New Woodpecker Slab mill

The new woodshop tool should be coming in line in about 3 weeks. We still have alot of odds and ends to finish up…

I’ve ordered a dust boot from Wood pecker it’s about 3 weeks out…

We worked on the slab mill on Saturday and got a lot work done on the dust collection system and got power run to the router motor. Basically all the over head work should be done now… thank you @Eric75252

I keep hear there is a lot of interest in this project… please send your questions and I have posted before…

I’m am lead on this project if you have questions or want to help please send me a message. There a lot left todo…



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I can see this as being really popular during the holiday season!

It will be very use for end grain cutting boards makers… I hope for a lot of other makers too

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Tighten up a lot of loose ends on thr slab mill and did a test run to see what else if anything will be needed …

The 3rd dust port is an absolute necessity… @Chris V is working on that…

After-flattening a cookie… we also need a mount for the dust collection hoses so they don’t drag the table when moving the mill around that table::

We still need to build drawers for the various parts of the slab mill…

We need to tighten up attaching the plastic dust collection bags… the bag bungee

Class should go live in the next 2 weeks…

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Just to clarify for everyone else, I’m the one working on the dust port cover.

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You guys are making some great progress.

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Should soon have a chip guard ready for someone to 3D print.

Nate,
Please send it to me and I’ll start printing it…

[email protected]

Thanks so much for helping Us out

We have the prototype dust Ports on the slab mill… Chris flatten a end grain cutting board this evening… we have a little more work todo… however classed will go live by the End of next week… thanks for making the prototype @nate sorry I don’t know you’re last name


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Nate Delp @delpn

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Have another iteration in the works to fix the hose size and fitment issues.

Suggestions on mounting hole placement?

Also looking at making the vacuum hole smaller to increase suction velocity and hopefully get more particles out of there more effectively.

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Be careful with this:

Dust collection systems need to balance air volume (measured in cubic feet per minute or CFM) and velocity (feet per minute or FPM) and limit static pressure (SP). The air traveling through the ducts must maintain enough velocity to keep the dust and chips in the airstream—that’s 4,000 FPM in the branches and 3,500 FPM in the main line. If velocity diminishes, the debris will fall out of the airstream and build up inside the ducts. Decreasing duct size improves velocity but also increases friction, or static pressure (SP), which affects the volume (CFM) of air being moved. Systems that move less CFM collect less dust.


Source: Dust Collection Roundup: We Review the Basics

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Did you see how i had trimmed it up to better fit the base?
I have a couple of request for the second iteration,

  1. A fillet on the bottom Edge inside edge where the vertical and horizontal planes come together…
    2 can you either the dust port so the oblong is more in one with the center line to bottoms of the router bases chip opening…
    It hard to explain in text…

Thanks for all your work Nate…

Mblatz

that’s happing now, about half is being left of the table… woodpecker designed this dust shoes with 2.50 dust ports… I think it was a bandage to quite the customers that wanted dust collection…

Their pro mill upgrade seems to have better engineered dust collection system compared to our base model… the dust collector else are using is a 3 phase 1300 CFM machines plenty of air flow… I would loved to talk further about it on Saturday if you guys are available?

Good evening all, New to the 'space and eager to pitch in where needed. Am super interested in helping out on the Woodpecker (have a smaller home grown version in my shop). Please let me know how I can help.

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HB, I honestly don’t have any design or engineering expertise/experience with this stuff…it’s actually pretty complicated as a discipline. So my being there or looking at it would have the effect of Hank Hill with a beer in his hand staring at someone else’s car engine. My comment was mostly to help ensure that doing something for the sake of doing something can leave a situation worse off sometimes, this maybe being one of them.

I totally agree, based just on my anecdotal experience, that 1300 CFM is (way more than) enough for an effective solution in this situation. Most D/C systems have 4-inch pipe with this much power/suction, so if anything, look to open the aperture (or ingress or whatever we want to call it) at the point of…ummm…saw dust suction? I am talking about the business end of the air flow.

If I can make it into DMS on Saturday, by which I mean if I don’t spontaneously combust because I stepped outside for a minute, I will. But again… a guy with a beer staring at someone else’s car engine.

All good til we hear “Hold my beer…” :scream:

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I do have some design experience with this sort of thing. We’ll just keep iterating until we get a gold master.

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A few comments so far:

You can remove the 2.5" adapter and put the spiral vacuum tube right over the orange 3" outlet. This will probably be a better fit.

I’m already 80% done with the next iteration which will include the following:

  1. Correct female fitting for the black plastic vacuum hose end (2.5") I believe.
  2. Trimmed upper area so it fits under the clamp fitting (ie so it doesn’t have to be trimmed on the band saw).
  3. Trimming of the edges to better match the shape of the router holder casting.
  4. Revised flow path for better initial velocity near the router.

One thing I’d really like to test before proceeding is to remove the tape / velcro currently used to mount it and clamp it in place or get bolt holes put on it for studs and wing nuts (McMaster Carr).

I want to see how well it works being better sealed. It is supposed to be pulling all of it’s air from under the router and leaks may interfere with the intended purpose.

I suspect the opening is too large and the velocity too low to move larger particles. I’m probably going to decrease the area by by 25% and see how it works.

I’m thinking we’ll have 2 more iterations until we are truly happy with it.

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Hold my Rum!