Shopvac Recommendations (Hoover, Vacuum Cleaner, Dust/Chip Collection)

No idea where you live Lee, but if near Preston I'd seriously consider this old Aquavac on ebay

I have a couple, one in each garage, wet and dry, and seem to go on for ever, albeit noisily.
I bought mine prior to buying my previous house, so early 80s and picked up another when my friend closed down his Landrover workshop, where it was in use commercially from late 80s till I guess 2010
Both are battered, but still work well.

I use one of them coupled up to my small blast cabinet, running via a small cast alloy centrifugal cleaner, also off ebay, which spins out the used abrasive quite effectively. You would need a larger size for wood chips, unless it was just from a saw or router bench.

Bill

WIckes wet and dry hoover has survived 8 years hard graft; about 40quid. Buy the re-usable filter and you can wash it many times to get the oil and dust off. regularly hoovers up 5kg of swarf, steel and CI. I have a small cyclone from ebay which I put inline to collect the brass swarf for re-casting.

I pickup the big curly swarf with gloves or a magnetic swarf stick first if there is much of it; just quicker.

I've had a vax previously but the paper filters bung up too quickly.

I have the B&Q cheapo hoover, wet and dry etc, has lasted me 8-9 years of hard use, building works, wood work, swarf oil etc. great piece of kit, i’d go straight out and buy another if it died tomorrow.

When my works closed down and moved I took a Nilfisk cleaner. No bag but a big container which is OK for saw dust and smaller bits. Great for clearing out the car.

It has two filters so no minute particles get out of the machine, it is also on small wheels and a good length of cable.

the tube is about 2" diameter. and a good length. The machine is quite heavy!

I had a VAX Powa 4000 which did gave around 30 years of service before failing, and for the life of me I can't remember why it failed. I know the pump feature (used for eg carpet washing) failed, but I didn't do that much carpet cleaning. I've now replaced it by what appears to be an almost exact equivalent, still by VAX.

The original VAX was excellent in that although it had a corrugated tube, it never seemed to block up regardless of what was thrown at it - stones, water, swarf, earth, wood, etc. Unfortunately, over the years the original tube & handle broke so I bought a pattern replacement which wasn't as good as the handle part contained ledges which acted to stop stuff going through, so that might be worth being careful about. Indeed, I eventually removed the retaining ring that held the tube to the handle so that I could easily dismantle it for cleaning. This meant that the device relied on suction to hold the parts together when using it.

I have seen other cylinder vacs which the owners have failed to keep clean: they then moan about loss of suction!

Peter G. Shaw