Leaf Vacuum

[Stephen1]

I have a 7 horsepower leaf vacuum and chipper. I use it to clean up after I put my mill away at my shop. It is a paved parking lot and is cleaner than to vacuum than blow dust all over the place. 
My next problem to solve at sawing at my shop is sawdust. Now I shovel it into 4x4 line cloth bags, hall them to my house where I am building a berm out of sawdust. I am almost finished and now need to find another disposal solution for my sawdust.

What do you guys think about reworking the unit to put a hose to blow my sawdust into a dumpster. Will it have enough power to move the sawdust a total of 40 feet?

[Digger Don]

Would something like the vacuum system used in a wood shop work? One of those gizmos that suck shavings and dust from planers, jointers, saws, etc?

[Old Greenhorn]

That's what we use on the LT50. I just searched craigslist until I found the blower alone with nothing else. I think we paid about 30 bucks for it. Makes a good vacuum for cleaning off the mill at the end of each session. Not god for bark and chunks though, or so I have heard.

[DanielW]

At a first guess, I'd say it might work ok. 7 Hp should be more than enough power for pulling dust off a bandmill and moving 40' (as long as there's not too much elevation change), but that's assuming the blower geometry is suitable for dust removal. It's a bit tough to say without knowing a bit more about the blower. You can have a 7 HP blower that's high volume and low pressure. And you can have a 7 HP blower that's high pressure and low volume. You need the right balance. Maybe some rudimentary testing is your best bet: Try hooking it to 40' of old chimney or ductwork if you have any laying around and shovel some dust in to see what happens.

I think your biggest issue may be that you'll need a cyclone. Blowing directly into a dumpster, wagon, or even just an outdoor pile is always quite a mess without a cyclone. You can build your own cyclone if you want: An old farm fuel tank stood on its end with some cone sections formed at your local fab shop is what I use for the blower on one of my circular mills.

[Stephen1]

The reason for using this leaf vacuum is I'm not that close to power or I would try the saw dust blower .
I would have to modify the pick up to hold a 4" hose and modify the exhaust to a 4" hose. 
Tom do you just blow the sawdust away from the mill?

[Old Greenhorn]

When I have garbage cans available, I blow it in those, otherwise it goes out into a wide ranging pile. One of the things on 'the list' is to build a containment box. The boss sells bags to chicken framers.

[Nebraska]

I once used a leaf blower/vac to suck insulation out of an attic and blew it into a gravity box wagon parked in the yard. I used four inch  tile pipe duct taped together to send it out the attic window. It sure would have worked for sawdust. I had  forty or fifty feet of tile.