Thanks for an amazing simple fix. Now do not need for dissembling frustration out the window. You should market this idea its genius. Thanks for sharing....
Man... Thank you... I set up my dust collection system less than a month ago,and every one of these cheap bladt gates is stucks as much as a half inch open... Ive watched several videos on how to remedy this issue, and this is by far the easiest. Great video
Tried this with Gorilla Tape and it was an utter failure; tape never moved, even with some encouragement from me. Tried again with some cheap-ass Office Depot duct tape and it worked like a charm. Thanks for the simple/cheap fix!
Fantastic, I'm am flipping my dust blower to the other end of my ducting and was looking to improve my blast gates because they jam up like you say. So now i can modify these gates to work properly. Thanks for this idea!
These plastic blast gates are such a pain in the butt they get clogged all the time and not exactly easy to remove the stuck saw dust away. This looks like the way to go thanks so much!
Thanks Nils, I have 4 of these plastic gates on my system that do get clogged from time to time and will not close. I will try this simple elegant fix. Subscribed.
I’m in the process of trying this. I started cutting the end with the miter saw. But that felt pretty sketchy hi don’t have zero clearance fence set up for support). The saw actually tried grabbing the gate, but I was ready for it and no real damage to the gate, and I didn’t get hurt. So I wandered over to the bandsaw and that worked just as good and frankly felt safer. Just my 2 cents.
Nils, Thanks very much for sharing this info. I was in the process of just replacing all these gates because of their poor performance. That meant buying more expensive ones (more expensive has to be better, right??) 😎 I also considered trying to build my own which would have been very cheap but time consuming. I just made the update on 7 of these, including some cleanup sanding and folding/applying the tape and it took less than 10 minutes. I hope to have this all up and running in the next week or two and will share the results. Thanks again
Perfect. My gate on my drill press always clogs. Air compressor blast eventually cleans it out but why. In the shop tomorrow trying this out. If it futzes up I’ll buy a new one! Thanks.
I tried this on several gates. Nice idea. It may not even need the flap valve. After seeing where the dust accumulated, I decided to just drill 3/8 holes through the bottom layer of plastic. The holes are right in the corners. Don't valve these. The airflow should keep the corners clean. We'll see.
Good call. I just finished installing my system and I've learned SO much. I'm now working on an automated switch system for it and it's all a ton of work but I'm sure it'll be worth it. Just FYI, I have a "Tips for Designing and Building a Dust Collection System" (or something along those lines) video coming out in the next several weeks.
hi Nils, so on printables theres a ball valve one where the guy made it to accept a servo. can you take a look and tell me your thoughts on that? making it automatic could be the ultimate next step
There are two types of these cheap blast gates. One, such as the Woodstock or similar, have a straight, square bottom edge on the blast gate door. The other, such as Powertech or similar, have a curved bottom to the door. The curved type is not suitable for this modification. It leaves too large a space in the new, cut opening. The square edge type is the only one that will work.
Doing this right now actually and I think the brand of duck tape has something to do w it too because I tried black 3M first and it was too stiff to close flap so now trying og gray duck tape brand
Dude this is amazing! You are amazing! Of all the stupid dodgy 'hacks' this is a legit cheap and easy solution to make a cheap item perform like the most expensive in it's class. Bravo!! 10/10 mate!
If I'm following what you're saying, I didn't. There's a lip that is 90 degrees to the slider and I left that in place. I only cut off all of one side (both the cartridge and the slider) and taped it.
Great idea! For my purposes, I shouldn't even have to use the tape after making the cut! (Although if needed, I can always add the tape later!!) By the way, I'm using 2 1/2 inch system to a ShopVac.