might have been tempted to get that bag when I was looking to "upgrade", but I am EXTREMELY happy with my cartridge filter.

Just some info to keep you informed.

Hope this helps.


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## Joedogg707

The 1 micron bag would greatly reduce airflow due to being so much more dense right? And reduced airflow can only mean reduced suction which is already at a premium. From what I understand, the Wynn filter actually INCREASES airflow rates to that of ose who vent directly outside. (After being cycled through a separator first of course). I just wish there was an alternative to the Wynn price wise. That filter is almost what I paid for my 2hp HF DC to begin with.

talk to your projects. when they talk back, it's time for a break.


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## mikeintexas

I received my Wynn Spunbond filter a couple of days ago. At first I thought I'd have to make a plywood donut to sit between the DC and and filter in order for the filter to sit properly, but once you apply the turnbuckles, the thick rubber gasket on the filter squishes and seals (from what I can tell anyway). The Wynn filters aren't cheap, but w/a period cleaning with compressed air, they SHOULD be a lifetime filter, especially for a hobbyist like me that doesn't generate sawdust but a few hours a month.

I was AMAZED at how clogged the stock filter bag was. I guess it never occured to me to remove it and shake it out. Duh. I didn't see much dust in the bottom of the bag so I thought the Thein was catching it all. The dust caking the bag was mostly MDF dust, which as we all know, is like talcum powder. Ocassionaly, I'd shake the bag good and watch a little dust fall into the bag below...no big deal, I thought. Note to self: Don't build anything out of MDF if you can help it.

But when I removed the bag to install the Wynn? Holy smokes, there must've been 5 pounds of dust, an inch thick, just CAKED into the bag. I really don't think I could've removed it all since the inner bag material is sort of "porous" and the dust was in there good. I just trashed it.

Ironically, I'm neck-deep in gluing up projects now; all the milling/cutting has been done, so I can't test the filter properly.

I did scrape some sawdust out of the bottom of my TS and sucked it up. From what I can tell, suction seems to be marginally improved, but it wasn't an issue to begin with. When using the DC to clean my workbench it will suck up screwdrivers and pliers if I'm not careful...the HF DC is a beast. I have 20 feet of flexible, 4-inch hose and due to my shop layout of every single thing being on wheels, the hoses are always running here and there; I'd imagine if I had a hard-piped layout (someday!) the suction would be even better, but like I said, there's plenty there now. If anything, the DC SEEMS to be a bit quieter now, but that's a very subjective observation. I'm looking forward to using the Thein and the Wynn more in the near future. :yes:


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## Ninefingers

Mike -- can you take a guess at how much the addition of the thein separator reduces your air flow as compared to the intake into the HF vac?

Thanks,
Dave


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## thegrgyle

Ninefingers said:


> Mike -- can you take a guess at how much the addition of the thein separator reduces your air flow as compared to the intake into the HF vac?
> 
> Thanks,
> Dave


No guessing needed.... If you go to this link, and go to reply # 99, the gentleman did test his system.... His dust collector, a delta 50-760, ran at 783 cfm without the separator, and at depending on the pipe size he used, anywhere from 417-434 cfm. Now, that is quite a bit of a reduction, but the separator does keep the filter ALOT cleaner, therefore giving you more consistent CFM. I have a thien topper, and swear by it.

hope this helps.....


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## retired2

thegrgyle said:


> No guessing needed.... If you go to this link, and go to reply # 99, the gentleman did test his system.... His dust collector, a delta 50-760, ran at 783 cfm without the separator, and at depending on the pipe size he used, anywhere from 417-434 cfm. Now, that is quite a bit of a reduction, but the separator does keep the filter ALOT cleaner, therefore giving you more consistent CFM. I have a thien topper, and swear by it.
> 
> hope this helps.....


Thank you, I haven't been called a gentleman for a while!

On a more serious note, it is somewhat humorous to watch everyone (myself included) find all these clever ways to improve the efficiency of Phil Thien's basic design. Some work, some don't, but those that do generally only make incremental improvements. 

In the end it is the condition of your filter that has far more effect on the performance of your system than anything else. I didn't even bother to get my anemometer out and take readings, but once my filter bag had developed some cake, an anemometer wasn't necessary to see how badly the performance was degrading. Even the sound level was much lower. 

When you add filter cake to the 30-40% losses caused by a separator, you are talking about some serious performance loss and those 3-5 HP DC's start to look very attractive. Of course most of us live with a budget and try to make do with 1-1/2 HP systems. 

So, if your using a separator, regardless of design, you need to keep your filter as clean as possible.


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## mikeintexas

Ninefingers said:


> Mike -- can you take a guess at how much the addition of the thein separator reduces your air flow as compared to the intake into the HF vac?
> 
> Thanks,
> Dave


Sorry for the late update. I had computer woes at home and had to wait until the weekend to sort it out.

Honestly, I'm not sure how much the Thein reduces airflow. To me (before getting the Wynn filter, using the stock bag filter) it seemed the same as before without the Thein. My Thein setup is pretty air-tight. I'm sure nothing is TRULY 100% airtight, but I'd wager that mine is close. So theoretically (in my small brain...) I've got no air flow loss. That said, I've got 20 feet of flexible hose connecting the tool to the Thein to the DC, so there must be some airflow loss, but to me, it seems to be the same.

I've used the setup a little bit since installing the Wynn. Now that I don't have a totally caked filter bag anymore, possibly airflow has improved a bit, since I seem to be getting more fine dust in the bag (but ZERO sawdust/big stuff). I'm really not sure though if I was getting that much fine dust before, but it was just caking the filter bag and I never noticed. I'm sort of "starting over" now that I've got a new Wynn filter, new clear plastic bag and totally cleaned out Thein.


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## skyking

Thanks, this is great. I just got a 1 HP single bag grizzly that really needs this. I had no idea folks were making one.


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## retired2

mikeintexas said:


> Sorry for the late update. I had computer woes at home and had to wait until the weekend to sort it out.
> 
> Honestly, I'm not sure how much the Thein reduces airflow. To me (before getting the Wynn filter, using the stock bag filter) it seemed the same as before without the Thein. My Thein setup is pretty air-tight. I'm sure nothing is TRULY 100% airtight, but I'd wager that mine is close. So theoretically (in my small brain...) I've got no air flow loss. That said, I've got 20 feet of flexible hose connecting the tool to the Thein to the DC, so there must be some airflow loss, but to me, it seems to be the same.
> 
> I've used the setup a little bit since installing the Wynn. Now that I don't have a totally caked filter bag anymore, possibly airflow has improved a bit, since I seem to be getting more fine dust in the bag (but ZERO sawdust/big stuff). I'm really not sure though if I was getting that much fine dust before, but it was just caking the filter bag and I never noticed. I'm sort of "starting over" now that I've got a new Wynn filter, new clear plastic bag and totally cleaned out Thein.



I can assure you in a system with a clean filter, the Thien separator does impose some pretty heavy losses. In my case, an anemometer showed that loss to be 38%. That number may vary a little from one system to another simply due to all the variables. Even Phil Thien wii agree the losses are not insignificant, but that is the price to be paid for the benefits.

When a filter develops considerable cake, some of which is necessary for it to perform properly, the Thien separator ceases to be the big choke point because the filter is causing the biggest loss.

For the writer using a 1HP DC, a Thien separator is probably going to require you to move the DC from machine to machine. Forget about using a 1HP DC for a fully plumbed setup.


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## skyking

thanks. So far it is just the saw. I have a cardboard chain barrel measuring 25 high and 15.75 diameter. Will that be sufficient?


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## retired2

skyking said:


> thanks. So far it is just the saw. I have a cardboard chain barrel measuring 25 high and 15.75 diameter. Will that be sufficient?


It should be, but since the Thien separator is not an exact science a lot depends on trial and error.

With that said, I want to warn you again - don't expect very much from a 1HP DC. I'm pretty sure it is only rated at 650CFM, and that rating is probably with no hose or a filter bag attached. That is how manufacturers inflate their ratings. So, in the real world with a few feet of flex hose and a Thien separator, you are probably at the limits of what this DC can do. Don't waste your time or money trying to put this DC in fixed location with rigid pipe to equipment isolated by blast gates. You need a minimum 1-1/2HP 1250CFM machine for that kind of service, and even a machine with these specs will be marginal.


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## mikeintexas

The Wynn filter isn't cheap, but you I believe you do get what you paid for in this case. I have noticed much less dust coating everything in the garage since installing the Wynn. Also, the air coming out of the stock filter bag used to smell slightly musty...I'm sure the fact there was 2" of cake on the inside had something to do with it. The air coming out of the Wynn filter just smells...clean and "filtery." The filter has a smell, but it is not unpleasant...sort of like a chemically-medicinally clean type smell. MUCH better than that musty-type smell from the stock bag. I'm quite pleased with w/the Wynn.


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## tvman44

My 1Hp HF DC does a good job with my Thien separator on a single machine. I have a 2Hp connected to the rest of my equipment through another Thien separator. Love the Thien separators. :thumbsup: :smile:


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