Build a Rolling Vac/Dustopper Cabinet

If you're spending time doing woodworking you're also gonna spend time doing cleaning because woodworking is a dusty business. And I think we can all agree. We'd rather spend time woodworking than cleaning. So part of what we run into is that when you're using a shot vacuum in order to clean up after yourself or connect it to tools so that you're staying clean as you go. One of the things that happens is that the filter on the vac gets caked and pretty easy to imagine what's going on here.

You suck dust in. It cakes up against that filter. And the equation here is easy. If air can't get out of there, it can't get in. We've probably all experienced this where you're cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.

And you notice that the ability, the efficiency of that vacuum to pick stuff up drops off and drops off and drops off. Cause what's happening is that filter inside there is getting caked and caked and caked. And that's where the dust stopper comes in. What we wanna do is introduce something that gets added in between the pickup point and the top of the vacuum to make things a little bit easier for the vacuum. Now, the deal with the dust stopper is that it's gonna snap right on top of a standard five gallon bucket.

And it introduces a cyclonic action to separate dust from the airstream before it gets there. So once we've come, this far what's gonna happen is that's gonna come off of here. And then this is gonna go there and this is gonna go there. And then this is gonna go here. And so now we're back to our pickup point, but dust is everywhere isn't it.

We're back to our pickup point. But with the cyclonic action introduced in between to help keep that filter cleaner. Part of what comes out of this is that we now have this as a system. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna use this sheet of plywood in order to make a cabinet that all of this stuff can live in. So it can travel around the shop together.

Let's have a look at that project. Here's the cabinet that we'll be building. It's very, very simple, very straightforward. Everything here can come out of a 3/4 by 4 by 8 sheet of plywood. Face frame is solid wood and the back is 1/4 inch material.

Moving the top for a second. Two rails up here at the top. And of course, a full deck across the bottom joinery extremely simple, nothing but butt joints. And if you use glue and then a brad or a staple and a couple of screws in the joint, you'll be fine there. Here on the ends of our rails, two pocket holes there.

On each end in order to join the rails to the styles. One of the things you should do before you start cutting wood is pay attention to the dimensions and make sure this will work with your vacuum. When it's coupled with the dust stopper setup. Using the dimensions I'm providing, it's 30 inches inside the inside, across the face frame here. 27 inches top to bottom inside the face frame.

And 23 inches from the inside of the back to the inside of the face frame. So make sure that that combination of numbers is gonna work for your vacuum and dust stopper combo. And if not adjust the dimensions accordingly. Before we jump into putting the cabinet together let's do a little science experiment here. I'm starting with a clean filter on the back.

And on my bench, I've got a pile of dust. It's a mix of planer stuff and sander stuff. There's some pretty fine dust in there. So we're gonna pick it up and with the dust stopper in the system here, watch it isolate that dust out. Let's check that filter still clean.

And that's because all that junk I pulled up is in here. Ready to build the cabinet? When you're working with sheet goods, the easiest way to get started is to buck those sheet goods down to smaller sizes. So they're easier to handle on your table aw. As I mentioned earlier, be sure to double check the dimensions for this cabinet, make sure it'll fit with your shot vac dust stopper combo.

The construction and assembly on this project is really dirt simple. We're gonna glue, staple, and screw everything. If you don't have a staple gun, that's fine. Use a brad nailer instead. And all that's doing is holding the parts in place until we can get screws in.

General, rule of thumb with screws, use a screw that's twice as long as what you're putting together. So in this case, I'm using 1 1/2 inch wood screws to hold the components That gives us one case side connected to the bottom of the cabinet. Next in the assembly sequence, passing in the two top rails. Exact same program, glue stapler brad. couple of 1 1/2 inch screws per rail.

Now that starting to look like cabinet. Next step we'll get the back on the cabinet. Get a bead of glue on that back edge. Spread it out with your glue brush. When the back goes on, you can simply use brads or staples to hold it in place.

The brads or staples coupled with the glue, have plenty of bite to hold back, no need for screws. Pocket holes always provide a great way to put face range together. We're gonna put two pocket holes in the end of each of your face frame rails. With the pocket holes drill we were ready to assemble the face frame, put a little bit of glue in the joint and then drive your pocket hole screws. I'm using inch and 1/4 fine thread screws on my friend.

Pocket holes are such a simple and effective way to put face frames together. Very much like the cabinet back we're gonna put the face frame on by spreading a bead of glue on the front edge of the cabinet, position the face frame, and then use brads to secure it. I'm using 1 1/2 inch long brads. Twice as long as the face frame is thick. You could skip the breads and simply clamp the face frame if you wanna do that.

And we're sneaking up on being done here. Cabinet upside down. You can screw the cabinet rails to the cabinet top. Look at that we've got our cabinet built. Well, there it is all done.

What do you think? What I like about this is it's a very simple project. Very fast built and it gets the dust stopper and the vac in one spot so that whether I'm vacuuming the floor and wanna just move this whole thing to have the system chase me while I'm cleaning the floor, or if I wanna connect to a portable power tool and use that right here at the bench top, I get either one of those options. So it's a great way to take advantage of what the dust stopper brings to the table to help your shot vacuum run cleaner longer. So, as I mentioned earlier, we all get to spend more time woodworking last time cleaning.

Thanks to that action that comes from the dust stopper.