Have Dust, Will Travel

As dawn broke, the sounds of heavy equipment filled the air. Today we began breaking down the dust collector from my shop in Pennsylvania. Tomorrow we’ll load it onto a trailer and it will head west to Ohio but it will not be going to my new shop outside Cincinnati. Frankly, it’s just too big for my new neighborhood.

Let’s face it: Most people don’t want to look at a story-and-a-half, rusty, old dust collector in the back of the neighbor’s yard. Most of my neighbors here in Pennsylvania had no clue what it was. I had gotten all kinds of guesses and inquiries. Some thought I was a mad scientist building some sort of rocket ship out of rusty old metal while others thought I was an abstract artist.

This is the first shop where I’ve had real dust collection. I know it looks old and rusty to you, but that’s a 6,600 cubic-foot-per-minute Roto-Clone with a 15-horsepower three-phase motor. That fan on the forks is about 4′ in diameter. Surprisingly, the collector was fairly quiet but the lights dimmed in a 10-block radius when I turned it on.

And the rust, well that’s only skin deep. Those dust bins are made from 1/4″ plate steel. The paint may be peeling but there’s more than a little life left in the old girl. So, I hope she enjoys her new home – and she won’t be going alone. My 30″ Yates planer and the 16″ Calloday jointer from my shop will be joining her. All three will be heading out tomorrow morning to their new home in northeastern Ohio. I guess if I start missing them too much, I can always take the four-hour ride and visit them.

— Chuck Bender