I've been doing a lot of machining of wood lately, and need to up my dust collection game. I’ve got a Harbor Freight dust collector, which by all accounts is one of their best products. I plan to add a cyclone and HEPA filter to it.

But in the meantime, I've had this little Dust Deputy around for years. I finally decided to set it up (mostly avoiding work I have to do). I thought it would work, but wow, it really works!

The thing installs fairly easily. I used the thing to trace out a hole to cut in the lid of Home Depot bucket. I drilled holes and bolted the thing on with some all-purpose DAP Ultra Clear. Installed, it looks like this:

I emptied the shop vac and shook out its filter, then vacuumed up a bunch of material that looks like this:

And what I got was a Home Depot bucket full of it, and a shop vac with no visible stuff (what you see in the photo has been there for years). I'm sure finer dust is trapped in the filter, and that will still need to be shaken out periodically, but I’m sold on the idea of cyclones.

I am excited to add a cyclone (and better filter) to the Harbor Freight dust collector. There are a number of YouTube videos on the subject. If I decide to not chuck it all, buy a boat, and sail the world, I’ll buy a ClearVue Cyclones CV1800.