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So for my new shop, I made a closet for my air compressor with the intention of putting my cabinet on the wall next to it. Then as I started thinking through how to run the air to the cabinet, I realized that the air connections are on the left of the cabinet while my compressor needs to be on the right. This also means that the dust collection intake is on the right while the shop vac I use will need to be on the left.

Does anyone know if I can switch the location by either drilling another hole in the other side or just swapping the dust collection with the air supply? It looks possible, but I'm not an expert when it comes to blast cabinets and I don't wanna screw something up.

I wouldn't want to mess with it and cause it to leak. My cabinet leaks and it's awful....I have to blast outside. Any way you can run the hoses and position things so it can work? Doesn't have to be pretty, right?

scotties22 wrote:I wouldn't want to mess with it and cause it to leak. My cabinet leaks and it's awful....I have to blast outside. Any way you can run the hoses and position things so it can work? Doesn't have to be pretty, right?

Yeah. That's why I'm asking. I can run the hoses around the cabinet for sure, but I want to make things look as nice as possible and also avoid as much kinking in the hoses as possible.

I don't think it's worth the risk of making the cabinet leak. You could always get a PVC 90 to attach to the cabinet that you can hook the shopvac into. That way there's no kink in the hose were it goes into the cabinet.

I do not think it will matter if you run extra hose and pipe. If you are worried about how it will look, then do it over.

It's not hard to move ports around, but if you are not confident that you know what you're doing, just run some extra hose.

My cabinet has several extra holes from modifications. I used some of that foil tape to seal the holes -- no issues. If you're really worried about it, plexiglass epoxied into place would be about as strong as the original wall.

e Markle wrote:My cabinet has several extra holes from modifications. I used some of that foil tape to seal the holes -- no issues. If you're really worried about it, plexiglass epoxied into place would be about as strong as the original wall.

Great. I just wanted to be sure that what I was about to do wasn't someone else's mistake that I was about to repeat. Thank you!

I use duct tape to cover any extra holes I have put in my cabinet. If your dust extraction is set up properly then you will always have a negative pressure in the cabinet so it should really leak.

Yeah duct tape!

I'm also now wondering whether I should be hooking into my main dust collector through the cyclone or whether I should use my shop vac with the cyclone.

I use my main dust collector, this may or may not work for your cabinet.

caskwith wrote:I use my main dust collector, this may or may not work for your cabinet.

Do you use something before the collector to catch the media? I'm thinking for recycle purposes.

andrew wrote:

caskwith wrote:I use my main dust collector, this may or may not work for your cabinet.

Do you use something before the collector to catch the media? I'm thinking for recycle purposes.

Yes. I have a cyclone for that purpose. I had hooked it into my shop vac in my old shop, but it would make more sense now to put it in my dust collection run as long as the dust collector won't be so strong as to suck out the blast media before I blast. I've got the Harbor Freight 2 HP dust collector (It's not a true 2HP motor, but it's good for the price).

andrew wrote:

caskwith wrote:I use my main dust collector, this may or may not work for your cabinet.

Do you use something before the collector to catch the media? I'm thinking for recycle purposes.

Yes I have a cyclone but I don't really recycle much, most of the time the good stuff falls into the hopper and the DE just takes away the pulverised glass/briar dust.

caskwith wrote:

andrew wrote:

caskwith wrote:I use my main dust collector, this may or may not work for your cabinet.

Do you use something before the collector to catch the media? I'm thinking for recycle purposes.

Yes I have a cyclone but I don't really recycle much, most of the time the good stuff falls into the hopper and the DE just takes away the pulverised glass/briar dust.

Thanks