Porting Bench

[coulterracn]

I have built two down draft style benches for collecting metal particles and dust from porting cylinder heads. I am using a Harbor Freight 2hp dust collector to pull air thru the cabinet work area. The work surface is perforated metal on one bench and fiberglass deck grating on the other bench. I have a V-shaped trough below the work surface which is opened in the center of the trough. I have a piece of 4" PVC attached to the trough and connected to the dust collector.

The two grinding cabinets work good. I would like to increase air flow thru the bench to collect dust and particles more efficiently.

My idea is to build a plenum below the work surface and install a squirrel cage blower from an a/c system air handler. I've given this idea to a friend that has some HVAC experience plus works with a ventilation/mechanical engineer.

I'd like to gather some thoughts and ideas on a this project.

Ray

Pictures of my first DIY downdraft cabinet/bench

[Flash]

Don't have any ideas BUT sure like what you have made, so far :;):

[msj442]

somewhere in the forum i posted pics of my porting benches. i use the one like you said with a squirrel cage in it to pull dust mainly when i polish and do valve jobs. it has filters in the cabinet. works good for me i guess. been using for 13 years now. my lungs thank me alittle.

jmo, max

[coulterracn]

Max
I have seen the pictures of your bench posted here on the forum. I like the way you built the opening in the back to pull any dust or particles from the work area.

Do you have to do any clean up such as sweep the surface with a brush?

Ray

[coulterracn]

[Eagle Eye]

I saw a very nice manufactured porting bench at a motorcycle trade show a few years back. The top was expanded metal and below it was a furnace filter that caught the chunks and dust. The filter slid out the front or side to clean or replace. Below that it tapered to the bottom and a furnace blower provided the vacuum. Don't know who made it and never saw one since. Also saw a head holder for mc heads. Had a shank about 6 inches long threaded on the top for the spark plug hole and a round ball on the bottom that swiveled to any angle and locked in place. I've been looking for this fixture for a time with no luck. Has anyone seen it? Please let me know if you have. Thanks,Jim

[coulterracn]

Jim
Try item no. GSV-400 at

Ray

[Eagle Eye]

Thanks Ray for the info. I thought I had seen that fixture at Goodson before but looked a while back and couldn't find it. Must not have had their mc catalog. They are only about an hour's drive from me so I could actually go look at it. Thinking back about the porting bench I talked about, I think the sheet metal sides tapered in slightly to a flat bottom letting the chunks and slivers fall and the filter was mounted vertically at the side next to the outlet with the fan mounted after the filter. The unit had a slot where the filter could be slid out the front. This bench would be fairly easy to make and I'm sure the "squirrel cage" fans are easy to find used. The one I saw ran at a low rpm so it was suprisingly quiet. I don't know about everyone else but I've got about 40 years of porting dust in me and most of the earlier years with no resperator. When I closed out my shop I threw away three of these fans. Wish I still had them. Skol, Jim

[coulterracn]

I enlarged the opening in the trough of my porting bench. The opening was about 5/8", it's now about 1-1/4" wide. Hopefully this will help pull the dust and paticles away from me, allowing me to breath cleaner air.


My new bench


Looking down at work surface


Looking down at trough

[gofaster]

Eagle Eye wrote:
Also saw a head holder for mc heads. Had a shank about 6 inches long threaded on the top for the spark plug hole and a round ball on the bottom that swiveled to any angle and locked in place. I've been looking for this fixture for a time with no luck. Has anyone seen it? Please let me know if you have. Thanks,Jim

For a motorcycle head stand, I started with a Travers Tool Company swivel vise, # 61-200-050. Sells for $29.99



This came with a slotted set screw in the ball which I changed to an allen for my convenience. I made the threaded head mandrels from aluminum bar stock, milling hexagonal flats in the end that goes into the ball, and threading the other end for the spark plug hole in the head. I made a pair for Evos (and earlier heads), and a pair for the Twin Cam heads, (and late Sportster / Buells). I believe these mandrels are also available from Goodson. I also made a couple of mandrels from stainless steel for jobs that require welding in the combustion chamber (bathtubbing)
The hook wrench is from Enco, # 307-3636. Sells for $25.95.



I use two stands so I can do a pair of heads, working on the same areas of each port at the same time. It helps me keep the ports identical.

Here are links to photos of my stands:

[Eagle Eye]

Thanks much for the vice info. What a great forum this is and full of good and knowlegable people. Everyone is so willing to help out and no selfish people. I,ll have to check out the Goodson one again. Jim

[cspeier]

Here is my down draft porting bench. It works flawless! Uses a Harbor Freight chip collector and a Thein lid. It will pull cartridge roll dust out of the air!!












Thien Collector Lid photo. http://www.cgallery.com/jpthien/cy.htm

[coulterracn]

Chad
I saw your post on SpeedTalk. This is a really nice setup you have. I may have to build a new porting work bench.

Is it possible to put three work stations like this on a 12' long bench and allow two or three people to work side by side or will that be to close together.

Sometimes I work on more than one head on a given week and the cabinet gets congested. I may have a plan here. Put two work areas close together for one user. Then I could move from one to the other without it being a major ordeal.

I hope it's OK if I posted a link to your bench on HardcoreLS about a month ago.

Ray

[bruce]

Kinda an off-topic reply but found this interesting:



I stumbled into this link on another forum about machining when someone was looking for a vise made out of a bowling ball.

[gofaster]

That is one killer vise. I called about it, and it is expensive. The builder says it "exceeds human capacity", i.e. it will hold items that you would have to load on it with a crane.
For the work I do it would be like swatting flies with a sledgehammer, but for the guys who work on big engines it could be a very versatile work holder.