Fall 2023 Showcase: Mullet Boom Arm

Good dust collection is so important and part of it is good dust collection, but you also need to be able to get it where you're working. Agree. And I'm kind of a fanatic about dust collection. I think you're very fanatical in a great way. I don't mean that as a bad thing.

It didn't sound like a great way, but this really solves a problem. I can't tell you how irritating it is to have that thing caught constantly on the bench. This is limiting your travel. Exactly. And not being able to get that dust collection where you want to.

This allows you to be portable and you have the agility to put that dust collection right where you need it conveniently boom. There's the answer. See what I did there. When's the last time you had a mullet boy, I was gonna say probably not gonna be a lot of mullet jokes between you and I it's been a long time here today, gone tomorrow. Um So a while ago you saw us work with the Mullet Cyclone.

This is an add on to a shot vacuum. And as I said, you've seen this before, I love this and I, I love her. This. Um the boom arm is such a great addition to my sanding station here now to be clear. Um And you're gonna see it in a second.

The boom can go with the cycle and the cyclone can go with your back. So this doesn't have to be on an independent standing sanding station like this. But reaching where you're working is a big deal. It's a great deal and you're right. Um You're a dust collection aware.

I I've, yeah, I've done a lot of homework on it and I've done a lot of work in my shop to have a, a set up where I my shop is attached to my home co couple of us in there have dust allergies. So it's really important to me to keep a AAA good clean air environment. Uh This is a neat innovation though because it lets you get dust collection to areas that you might just say I'm just not gonna bother you. Only one piece. Exactly, which always turns into one more and one more.

And this lets you get that dust collection into those awkward reach places where it would be hard to get to. And if you did the the holes is I was getting tangled up on something. And so this is a really nice solution and I, you know, with the random orbit like we're connected to here. Um That's one thing I am a big belt sander user, I love my belt sander. But when you're running that and the corrugated hose, you know, I, I've got this smooth flow going and then that corrugated hose hangs up for a second.

Um, suddenly my smooth flow, it means I just dive at a table top because it stalled me out. So having coming in from overhead, like this is a big saving on that preventing that from happening. Um, and just general keeping it out of the way and it's so important with dust collection and allergies to remember that not being allergic today doesn't mean you won't be one year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now because it's a cumulative effect. So you really wanna protect your lungs from the get go so that you can still enjoy woodworking in in the anytime in the future. Um So I'm trying to think of a boom joke that will take us to the video, but maybe I just say let's watch the video.

You've already seen me work with the mullet cyclone and what a great job that does. Now, I have added to it, the boom arm and this is amazing because it gives you the ability to articulate the arm and take it wherever you need dust collection. So here's how this goes. In this case, I've got it attached to the cyclone. You don't have to do it that way.

There are a variety of different mounting styles there's a T nut on here and that's currently holding that elbow in that position. So the way the articulation happens is when I loosen this, I can make a move and I can make a move and I can make a move. So you can see how easy it would be to get, pick up here anywhere, depending on what kind of job you're doing that you wanna get dust collection on. So let me do a little set up here and I'm gonna show you just how well this works. In order to show you the effectiveness of the boom arm, I have got a maple spoon in my vice.

I'm gonna use my grinder in order to carve that bowl out. So first thing I'm gonna do is I am not gonna use the boom as though you've never seen airborne dust before. But let's just look at a little compare and contrast, all of that stuff flying around. Now with the articulating arm, I can bring this in. Give ourselves a little vacuum.

Yeah. And now as a result of having the boom arm, that dust is going here instead of here, you gotta love that. Here's another thing I really like about this setup. What I've done is move the boom arm to my bench with this mount. I can t this out to my shot vacuum.

And then I've still got all the advantages of the articulating arm. So whether I'm connected to a hose that brings it to my sander like I've done in this case, or I can take the hose and off here and I could put that collection point back on if I'm carving at this bench or whatever you're doing that you want dust collection. On the other thing that's cool about this system is with its mobility. You could use this when you're turning on a lathe, there's a spot where you produce lots and lots and lots of dust and shavings. You could even use it under dry walling applications.

Another incredibly dusty application for tools. So there's a lot of stuff you can do with the boom arm to make sure that you're picking up dust right at the source. What you think I'm super impressed. It really is a, is a neat setup and it, it really just delivers the right airflow in the right place. You're articulating that so well.

Does that mean we're done here moving right along?