While trying to attach a shop vac hose to my blast cabinet, bucket water filter, and Dust Deputy, I noticed that special fittings were going to be required. I priced them out at about $7-10 each! There has to be an easier and less expensive way.

And there is.

For my 2 ½” shop vac, it turns out that 2″ schedule 40 PVC is very close to what I needed. So I grabbed my heat gun and aimed it at the end that I needed to “shape”. Heat the PVC until it becomes soft, which usually takes about a minute, and then simply install it. For all the fittings I had to make, a larger size was needed, so I stretched the material. I don’t see why you can’t shrink the material, however I did not try it. Once you have the shape you want, you can quickly cool it off with compressed air or a squirt bottle filled with water. Leave it in place until the fitting cools back down. That’s it!

Below is an elbow that had to be slightly stretched to fit the HF blast cabinet fitting.

Below is some 2″ pipe cut to a short length that had to be expanded to fit onto the shop vac hose.

Make sure to check out my review on the Dust Deputy, which is a shop vac pre-filter for dust collection. It works awesome!

Comments

Has this video or blog post helped you out? Please comment below!