A breath of fresh air

robinson46176 · Post by **robinson46176** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 8:46 am

I have been toying with an idea to help keep a Mark V (or Mark VII) headstock a little cleaner and cooler. Most of the venting air is through the bottom of the motor pan but is fairly limited and the motor and the rest of the headstock DOES collect a fair amount of dust. A certain amount of heat also accumulates inside of the upper part of the headstock.
I have been working on how to eliminate the problem in the cheapest but most effective manner. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid)

My current thoughts involve pressurizing the headstock with filtered air. It is quite simple to do using a small blower something like this:
http://www.surpluscenter.com/item.asp?U ... e=electric
And a inexpensive air filter like this:
http://www.mfgsupply.com/m/c/19--1385.html?id=kQdb2LgQ
These are not specific choices, just a couple of possibilities to give you the general idea.
The unit would attach to the headstock case over the rear access hole with three clips so there would be no drilling or modifications to the SS. The wiring would be all inside of the headstock carefully routed and attached to avoid any contact with moving parts like the regular wiring. It would just wire into the original SS switch since it is less than a fourth of an amp additional draw. I would probably wire it with a plug-in pigtail so that it could be simply unplugged for removal for service or access to the headstock for lubing the drive. You don't need something hanging by a wire while you lube the sheaves.
The air filter element could be removed and taken outside and blown out with compressed air from time to time depending on the amount of dust. It could probably also be cleaned sufficiently by just holding your 4" dust collector hose over it now and then.
-
I probably won't put one of these on each Shopsmith in the shop but I want to sit up a mini as a sanding station and you almost can't do too much about dust at a sanding station. I will probably also install one on the one used as a dedicated lathe. I don't claim to be highly skilled at lathe work so I do a lot of scraping. More scraping cuts = more dust.

I will probably make one for my 510 since I tend to gravitate toward it for a lot of stuff due to the bigger table.
As I said it is a pretty simple concept and not new. Our old tractor cabs and combine cab protected the occupant with the same concept. You can have a lot of bad air leaks in a cab but as long as you pressurize the cab with filtered air the dust and dirt does not come in since the cleaned air is always pushing out.

billmayo · Post by **billmayo** » Mon Apr 20, 2009 10:07 am

I find that cutting a square hole in the end of the motor pan and using 1/2 of a louvered vent (4"X8") with a fine screen reduces sawdust and crud in the upper half of the headstock and greatly reduces the headstock temperature. I have not seen any excessive dust/crud collection in the motor but I do limited wood operations. I believe if a dust collector is always used, then this is a good modification (my opinion only). The major problem was cutting the square hole in the motor pan. It is extremely hard metal and I found that a 4" grinder with a metal cutting disk slowly did the job. A hand scroll saw with a metal cutting blade did not work for me.